Engagement the key to better response rates

Chenicheri Sid Nair, Phillip Adams, Stefano Ferraiuolo and Andrew Curtis, Monash University, Victoria

Monash University has experienced a steady decline in its response rate to the Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) and Course Experience Survey (CEQ) since the late 1990's. In 2005, Monash posted an all-time low in its response rate of 36.6% for the GDS and 26.5% for the CEQ. With much riding for Monash, in January 2006, a review of the process was undertaken that resulted in changing strategies so as to improve response rates. For any evaluation data to be of value an important prerequisite is that response rates are sufficiently high to be representative of the student cohort. With results from evaluations playing an increasingly critical role in quality assurance and improvement activities in Australian universities, there is increasingly mounting pressure to better response rates, if not to simply maintain survey response rates. Drawing from the changes made to the collection of data for the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) at Monash, this paper provides practical applications that promote an increase in participation rates. The results show that student engagement and the need to recognize the needs of the cohort surveyed are some of the key elements needed to achieve effective participation of non respondents. The end product of this exercise is that response rates for the CEQ have increased by 100% to just over 53% with GDS responses increasing by 50% to approximately 55%.

Refereed paper