DCCCD banner
 
 
1999 Employer Follow-Up Survey of DCCCD Students

INTRODUCTION

A central measure of institutional effectiveness is how well individuals who receive a DCCCD education perform in the work place. Are students meeting or exceeding employer expectations? In what areas are our students best prepared and in what areas are they least prepared? Answers to such questions provide an excellent basis for educational improvement.

 A survey was mailed to employers who register with the DCCCD Job Bank to recruit from DCCCD colleges. The purpose of this survey was to address the following questions:

 A following summary of major findings addresses these questions and others. Links are provided to college-specific data and the survey instrument.

 
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Surveys were mailed to a sample of companies who actively post job-openings with the DCCCD. Employers were asked to respond to the questions based on their experiences with current and/or former DCCCD students in their employ. While this approach does not permit the tracking of specific students (but rather asks the employer to assess all DCCCD students they have employed), it provides meaningful assessment of former students without fatal selection bias.

 Conventional methods of employer follow-up surveys have required student permission to interview employers; subsequently, the sampling frame was reduced to those employers whom students wished to be interviewed. This tends to lead to a systematically positive bias in employer attitudes and opinions, since students who have had negative experiences are less likely to participate.

 The approach used in this study blindly surveyed all employers who may have hired DCCCD students, permitting free response. Since the employer was not tied to a particular student, they were given the freedom to evaluate as many students as they have employed. The limitations to this approach are that

A total of 540 employers were mailed the survey (see Appendix) in February, 1999. The 83 returned surveys were comprised of 20 non-deliverable and 63 completed surveys. Since the adjusted response rate of 11.7% was not deemed acceptable, a second mailing was done in March. Of the 474 surveys mailed, 5 were returned non-deliverable and 39 were completed. This brought the total adjusted response rate to 18.9%. One employer gave separate evaluations

 
COMPANIES RECRUITING DCCCD STUDENTS (BY LINE)

Students were recruited by a broad spectrum of companies. These companies did not necessarily fall into conventional manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing and service categories, but fell into very specific lines of business. Given a set of sixteen lines of business, employers classified themselves as follows:

 

Line of Business
Number
Other
42
Medical/health care services
10
Computer/networking
7
Retailing
6
Banking/financial services
6
Government
6
Manufacturing
5
Food service
5
Education/learning
5
Telecommunications
4
Insurance
2
Real estate services
2
Legal services
1
Wholesaling
1
 

Those who were categorized as "other" lines of business were given the opportunity to specify their line of business. The results were quite diverse. The following is a list of those responses:

COMPANIES RECRUITING DCCCD STUDENTS (BY NAME)

The employers were given the option of specifying their company's name. Most employers responded, giving the following list:

 
COLLEGES STUDENTS ATTENDED

Most of the employers noted that they recruited students from more than one college. It was not uncommon to find employers who hired from adjacent colleges (e.g., Brookhaven and Richland, or Brookhaven, Richland and Eastfield). Employers were not asked how many employees (DCCCD students) formed the basis of their evaluation. However, a conservative estimate leads us to no less than 202 students in the following breakdown:

 

College
Number
Brookhaven College
31
Cedar Valley College
20
Eastfield College
28
El Centro College
20
Mountain View College
17
North Lake College
15
Richland College
32
Unspecified DCCCD college
20
Don't know
9
None of the above
10
 
It is worth noting that relatively few responses (approximately 10%) dealt with unspecified DCCCD colleges, while even fewer dealt with unknown colleges. This suggests that most employers had clear ideas of which DCCCD institutions their employees attended.
 

EMPLOYER ASSESSMENTS OF FORMER DCCCD STUDENTS

Employers were given the opportunity to make assessments about the performance of DCCCD students, based on a fixed set of attributes and were encouraged to list any other skills/requisites which they felt were important for their specific business. Employers were also asked (yes or no) if they felt students were adequately prepared for the business world. Furthermore, they were asked if they believed a 2-year degree or certificate increases the employee's chance for advancement in the company.

Importance/Performance Ratings

 

Attribute
Average 
Importance
Rank 
(Import)
Average 
Performance
Rank 
(Perform)
Attendance/dependability
4.90
1
3.97
2
Listening
4.82
2
3.96
4
Ability to work with others
4.77
3
3.97
1
Verbal communication
4.73
4
3.76
7
Ability to work independently
4.60
5
3.82
6
Initiative
4.57
6
3.70
12
Reading
4.56
7
3.97
3
Problem solving
4.49
8
3.73
9
Resourcefulness
4.48
9
3.75
8
Writing
4.45
10
3.86
5
Leadership
4.12
11
3.40
13
Computer/technical
3.91
12
3.70
11
Mathematical
3.72
13
3.71
10
 
Employers rated the importance of each attribute as well as employee performance relative to each attribute. Agreement between importances and performances is good (correlation coefficient = .69), which suggests that students are performing best in areas that employers deem most important. A notable exception was students' relatively poor verbal communication and initiative. Additionally, students performed well in reading and writing, though these were not considered as important as some other attributes.

Note that importance and performance were both scaled from one (low importance/performance) to five (high importance/performance). Using this convention, we can see that all skills were of considerable importance. Alternatively, performances were not rated as highly on the same five point scale; however, all attributes were rated above the mid-point, suggesting that students are performing in a satisfactory fashion.

Are Students Successfully Prepared for the Workplace?

Most employers believed that DCCCD students are well prepared for the workforce (90.2%), while few (9.8%) believed that they were not prepared. While these numbers are encouraging, they provide us the opportunity to explore areas of difference between those who are well prepared and those who are not. The following tables compares average performance scores for those whom employers believed were well-prepared versus those whom employers believed were not:
 

Attribute
Performance
(Prepared=Yes)
Performance
(Prepared=No)
Ability to work with others
4.12
2.86
Attendance/dependability
4.08
3.14
Listening
4.07
3.14
Reading
4.03
3.57
Ability to work independently
4.02
2.29
Writing
3.98
3.00
Resourcefulness
3.90
2.71
Computer/technical
3.90
2.71
Problem solving
3.89
2.42
Verbal communication
3.86
2.83
Initiative
3.85
2.57
Mathematical
3.80
3.33
Leadership
3.51
2.42
- Avg. number of responses
60
7
 
Although the number of employers who feel students are not adequately prepared is very small (5), the numbers still provide meaningful insights into the factors that DCCCD students have failed at in the workplace. Among this group of employers, only four attributes have scores of 3 or higher (indicating average to above average performance): 1) mathematical, 2) reading, 3) listening, 4) writing and 5) attendance. All of these skills are fundamental skills an employer would expect from anyone entering the workforce, including those without college experience.

 Alternatively, nine attributes have scores below 3, indicating below average performance: 1) ability to work independently, 2) problem solving, 3) verbal communications, 4) initiative, 5) leadership, 6) resourcefulness, 7) computer/technical, and 8) ability to work with others. Many of these are personal traits and attributes which employers would expect college experience to meaningfully enhance (e.g., problem solving skills).

Other Skills/Competencies Listed by Employers

 When asked to list other skills important for their employees, employers provided a very diverse list of skills. Most dealt with specific skills for the line of business. The most commonly cited included:

The complete list of skills cited (verbatim) by employers is as follows: Does a 2-yr Degree or Certificate Increase Chance for Advancement?

To get a complete picture of employee performance and potential, employers were asked if an associate degree or certificate increases an employee's chance for advancement in their organization. The results were overwhelming positive, with more than 75% indicating that the degree/certificate increases advancement opportunity, and only 10% indicating that the degree/ certificate does not increase advancement opportunity. A breakdown of responses is as follows:
 

Response
Number
Definitely yes
42
Probably yes
35
Uncertain
14
Probably not
9
Definitely not
1
 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Overall employer response was very encouraging. Most expressed satisfaction with the performance of DCCCD students, in general and in terms of specific skills. The employers captured a broad cross-section of the regional business environment and recruited a good balance of students from the seven district colleges.

It should be noted that employer evaluations were not limited to DCCCD graduates. While a relatively small percentage of District students graduate each year, many more do not yet are employed. Thus, employer responses cover students with various levels of educational attainment.

 
 
blue ball College-Specific Data

Prepared by District Office of Research, June 1999

Internal Reports & Summaries