HOPE STUDENTS TAKE THE CIRP by Scott VanderStoep Spring 2002

During Student Orientation of the 2000-01 academic year, all first-year students (Class of 2004) completed the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) questionnaire. The CIRP is an inventory used at colleges nation-wide, and often receives much media attention when its national norms are announced each winter. The questionnaire measures a variety of attitudes and behaviors related to school learning, career interest, life values, and social issues. It had been many years since Hope College had administered this instrument (last given in 1988), so the Student Development Office and Assessment Committee thought this would be a good time to get a snapshot of Hope students' attitudes and behaviors. A total of 677 first-year students completed the CIRP as part of orientation activities.

The Comparison Group
A variety of possible institutional comparisons exist. We are classified in the highly selective, non-sectarian colleges. This group is defined as private colleges not affiliated with (i.e., owned by or significantly supported by) a religious organization such as a church or religious order. The comparison group this year consisted of 47 colleges, including Hope (more than that participated, but were not included in the normed sample). The comparison group is an interesting mix of colleges, including our common academic comparisons and competitors (Kalamazoo, Knox, Wabash), as well as schools that have an intentional Christian mission (Westmont, Gordon, Taylor). For many of the tables in this report, we present the data from these schools alongside the Hope data.

Demographics
The percentage of women at Hope (62.8%) was higher than the sample of four-year nonsectarian highly selective schools (53.6%). Hope also had a higher percentage of white students (92.6%) than the comparison sample (86.1%) as well as a higher percentage of students reporting their average high school grade was some form of A (62.8% at Hope compared to 54.0% at comparison sample). At Hope, 10.5% lived 10 miles or less from the college, compared to 5.5% for the comparison group. Conversely, 10.0% of Hope students lived over 500 miles from campus compared to 20.1% of the comparison group. Distribution of parental income was similar at Hope to the comparison group, as was parents' marital status, with slightly fewer Hope students having divorced parents (14.8%) compared to the comparison group (19.5%). (See Table 1.)

Religious Preference
Religious preference was most different from our comparison group in the percentage of other Christian-42.3% at Hope, compared to 16.8% at comparison schools (Table 2). This difference is probably due to the fact that Reformed denominations (except for Presbyterian) are not listed as separate denominations in the CIRP list. The other difference is that there are half as many Roman Catholics on Hope's campus (12.5%) compared to other schools (25.7%). Also, more Hope students are Presbyterian (12.5%) than at comparison schools (5.6%). Other differences between Hope and the comparison schools were smaller than two percentage points.

Attitudes
Students were asked to indicate how important a variety of objectives or activities were to them. Table 3 shows the percentage of students considering the activity "essential" or "very important." Hope students clearly identified 1) raising a family (79.0%), 2) integrating spirituality into life (73.0%), and 3) helping those who are in need (67.3%) as the most important life activities. The biggest difference between Hope and students in the comparison group occurred for "being well-off financially," with 49.6% of Hope students indicating this was "essential" or "very important" compared to 62.3% of students in the comparison group (although it still ranked 5th out of 20 items among Hope students).

Students were also asked to indicate their position on a variety of contemporary social issues. Table 4 shows the percentage of those who agreed strongly or agreed somewhat with these statements. Hope students were similar to students in the comparison group on many of these items, including beliefs about the death penalty, race relations, affirmative action, and increased taxes on the wealthy. Hope students differed most notably (with a larger percentage of Hope students taking more conservative positions on these issues) from students in the comparison group on:
- Employers allowed to drug test
- Laws to prohibit homosexual relationships
- Legal right for same-sex couples to marry
- Legalization of abortion
- Legalization of marijuana
- Casual sex

Behaviors
Students were asked to indicate whether they had engaged in a variety of activities in the previous 12 months. Table 5 shows the percentage who engaged frequently or occasionally during the last year. Almost all Hope students indicated that had attended a religious service in the last year (96.0%), participating at a higher rate than students from the comparison group (80.9%). The other differences between Hope and comparison students occurred for drinking beer and drinking wine/liquor-fewer Hope students reported drinking alcohol in the past year than comparison students.

What Students Expect from a Hope College Education
Students were asked about their goals for their college education (Table 6). On a five-point scale ranging from "very important" to "very unimportant," a very high number of Hope students rated preparing for a career and receiving an excellent academic education (80.8% and 78.8%, respectively) as very important. Very few students rated being a campus leader or joining a fraternity/sorority as very important (8.8% and 2.6%, respectively). Almost half of Hope students (48.7%) indicated that they intended to obtain a master's degree (Table 7). Interestingly, slightly more students indicated an interest in a PhD or other terminal degree (17.5%) than a medical, veterinarian, or a dental degree (15.4%). Only 11.5% of Hope students indicated stopping their education following their bachelor's degree.

Self-Perceptions about Specific Abilities and Dispositions
The CIRP asked students to rate themselves on 20 different skills. The response alternatives were: highest 10%, above average, average, and below average (Table 8). With the exception of spirituality, Hope students are quite similar to their peers at comparison schools. Hope students felt most efficacious about: cooperativeness, academic ability, drive to achieve, leadership ability, and understanding of others. They felt least efficacious about: self-confidence (social), public speaking ability, popularity, artistic ability, and computer skills. The rank-order of these self-perceptions is very similar to that of our comparison group. The biggest difference is with respect to spirituality, where 58.2% of Hope students rated themselves in the top 10% or above average, compared to 47.3% of students from the comparison sample. Hope scored lower on computer skills than students in the comparison sample. A large gender difference was present for this item-43.8% of men compared to 14.9% of women rated themselves in top 10% or above average. This may explain part of the difference between Hope's scores and comparison scores on computer skills. If Hope had the same gender mix as comparison schools, the percentage of Hope students rating themselves as top 10% or above average on computer skills would have been 31.4%, almost identical to the comparison sample.

Self-Perceptions of Specific Academic Skills
Each institution participating in the CIRP is allowed to generate 20 items unique to their school. For three of those items, we asked students to assess their strength in writing, mathematical skills, and the ability to analyze arguments (Table 9). Students indicated whether they thought they were strong, average, or below average. More students reported they were the strong at analyzing arguments (50.7%) than those who reported they were strong at writing (42.8%) or mathematical thinking (40.4%). More students reported being below average in mathematical thinking than the other two skills; this finding is consistent with student self-reports on the Senior Exit Survey that the Assessment Committee has administered.

Beliefs about Ability and Effort
We also used some of our 20 items to assess students' beliefs about ability and effort. We asked five questions similar to those used in the social and educational psychological literature (Table 10). The results show that most Hope students make healthy attributions about ability and effort. Very few students believe that intelligence is a fixed/inborn construct and most students believe that effort and goal-setting predict achievement.