Luzale D. Henson
Julian J. Meimban III
Edwin A. Benigno
New Era University
How to Cite:
Henson, L. D., Meimban III, J. J., & Benigno, E. A. (2024). Satisfaction survey of NEU’s 2018 college commencement exercises. NEU Knowledge Journal: A Compilation of Researches of New Era University Faculty, Staff, Students, and Administrators, 1(1), 37-47. https://doi.org/10.64303/kj-urc-neu-1NE8SSu2ocEC
ABSTRACT
Satisfaction rating of a University’s Commencement Exercises was determined using an 8-item, 7-point Likert scale survey instrument. The eight items rated were Accessibility (ACCESS), Performance of volunteers and aides (AIDES), Orderliness (ORDER), Solemnity (FORMAL), Discipline (CONDUCT), Like Most (MOST), Like Least (LEAST), and Overall Experience/Satisfaction (OVERALL). These first five items were used as the basis in defining the dependent variable. The independent variables were the nine (9) colleges (groups), namely: College of Engineering (CEA), Criminology (CC), Education (CED), Computer Studies (CCS), Arts (CAS), Communication (COC), Business Administration (CBA), Accountancy (COA), and the combined schools of graduate studies and ETEAP. The survey instrument was administered to 279 randomly selected respondents who were the graduates of New Era University class 2018. Sample size was based on power analysis as recommended by G*Power 3.9.1.2 software (2017 version). The survey instrument underwent contest validity evaluation from scale developers, and showed an estimated internal consistency reliability of .91 (Cronbach’s Alpha). The survey yielded 99.6% response rate.
One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank test showed that the median satisfaction rating of graduates was above 5.0 (or above the Slightly Satisfied category on a 7-point Likert scale). Kruskal- Wallis (K-W) test revealed statistically significant group differences (p = .001), effect size (η) = .42 (large according to Cohen, 1988). Multiple comparisons using Mann-Whitney U (M-W) test with Bonferroni correction showed that the combined schools of graduate studies (GSB, GSE, and ETEAP) gave a rating (beyond satisfactory level) significantly higher than that given by the CAS, the COC, and the CBA, with medium effect size (r) in each pairwise comparison according to
Cohen (1988). Similarly, College of Criminology (CC) expressed a degree of satisfaction (beyond satisfactory level) significantly greater than that expressed by the CAS, the COC, and the CBA, with medium to large effect size in each case. The College of Accountancy (COC) also gave a rating (beyond satisfactory level) significantly higher than that given by CBA, with medium effect size. Other pairwise comparisons were found not statistically significantly different. Receiving of the diploma by the graduates was the most liked part of the ceremony; length of the ceremony, the least.
Keywords: Satisfaction rating, One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U test
INTRODUCTION
Result from 2017 Commencement Exercises held at Philippine Arena, Bocaue, Bulacan showed that an overwhelmingly greater number of respondents rated the ceremony as either Good or Excellent compared to those who rated it Poor or Very Poor using a 6-item, 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. Almost all of the respondents overwhelmingly recommended holding the university’s next graduation at the same venue.
As a follow up of last year’s graduation study recommendation, this current study determined the level of satisfaction of graduates who participated in the graduation ceremony held on April 22, 2018 again at the Philippine Arena, Bocaue, Bulacan. Two separate graduation ceremonies were held on the same day. Morning ceremony was for the Senior High School with 1,974 graduates and afternoon ceremony was for the tertiary and graduate school with 2,725 graduates. For the instrument used, a modified 7-point Likert scale was developed, with eight items, instead of six items as in the 2017 instrument. The two new items added were questions on the most liked and the least liked about the graduation ceremony.
Research Questions
Research Question 1: What is the satisfaction rating of graduates?
Ho: Mean satisfaction rating of graduates is 5 (Slightly Satisfied).
Ha: Mean satisfaction rating of graduates is not equal to 5.
Research Question 2: What is the satisfaction rating of the graduates by College?
Ho: Mean satisfaction rating of graduates by College is 5 (Slightly Satisfied).
Ha: Mean satisfaction rating of graduates by College is not equal to 5.
Research Question 3: Are their differences in the satisfaction ratings among Colleges?
Ho: Mean satisfaction ratings among Colleges are equal,
μ1 = μ2 … = μ9
Ha: Not all of the μs are equal.
Research Question 4: What part of the ceremony is rated ‘most liked’ by the graduates? What part is rated ‘least liked’?
METHODOLOGY
Sample Size
Sample size was calculated based on a priori type of power analysis, fixed effects, omnibus, one-way ANOVA involving 9 groups, .80 power, .25 effect size (medium), and .05 significance level. For this specification, a total sample size of 279 (or 31 cases per group) was recommended by G*Power 3.1.9.2 software.
Survey Questionnaire and Distribution
The 8-item questionnaire concerned about (1) accessibility of the venue (ACCESS), (2) performance of graduation staff (AIDES), (3) orderliness of the graduation procedure (ORDER), (4) formality/solemnity of ceremony (FORMAL), (5) discipline/conduct of graduating students (CONDUCT), (6) like most in the ceremony (MOST), (7) like least in the ceremony (LEAST), and (8) overall experience/satisfaction (OVERALL). The first 5 items (Q1, Q2a-d), and last item (Q5) were rated using a 7-point Likert scale, where: 7- Very Satisfied, 6 – Moderately Satisfied, 5 – Slightly Satisfied, 4 – Neutral, 3 – Slightly Dissatisfied, 2 – Moderately Dissatisfied, and 1 – Very Dissatisfied. On the other hand, the remaining 2 items (Q3 and Q4) were rated by choosing which part of the ceremony (Receiving of diploma, Speeches in general, Length of ceremony, Venue, Seating arrangement, and Organization of ceremony) the respondent liked the most and liked the least, respectively. Graduate respondents were randomly selected by randomly selecting the seats (lottery method) where they occupy in designated area.
Student volunteers were trained, instructed, and tasked to administer the distribution of questionnaire to the graduates. Surveyors were also instructed to distribute the questionnaire only when the graduates have returned to their designated seats after they had received their diplomas from the stage. Respondents were told not to confer or communicate by any means to anyone while answering the questionnaire. To ensure strict compliance of survey instructions, four assistant researchers were also tasked to supervise the distribution and filling out of the questionnaires.
Validity and Reliability
Three experts in scale development were consulted in order to examine content validity of the survey instrument before it was used. In addition, responses met internal consistency reliability with an estimated value of .91 (n= 279), greater than the .70 recommended minimum acceptable value for responses to be considered reliable or consistent (Bohrnstedt and Knoke, 1988).
Statistical Analysis
To answer research questions 1 and 2, One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used as an alternative to One-Sample t-test since the data set failed normality test. Rating from OVERALL was used to determine level of satisfaction.
To answer research question 3, Kruskal-Wallis (K-W) test was used for the omnibus test and Mann-Whitney U (M-W) as post hoc test following a significant K-W test. These nonparametric tests were used since the data did not meet the normality assumption. Moreover, the high or strong inter-correlation of variables (ACCESS to CONDUCT), which ranged from .55 to .79 suggests that a composite score could be formed and used to represent an index of satisfaction rating. Thus, a composite variable (SCORE) was created, which was the total score of a respondent in the first five items in the survey questionnaire (i.e., SCORE = ACCESS + AIDES + ORDER + FORMAL + CONDUCT). The variable SCORE was then used in comparing the satisfaction rating of groups.
To answer research question 4, descriptive statistics such frequency and percentage were used. Ratings from MOST and LEAST were ranked to determine the most liked and least liked part of the graduation ceremony.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Respondents
The survey yielded 99.6% response rate (278 out of 279). Frequency distribution of respondents for the variable OVERALL by level of rating is presented in Table 1.
Graduates were mixed in their satisfaction rating of the ceremony. Around 25% were Very Satisfied while around 54% were either Moderately or Slightly Satisfied. Close to 12% gave a Neutral rating while the remaining 10% gave a combined Dissatisfied rating.
Research Question 1
In general, One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Rank test showed that the observed median (6.0) was significantly greater than the hypothesized median of 5, Z = 5.371, p < .05, effect size (r) = .32 (medium according to Cohen, 1988) (Table 2). This finding suggests that the population’s level of satisfaction is above 5.0 or above Slightly Satisfied. In fact, the proportion of respondents under the combined group Moderately to Very Satisfied rating, 54.3% is evidently greater than that under the combined Slightly Satisfied to Very Dissatisfied rating which is 45.7% (Table 1).
Research Question 2
A statistically significant result was obtained in favor of rating beyond Slightly Satisfied (i.e., >5 on the 7-point modified Likert scale) for CEA, CC, GS, COA, and COC, but not for CED, CCS, CAS, and CBA. The graduates from College of Criminology showed the highest level of satisfaction (Median = 7), effect size (r) = .63 (large according to Cohen, 1988) (Table 2).
Research Question 3
A composite score (SCORE) was used as the dependent variable to determine the significant difference in the mean satisfaction rating between groups. Non-parametric K-W test was used because normality and homogeneity of variance assumptions were not met. Results revealed statistically significant differences, Chi-square (8, N = 279) = 49.42, p = .001, effect size (η) = .42 (large according to Cohen, 1988). Group pairs found significantly different by post hoc M-W test with Bonferroni correction (α = .05/36 = .001) are shown in Table 3. Additionally, combined schools of graduate studies (GSB, GSE and ETEAP) gave a rating (beyond satisfactory level) significantly higher than that given by the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), the College of Communication (COC), and the College of Business Administration (CBA), with large effect size (r) according to Cohen (1988) in every pairwise comparison. Similarly, College of Criminology (CC) expressed a degree of satisfaction (beyond satisfactory level) significantly greater than that given by the CAS, the COC, and the CBA (with medium to large effect size in every pairwise comparison). The College of Accountancy (COA) also gave a rating (beyond satisfactory level) significantly higher than that given by the CBA, with medium effect size. Other possible pairwise comparisons were found not statistically significant.
Research Question 4
The receiving of the diploma by the graduates was the most liked part of the ceremony (Table 4). A number of graduates noted more emotional elements such as walking across the stage, projecting their live image on screen, and having their names called. These for them were important parts of the ceremony.
The length of the ceremony topped the least liked part (62.9%). This is understandable since there were 2,725 graduates during the April commencement, although perhaps some adjustments in the future could be made that would shorten the length of the ceremony.
Comments and suggestions related to the 2018 graduation were noted such as:
“I wish that there was available drinking water station nearby”
“Please allow us to bring some food”
“Add more electric fan in the holding area since the tent assigned for the parents was a very uncomfortable place to wait”
“Make the announcement of names faster”
“Please, do not make the graduates wait in the hot tent at 11 am just for them to be allowed to enter at 2 pm”
“College graduation day be different from IS. The scheduled time to start the ceremony was not observed.”
“Seating arrangement was not observed since many of those who did not attend the rehearsal still occupied their seat.”
“More convenience for guest and graduates. The length of the ceremony was too long that we get hungry. Food should have been allowed.”
“Seating arrangement for the parents should be more organized.”
Positive comments were also noted such as:
“Good job”
“Good production team”
“Generally solemn and peaceful”
Solemnity (FORMAL) obtained the highest proportion of Very Satisfied rating (31.7%) while accessibility of the venue (ACCESS) obtained the lowest proportion of Very Satisfied rating (18.3%) (Table 6).
The proportion of respondents under combined three positive levels of satisfaction (Slightly Satisfied, Moderately Satisfied, and Very Satisfied) ranges from 62.7% to 81.7%. This proportion is overwhelmingly greater than that under combined three negative levels of satisfaction (Slightly Dissatisfied, Moderately Dissatisfied, and Very Dissatisfied), 5.8% to 15.1% (Table 7).
Further, majority of the respondents rated positively ACCESS, AIDES, ORDER, FORMAL, and CONDUCT with FORMAL (solemnity of ceremony gaining the highest rating) (81.7%) followed by CONDUCT (discipline of graduating students) (78.0%).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bohrnstedt, George W. and Knoke, David. (1988). Statistics for Social Data Analysis. 2nd Edition. USA: F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.
Cohen, Jacob. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. 2nd Edition. USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
G*Power 3.1.9.2 program (2017 version).
SPSS v23.
