Crossing Institutional Boundaries: Changing Common Perceptions

Maria  Clayton

Middle Tennessee State University

        This portion of our collaborative project discusses 1) the vehicle we developed for gathering our data and our method of implementation, 2) a brief overview of general perceptions held by students before beginning the collaborative project (their concept of audience), 3) the significant shifts indicated by the descriptive data, and 4) our observations based on these indicators.

        The survey itself consists of eleven pairs of prompts (questions 2-23) that ask students to indicate the responses that most closely represent their attitudes/beliefs about three types of institutions of higher education: two-year public, four-year public, four-year private. Additionally, question 1 asks the student’s affiliation. Question 24 asks for a "yes" or "no" response about the differences among the institutions’ perceived roles and allows for written input, while question 25 allows for final, open-ended comments. The number of respondents included

        Differences in the pre and post numbers are accounted for by enrollment attrition. The pre-project surveys were first distributed to our students on the day the essay assignment was introduced along with a brief explanation of purpose. The post-project survey was distributed two or three weeks after concluding the project, as it suited our individual schedules best.

        Beyond these three areas of clear agreement, possibly due to the fact that they deal with commonly held perceptions by the general population, agreement in other areas varied widely. For example, in terms of issues closely related to academics, the greatest percentages of students across institutions, but not necessarily majorities, believe that four-year public, as well as all three types of institutions to an equal degree, offer the most academic resources and two-year public offer the least. Similarly, four-year private institutions and all three to an equal degree are believed to offer the highest level of faculty credentials and experience, while two-year public offer the least. In the area of  individual attention given to students, four-year public are seen to give the least; however, MTSU and Bryan students believe four-year private give the most, while Columbia students believe two-year public do. No clear majorities are evident in any of these percentages. Indicating a bit more consistent agreement, the lowest percentages were awarded across institutions to four-year public schools for the number of students completing their degrees, to two-year schools for the number of students being academically prepared for college work, and to four-year private schools for having the fewest number of students behavior problems. Turning to the prompt which asked whether the roles/function of the institutions differ, the majority of students responded affirmatively on the pre-project survey, perceiving each institution as having a distinct role. (See the survey for pre- and post-project data.) Would any of these perceptions about their targeted audience change as a result of the contact built into the project?      

        Turning our attention towards the post-project survey, we can focus on the shifts in perception indicated by the descriptive data. We first tried looking at a 10% fluctuation between perceptions in the pre- and post-project questionnaires, but the results were too scattered and sporadic. So we determined to look for 15% fluctuations (up or down) to arrive at more meaningful shifts. The post-project survey indicated several areas of little to no fluctuation among the data and across the schools. The results of what students believe about faculty credentials and experience, about the percentage of students completing their degrees, and about the number of students who are academically prepared for college work all remained fairly constant. For example, students from all three institutions felt that faculty credentials and experience levels were highest at four-year private institutions and lowest at two-year public, without any statistically significant fluctuation between pre- and post-project data. Perceiving student academic preparedness in the same light, consistent numbers of students gave a markedly high vote of confidence to four-year private schools for the highest levels of preparedness and two-year public for the lowest levels. Additionally, there was little to no change in how students perceived their counterparts in dealing with tolerance toward differences and openness to new ideas, with students demonstrating a positive attitude toward learning, and with the time/money/energy spent on sports to the detriment of academic programs. In the case of the latter, for example, four-year public schools received consistent, unquestionably higher ratings, over 70%, as favoring sports programs over academics, with fluctuations of no more than 2% between pre- and post-project data. These results could indicate that some perceptions were too ingrained to change, even with increased communication, or that the additional contact simply confirmed what students already thought they knew about each other

        In contrast to issues that maintained their status quo, other areas reflected interesting shifts, not so much a change in the direction of the perception, but in degree, with marked increases in percentages. For example, Bryan students showed a greater belief in two-year institutions as having the most open admissions and for four-year private having the least open, a dramatic reaffirmation. Similarly, Bryan students showed a significant rate increase in perceiving two-year schools as most affordable and four-year private schools as least affordable. In the area of academic resources, the study results yielded another reaffirmation, this time for MTSU students; they demonstrated an increase in their opinion that resource availability was equal across all three types of institutions. Interestingly, Bryan students’ perception that four-year public institutions have more resources was also reaffirmed.  Another area of significant change in degree occurred in the area of individual attention received by students. Here, MTSU students showed an increase in their perception that all three types of institutions provide about the same individual attention. However, it is at this point that we began to discover some changes not only in degree, but also in direction, as MTSU notions that four-year private institutions provide the most attention declined dramatically. A similar shift occurred with CSCC students’ opinions; their numbers showed an increase in the belief that four-year private schools offer the most individual attention, while they showed a decline in confidence in their own type of institution, the two-year public schools. Perhaps these shifts are indications of the caliber of writing and/or the improvement or lack of improvement students perceived in the essays written by their counterparts. (See the survey for pre- and post-project data.) 

        The post-project survey also showed a decline in other response data, most notably in the prompt that asked about the  role/function  of the institutions; this is where we saw the most significant attitudinal change. Initially, the majority of students had responded affirmatively on the pre-project survey to the prompt that asked whether the roles/function of the institutions differ. For example, CSCC students felt two-year colleges are aimed at students that are “generally older and more serious about their degree. Where in the four year [we] get a lot of students out of high school that want to party and have fun.” CSCC students viewed two-year institutions as places where “students figure out what they want to do for their careers and lifetime goals.” MTSU students perceived four-year private institutions as “harder academic wise,” “pay[ing] more for teachers,” and “aimed towards upper class people.” However, one MTSU student contended, “although more challenging, private institutions may not always be able to enhance a student’s abilities as a four year public school setting in which interactions with the majority help to give the student more of an understanding of life.” Despite the great number of diverging opinions presented in the comments, substantiated by the actual statistics, several students commented on the common goals of all three types of schools and on the focus of responsibility for learning. One said, “All institutions offer the chance to learn about different things”; another added, “College is the same wherever you go. You go to learn and you are the one who can take advantage of the place.”

        In the post-project survey, we detected a clear move on the part of MTSU and CSCC students towards perceiving significantly fewer differences in roles among institutions; thus, indicating increasing numbers of students at the public institutions who saw the roles as more similar. Some of the comments on the survey reflected these trends: “All of the [sic] similar in one way—they are there to make young adults become productive members of society. Through our dealings with both a public two-year institution and private four-year institution, we were able to make comparisons of all three”; “Each of these institutions are there for students to gain a level of higher education. Each differs in certain areas such as size or cost, but they all benefit the same purpose.” In contrast, however, students at Bryan saw increasing differences after the project: “4 year public schools get their students in and out. They don’t care rather [sic] you fail or pass. 4 yr. Private schools focus on the student as a person not just a student.” However, others agreed with their public school counterparts and commented, “They are all there to educate students.” The results showed some difference between what the public and private school students gleaned from the collaborative experience.

        Two other key distinctions among our students, which we were able to observe from the comparison of pre- and post-project survey results focused on Bryan students and their perceptions about themselves and about their student population homogeneity. It is obvious from the data that Bryan students demonstrated a more positive self-image than their public school counterparts. They believe that students at four-year private intuitions receive the most individual assistance, demonstrate the most positive attitude towards learning, and exhibit the least number of student behavior problems; this is an interesting indicator in light of the fact that they perceived themselves behind four-year public institutions in academic resources. Another interesting aspect about Bryan students, which they recognized for themselves, is the tendency towards homogeneity. The occurrence of high-percentages of similar responses was greater for Bryan than for the two public institutions:

Bryan students recognize they have many qualities in common, “Christian, predominantly white, upper middle class,” as opposed to how they perceive the populations of public schools, “a variety of peoples who want a degree (rich, poor, black, white).” One student comments, “Although private institutions are the least tolerant toward differing beliefs this is not bad for the students, because they can attend the private school that best fits their beliefs.” Bryan students’ perceptions in these areas demonstrated no significant change between the pre- and post-project surveys. This might indicate the collaborative project was not instrumental in effecting perceptual changes among this group.

         We cannot say that our collaborative project greatly affected institutional perceptions among a significant number of students in the areas covered by the survey, (faculty credentials, student academic preparedness, behavior motivation, open mindedness, and the like). However, we can say that, as indicated in their reflective pieces, many of them began to see their writing more positively as a result of participating in the such a writing situation. Overall, in spite of their common situation as first-year writing students charged with the same instructional tasks, as the pre- and post-project surveys indicate, the great majority of Bryan College, CSCC, and MTSU students viewed their situations differently because of the differences among the types of schools. We can assume that several of their notions came from prior knowledge about the institutions. For example, the thinking that the four-year public environments suffer from greater student behavior problems and offer less individual help emerged from their knowledge of larger student populations at those schools. As one CSCC student put it,  “people = problems.”  Students were not asked to do research into the various institutions or even to talk about the issues highlighted on the survey over email or within the papers they were presenting. We merely allowed them brief personal contact and the opportunity to work together as peer readers. Nevertheless, to report that no perceptional changes about their institutions occurred would be misleading. As one MTSU student ultimately concluded, "These institutions are more similar then [sic] I had previously thought." Then, too, especially significant to our study is that the collaboration the students engaged in by having the opportunity to examine each other's writing highlighted for them similarities they shared in writing skill level, and many came away from the project more confident in their ability. Therefore, in spite of the survey's findings that there was no significant change in students' institutional perceptions, we know that we have gained some ground in raising our students' consciousness about several issues they thought divided them and that we succeeded in making them re-think some of their preconceived ideas, highlighting for them the importance of being aware of audience. 

      In addition to formulating some conclusions from our experience, we have also re-examined the process we used to conduct our study. There are a couple of modifications we know we will make to the project when we run it again. It became obvious to us during the semester that we need to work to insure more equal student access to the technology necessary to facilitate interactivity among them. Changes will be made to the survey vehicle, itself, probably reducing the number of prompts—for example, eliminating those that would probably not be affected by the contact provided with the project and adding a prompt that asks for perceptions dealing specifically with writing instruction. Another change to the survey will involve revising the question formats to elicit varying degrees of agreement, which will result in more easy-to-compare data for the statistical study. To maximize cross-institution interaction and optimize the opportunity for perceptual changes, we will introduce our students to each other much earlier in the semester, as opposed to waiting until the introduction of the profile essay assignment well into the term (third paper) and guide them to obtain from each other information specific to the issues we are interested in tracking, whether in the personal emails or in the essays themselves. Our first experience with this kind of study has been very profitable for us teachers as we re-think how to improve our methodology. We hope others who are similarly interested will be able to use what we share here as a springboard for their own study on the effects of collaboration. (For a discussion of the theory that informs this project, see Theoretical Backdrop)