Uses of Data from the UCUES and SERU Survey

Increasingly, data from the UCUES and SERU Survey are being used by large research universities throughout the United States, and there are now efforts to extend the SERU Project to Asia and the European Union. Already, data from the UCUES and SERU Survey have been integrated into policy discussions and decision-making at the University of California—click here to see a detailed list of campuswide uses of UCUES data at the University of California—and beginning to be used by administrators at Rutgers University, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and University of Pittsburgh. Our hope is to soon expand and bolster administrative and scholarly use of UCUES/SERU data both through the larger SERU project, and through collaborations with interested faculty and other academics internationally and domestically located.

To learn how to use UCUES and SERU data, click here.

Institutional Research and Administrative Uses

The following provides an outline of current and potential institutional and administrative uses of data collected from the UCUES and SERU Survey.

• Campus and Departmental Accreditation: Data and findings were recently integrated into the WASC accreditation of the Berkeley campus. We sense that the SERU, if continued, will provide an integral part of campus accreditation visits.
• Academic Department Program Review: At a few UC campuses, survey responses about the academic experience in the major are reported each year to each department for its majors. At Berkeley, the results are also analyzed in detail by the Office of Planning & Analysis for academic program review, the periodic in-depth evaluation of every instructional program. Students are asked to rate how satisfied they are with such aspects of their major as instruction by faculty and graduate student teaching assistants, advising, equitable treatment by faculty, and the availability and quality of courses. These responses are also compared to other majors and to prior years’ data to examine trends over time. Survey data have helped shift academic program review from a predominant focus on faculty and graduate students to one of increasing attention to the undergraduate experience.
• Analysis of Admissions Policy and Outcomes: Data can prove valuable in assessing campus admissions processes. The University of California’s admissions committee (the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools) has noted interest in a study using the UCUES to assess student academic engagement in relation to admissions policies, and a similar study will likely be pursued by the Berkeley campus’ admissions committee.
• Information Source for Student Orientation: UCLA has used UCUES data and findings in freshman and transfer student orientation to show the characteristics of those who succeed academically at the campus, e.g., the relation of time spent studying to university grades.
• A Resource for Informing Campus Policies and Decision-making: Data have been presented to a wide variety of forums at both campus and systemwide levels. Such presentations have helped advance reflection on institutional issues and on the ways campus policies intersect with the student experience.
• Survey results regularly inform the decisions of administrators in everyday situations, from answering specific questions (for example, what percentage of students are employed off campus or how many hours undergraduates study per week) to providing a more complete and nuanced picture of the everyday experience of a diverse population of undergraduates.
• Within the University of California system, numerous studies have been conducted using the SERU Survey, incorporating SERU data into systemwide and UC Office of the President reports to the UC Regents’ Long-range Guidance Team, Mental Health Committee, Study Group on Diversity, and Accountability Task Force.
• SERU is approved as a measure of student educational outcomes in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA).

We anticipate that data collected as part of the SERU project will have other important uses within all participating campuses and for broader studies on the nature and future of undergraduate education within research universities. The project may provide important information and analysis useful for the following policy areas:

• An Assessment of University Undergraduate Education Objectives and Student Experiences,
• The Use and Efficiencies of Instructional Technologies,
• Campus Climate,
• Analysis of Student Services,
• Institutional Research,
• Development of New Accountability Measures.

Scholarly Research and Instructional Uses

A major objective of the larger SERU project is to develop collaborative research projects utilizing survey data and involving academic and institutional researchers. Each year, a symposium is held presenting the outcomes of such collaborations, showcasing recent scholarly research employing SERU and UCUES data.

SERU and UCUES data have been used in numerous studies, including studies on transfer students, veterans, women in science, “the sophomore slump,” and Pell grant recipients, as well as the use of Facebook by undergraduate students. For a list of recent publications employing SERU and UCUES data, click here.

Also, use of SERU and UCUES data have entered the classroom:

• Sociology 105, Introduction to Sociological Methods (uses subset of UCUES data for computer data analysis-intensive course)
• Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (undergraduates conduct original empirical research using UCUES data)