Although both the CSXQ and the CSEQ instruments were created for the American market, their particular strength lies in their continuing extensive use across the American higher education sector to determine student satisfaction with the educational provision of a wide variety of institutions. These two instruments were selected for their ability to address the research questions about nursing students’ expectations and experiences of university life and the relationship of these to students staying to complete their programme of study or not. The attraction of both the CSXQ and the CSEQ was that they were companion instruments and the CSEQ was initially developed in the early 1980s by Pace as a measure of to Tinto’s student integration model. The CSEQ has been refined on several occasions, the most recent of which was in 1998. At the time of the research, Indiana University was contacted to explore the possibility of using the questionnaires electronically. This service was offered but changing of items could not be accommodated as a bespoke service would be prohibitively costly. Permission was given to use the paper versions of the questionnaires and adapt them as appropriate for the study.
3.5.1 The College Students’ Expectations Questionnaire (CSXQ)
The CSXQ was specifically developed for use in an American research project in 1998 and measures new students’ expectations of studying at a university, including their beliefs and attitudes about how they expect to spend their time during the first academic year (Kuh et al., 2005 and Kuh & Pace, 1999). The CSXQ emphasises process or behavioural indicators more strongly than what students expect to learn in university (Kuh, Pace & Vesper, 1997) and, although widely adopted, its use is limited in comparison to the use of the parent instrument (the CSEQ). The CSXQ
60
was selected because of its congruence with the aims of this study and the premise that students’ expectations and experiences individually and together affect key university outcomes including academic performance and persistence (Kuh et al., 2005).
The current edition of the CSXQ was first published in 1999 and has been administered to approximately 61,000 students in 50 institutions in the United States of America (USA). However, the CSXQ has been comparatively less widely used than the CSEQ as the interest in student experiences appears to be more well- developed than interest in expectations. Nevertheless, it has made a notable contribution to the body of knowledge associated with students’ expectations of university. The 101 items of the CSXQ include 14 background items that ask students to self-report expected levels of interaction with people, activities and services on campus. It is divided into three major sections: background characteristics, university activities and university environment. Each includes a number of subscales. The sections of the questionnaire are outlined below.
3.5.1.1 Background characteristics
Participants are asked to provide background information including the following: age; gender; ethnic background; marital status; entry
qualifications; financial arrangements; parental academic history.
Ascertaining the characteristics of participants was important in order to facilitate accurate description of the survey sample and enable exploration of these characteristics in terms of expectations.
3.5.1.2 Student activities
Student activities items measure students’ expectations of participating in educationally purposeful activities. These as activities refer to a wide range of activities that underpin university attendance and are summarised here. Student activities are categorised as academic effort (21items) including use of the library, computers writing, reading textbooks and using the lecturer as a resource and (nine) general academic activities which encompass taking detailed notes in class, hours
61
spent studying each week, joining in a class discussion and assignment work (Pace, 1995; Ewell & Jones, 1993 and Pace 1984).
3.5.1.3 University environment
This section of the CSXQ requires students to use a semantic differential scale to rate their expectations on a scale of 1-7 where 1 indicates weak expectation and 7 indicates strong expectation. Seven items assess student perceptions of the emphasis placed by students on the university environment and on relationships within the environment or social climate. Items deal with emphasis on academic, scholarly and intellectual qualities; vocational and occupational competence; and relationships with academic staff, administrative staff and other students. Students are asked to report the frequency with which they expect to engage in the above activities as an indication of anticipated scholarly qualities, relationships with other students, academic and administrative staff (Kuh et al., 2005).
3.5.2 The College Students’ Experience questionnaire (CSEQ)
The CSEQ was first conceptualised and developed by Pace, (1984) and has subsequently been tested extensively and refined and is currently undergoing a fifth edition (Kuh, 2010). The CSEQ was based on the concept of “Quality of Effort” which relates to the principle that what a student gets out of university is related to the effort that that student expends thus education is conceptualised as both a both a process and a product (Pace, 1995; Ewell & Jones 1993 and Pace 1984). Educational programmes are typically evaluated in terms of the product, for example, knowledge acquisition, skill improvement, modified attitudes and values and the development of personal qualities (Laanan, 2004). However, Pace, (1984) took the position that it was equally important to measure the quality of the educational experience or process as well as the product. This resulted in the development of the CSEQ as a multi-institutional survey tool in 1979. It has been used with over 350,000 students in more than 200 American universities, and the psychometric properties have been evaluated after each revision and found to be excellent as indicated by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients of 0.8 or above (Kuh et al., 1997 and Ewell & Jones, 1996).
62
The CSEQ assesses both the process of learning (for example, interactions with academics, collaboration with peers and writing experiences) and progress towards desired outcomes of study at university (such intellectual skills, interpersonal competence and personal values) (Borden & Owens, 2001).The CSEQ also measures the quality of undergraduate experience in relation to student activities or quality of effort, the university environment and estimate of gains. The CSEQ shares 87 items with the CSXQ and contains the same categories of background characteristics, university activities and the university environment. However, the CSEQ has been expanded to include estimate of gains which is put into context below.
The properties of the CSEQ have been explained earlier and the items mirrored in the CSXQ identified. Therefore, these descriptions have not been duplicated but the main difference between the two instruments is the section on estimates of gains an additional section of the CSEQ which is not mirrored in the CSXQ, and in it respondents are asked to estimate the extent to which they have made progress towards 25 areas of gain. Seven items relate to general educational development, four items relate to development of skills or attributes in science and technology, three items relate to vocational preparation, five items relate to personal-social development, and six relate to development of intellectual skills such as writing, quantitative thinking and familiarity with information technology (Gonyea, 2001).