Graduate surveys are a good way for home study schools to determine whether graduates are getting jobs in their field of training and whether courses are meeting student expectations. Although telephone surveys are more costly and time-consuming than mail surveys, they are usually more accurate. Survey response rates can be boosted to 50-60% by…

Virginia Wesleyan College, a small liberal arts college, recently conducted four major student satisfaction assessment projects. In particular, the institution wanted to know how students evaluated their educational experiences and how they evaluated college programs and services. The assessment projects, conducted during the 1991-92 and 1992-93…

Each December, Gateway Community-Technical College (GCTC), in Connecticut, surveys graduates from the previous spring to determine their educational outcomes, employment status, and perceptions of GCTC's programs and services. In 1992, 268 degrees and certificates were awarded at the college's Long Wharf (LW) campus, while 119 were awarded at the…

Each December, Gateway Community-Technical College (GCTC), in Connecticut, surveys graduates from the previous spring to determine their educational outcomes, employment status, and perceptions of GCTC's programs and services. In 1993, 457 degrees and certificates were awarded. Of these graduates, 255 responded to the survey, creating a sample…

A project was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using various case management approaches with 120 Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) participants who were enrolled in individual referral programs at Bishop State Community College and Faulkner State Community College in Alabama. Two staff members were hired by the South Alabama Skills…

This is the final report of a 2-year project that evaluated a formal information literacy instruction program at Cornell University's Mann Library (New York). An evaluation study surveyed graduates of Mann Library's instruction program to determine which skills were retained by students and were useful in their careers after graduation; in…

The roles of impersonal (or abstract) and relational (or connected) modes of knowing in the experiences of young adults were studied, and the ways the two converge are described in this report of the post-college phase of a 7-year longitudinal study of the epistemological development of college students, i.e., their assumptions about the limits,…

The 1990 High School Transcript Study (HSTS) collected 21,607 transcripts from 330 schools. Similar studies were conducted of high school course taking patterns in 1987 (the 1987 High School Transcript Study of approximately 22,700 transcripts) and in 1982 (approximately 12,000 transcripts from the High School and Beyond Study). The introductory…

This report presents 1991-92 data on enrollment trends in graduate physics as well as the educational backgrounds of physics and astronomy students, the proportions in which they chose their research specialties, career opportunities in terms of employers, and work activities and starting salaries. Highlights from the report show the following:…

This is the first report on a series of evaluative studies being undertaken by the Council on Teacher Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for its preservice teacher education programs. When fully implemented, the program will include information from graduates (1 and 3 years following graduation), from current students (upon…

A request for narratives concerning their most effective and most ineffective professors was sent to 222 graduates from Rollins College (Florida). The narratives covered a period of 26 years, from 1964 through 1990. The responses suggest three dominant characteristics shared by ineffective professors: (1) lack of passion for their subject matter;…

This study examined the education and career paths of female graduates of Murray State University (Kentucky) from 1930 through 1959, a time during which the institution was primarily a normal school focused on the preparation of teachers. Data from alumni records, analysis of questionnaires mailed to 40 randomly selected alumni, and interviews…

Methods and instruments used by teacher preparation institutions in conducting graduate follow-up studies were investigated, and an effort was made to determine the institutions' satisfaction with the methodology and results of their current follow-up procedures. A survey instrument was constructed that addressed eight questions related to…

Three techniques for surveying alumni and alumni's employers were utilized over the space of 3 academic years, for the purpose of comparing these methodologies. In the first study, alumni of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville were asked to complete a mailed questionnaire, then were encouraged through a follow-up mailing to grant permission for…

This book offers information from research on how 1,584 graduates from the British public higher education and from private universities fared in the labor market in comparison with each other; whether graduates in some subjects do better than others and the value of first destination statistics (employment information data 6 months after…