Your First College Year (YFCY) Survey
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See the online Your First College Year Survey in action
To download the CIRP Survey Portfolio that contains the administrative guidelines, copies of the survey instruments, summaries of the national results, and other useful documents - CLICK HERE.
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YFCY Program Overview
Your First College Year is a survey designed to provide higher education practitioners and researchers with comprehensive information on the academic and personal development of first-year college students. As such, YFCY collects information on a wide range of cognitive and affective measures, providing comprehensive institutional and comparative data for analyses of persistence, adjustment, and other first-year outcomes. Further, YFCY was designed as a follow-up survey to the annual Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey and allows for longitudinal research on the first year of college. However, YFCY also may be used as a stand-alone instrument.
- To evaluate student adjustment to college
YFCY includes several measures of adjustment during the first year of college, such as students’ level of satisfaction with various aspects of campus life, institutional facilities, and student services; personal challenges that they face during their transition from high school to college; and feelings of personal success at the end of the first year.
- To assess students’ academic experiences and achievement
The survey collects information on a number of academic experiences of first-year students, including classroom activities, academic engagement and disengagement, and interaction with faculty. Further, YFCY asks students to rate their overall academic capabilities as well as skills in specific intellectual areas and to report their first-year GPA.
- To collect information about extracurricular experiences
YFCY collects information on all aspects of student life including social commitments, study habits, volunteer and service work, student employment, residential life experiences, involvement in campus organizations, religious practices, and family obligations. Survey items provide information on both the quantity and quality of these experiences.
- To study specific first-year programs
Several questions on YFCY assess students’ experiences with various campus programs such as orientation, honors courses, first-year seminars, remedial coursework, service learning opportunities, academic advising, and learning communities as well as interaction with campus advisors, counselors, and other support personnel.
- To examine student change
As a follow-up instrument, YFCY is designed to help institutions assess how their students have changed since entering college. When combined with CIRP Freshman Survey data, the YFCY serves as a longitudinal measure of students’ cognitive and affective growth during the first year.
“Your First College Year” (YFCY) was developed as a comprehensive assessment tool for the first-year experience. Building upon the foundation of over three decades of research provided by the Cooperative Institution Research Program’s (CIRP) Freshman Survey and more than 20 years of studying the first-year experience at the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, YFCY was designed by principals at both the Higher Education Research Institute and the Policy Center on the First Year of College. Because YFCY was developed as a follow-up survey to the annual CIRP Freshman Survey, YFCY data are particularly valuable when linked to students' responses to the CIRP Freshman Survey. However, YFCY may be administered as a stand-alone instrument to students who did not complete the CIRP. The data collected utilizing YFCY provide institutions with important information to guide programs and policy changes to improve the first year of college.
In order to capture the experiences of first-year students at the broadest possible range of institutions, YFCY was developed in consultation with faculty, administrators, and students at two- and four-year campuses around the country. YFCY is designed to measure student change since time of matriculation. About one-third of the items on the instrument directly post-test questions on the CIRP Freshman Survey, thus allowing institutions to examine how aspects of student behavior, beliefs, and identity change during the first year of college. The range of items on the survey ensures that institutions can assess learning outcomes, attitudes, and behaviors across numerous cognitive and affective measures.
The YFCY instrument covers a variety of areas including:
- Academic achievement and engagement
- Learning strategies and pedagogical practices
- Residential and employment experiences
- Interactions with family, peers, faculty, and staff
- Patterns of behavior
- Student values and goals
- Satisfaction, self-confidence and feelings of personal success
- College adjustment issues
The YFCY survey is available as a paper form or as an on-line instrument. Both the paper and on-line versions of YFCY include space for your campus to ask up to 20 optional questions of local relevance and allow institutions to indicate up to 190 various student subgroups on the survey.
Click here for a copy of the 2009 version of the YFCY survey instrument.
STANDARD DELIVERABLES
Your paper survey data will be available 3 weeks after your completed questionnaires are returned for processing. Web survey data is available on an ongoing basis, processed overnight for next-day use. You can download the data directly from the CIRP Web Portal, or use our optional online data analysis package. The online data analysis package allows you to run frequencies, means, crosstabs, and correlations by just pointing and clicking!
HERI's traditional YFCY reports and longitudinal data files are distributed in late summer. Institutions will receive:YFCY Campus Profile
The results for all students are presented broken out by gender. Also, institutions will receive comparative data for schools of similar type.
YFCY Follow-up Report
Students' YFCY responses are compared to their earlier responses on the CIRP Freshman Survey.
SPECIAL DATA SERVICESData Merges
HERI can merge YFCY data with other institutional data (e.g., registrar’s data or student health data).
Peer Group Reports
Compare your institution’s data to those of five or more institutions.
Special “Group Code” Reports
Compare up to 190 subsets of students.
Basic costs include an institutional participation fee of $675 plus a graduated survey processing fee structure. The institutional participation fee covers all the costs for the data collection, data processing, as well as preparation of campus reports; and includes all shipping costs (unless expedited shipping is necessary, in which case it is billed to your institution), your institutional profile in Excel spreadsheet format, as well as the raw survey data file in .DAT or SPSS format. Additional services are available at an additional cost.
The following table is the breakdown of the fees associated with the YFCY:
STANDARD COSTS
Participation Fee $675 Processing Fee
$2.50/per processed survey (first 500)
$2.00/per processed survey (501-1000) $1.50/per processed survey (1001 or more)
OPTIONAL COSTS
Customized Welcome and Thank You Pages
FREE
Integrated additional questions
$300
Email distribution to students
$325
Real-time Data Analysis
$100
† Participants in the 2009 Freshman Survey that register for both the 2010 Your First College Year Survey (YFCY) AND the 2009-2010 College Senior Survey (CSS) will receive $100 off the Participation Fee for both the YFCY and the CSS! You will not be billed for the reduced participation fee until you complete registration for both the YFCY and CSS. This opportunity is available during the registration process
Your campus will only be charged for the surveys/log-in codes that are processed by our survey vendor. Unused surveys/log-in codes will not be billed
These fees cover all costs for the surveys, data processing, and preparation of the campus reports and delivery of the electronic data file. Other data services are available for an additional fee.
If you have any questions about the 2008 administration or if you would like to receive more information, please contact us at (310) 825-1925 or heri@ucla.edu.
Click here for a calculator to help estimate your costs.
Cancellations Policy
You may cancel without penalty up to the time that the questionnaires you have ordered have been mailed to you. If the questionniares have already been mailed and you return (at your expense) the entire shipment unmarked, you will not be charged the full participation fee, but will be charged a cancellation fee of $100. If you wish to cancel but cannot return the entire shipment unmarked, you will be charged the full participation fee.
Cancellation Policy for Schools Doing Web Administration:
You may cancel without penalty up to the time that the unique web log-in codes have been sent to your institution, or distributed per your institution's direction. If the web log-in codes have already been sent to your institution or distributed via HERI's email distribution service to your intended survey participants, you will be charged a cancellation fee of $100. In addition, if HERI has provided any customized services at your request (e.g., incorporated on-line additional questions, etc), you will also be responsible for the full cost of these services.
Administering the Your First College Year Survey
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The YFCY is conducted from March–June to facilitate surveying freshmen at the end of their first college year, and is offered as both a paper and a web survey. Our new web portal (www.cirpsurveys.org) provides greater flexibility and ease of use when managing your survey administration.
The Paper Survey—can be admin istered in the classroom, a group setting, or as a mail-out survey. The most successful administration of the YFCY is in large group settings. You select the delivery date and the number of questionnaires needed. Your paper survey data is available in just 3 weeks after your paper questionnaires arrive for scanning.
The Web Survey—can be administered either with your campus managing the email notification process, or for ease of use, you can elect to have HERI manage the email notifications to students. A web survey can be more convenient for both you and your students. Our new web portal allows you maximum flexibility in setting email notification and reminder dates, customized “welcome” and “thank you” pages, customized email notifications, and input of additional questions. Throughout the administration, you can obtain updates on your response rate. Your survey data is available the day after a student completes the questionnaire.
The Paper & Web Survey Combination—enables your institution to enhance your response rate by using both methodologies for maximum exposure. Students may complete either version.
Following are some other important features of the YFCY survey administration:
- Space for supplemental items allow your campus to include up to 20 questions of local relevance.
- Special break-out codes allow participating institutions to identify up to 190 unique subgroups of your first-year student sample (e.g., students in different colleges, majors, residence halls, or academic programs on your campus).
- To enable follow-up of 2007 CIRP Freshman Survey respondents, all 2007 CIRP Schools that register for the 2008 YFCY will automatically receive the names of students who completed the Freshman Survey at their institution.
NEW FEATURES: In addition to receiving regular updates of the number of students who submitted the on-line YFCY instrument, participating institutions may now request one report of the names of web survey respondents for the purposes of targeting follow-up correspondence to first wave non-respondents.
Following the receipt of a YFCY registration form, each institution receives an e-mail confirmation notice, which contains a link to an on-line version of YFCY administration guidelines. These guidelines include all of the necessary information to successfully administer the survey to first-year students as well as tips for increasing response rates, developing supplemental questions, and designing incentive programs.
- Paper surveys and/or unique log in codes for the on-line instrument
- An administration checklist
- Suggested text for the invitation to participate
- A suggested administration schedule (end of students' first college year, March-June)
- An information sheet outlining students' rights as research subjects to be distributed to participants
- An electronic newsletter titled "YFCY Users' Update"
- YFCY Users' groups and CIRP Special Interest Groups at various national and regional conferences
Please make sure to review all these documents carefully, so as to ensure a smooth administration of the Your First College Year Survey at your institution.
Form/Document Title Package of: Checklist, Administration Guidelines, Survey Information Sheet, and Shipping Form Administration Guidelines Information About Using Student Identifiers Survey Information Sheet Survey Administration Checklist UCLA IRB Approval Notice Changes To The Current Year Survey Instrument Information on using HERI's Email Distribution Service
To avoid legit emails from HERI with survey log in codes being filtered out as bulk or junk mail.Shipping Form Administration Report Form
Note: As of 2007, we will ask you to provide the information previously on the Administration Report Form (ARF) via the web. Please click on the icon at the left to get to the online survey.
The following are sample letters that an institution may send out to their students.
Form/Document Title Paper Only Administration Web Only Administration Paper / Web Administration
Institutions which are doing a Web Only or Paper/Web Administration may download this file to get an idea of what the custom welcome and thank you screens look like. Click on the PDF icon to download the file.
Methodologies to Consider When Using YFCY to Enhance Campus Assessment Efforts
Comparative Analyses
Because students' responses to the survey are compared to national and institutional peer group aggregates, participating institutions can determine where their first-year cohort "stands" relative to the experiences of first-year students at large. In addition, by ordering a data file participating institutions are able to disaggregate responses to conduct comparisons between different groups of students at their campus. For example, it is possible to compare first-year outcomes such as adjustment or retention based on participation in a learning community, service-learning, or a first year seminar. It is also possible to analyze the data by gender, race/ethnicity, or place of residence. Space for institution-specific supplemental questions offers additional opportunities to conduct within-institution analyses.
Descriptive Analyses
YFCY collects information on a wide range of cognitive and affective measures, thus providing comprehensive data for single- or multiple-institution analyses of persistence, adjustment, and other first-year outcomes. These analyses can answer questions about the first year of college including:
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What are students' academic experiences in the first year of college? | |
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How many first-year students plan to return for a second year? | |
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How well do students adjust to their first year of college? | |
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How do first-year students spend their time? | |
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What are the values, attitudes, and goals of first-year students? |
Longitudinal Analyses
Because YFCY is designed as a follow-up survey to the annual Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey, it allows for longitudinal research on the first year of college. Therefore, institutions are able to use these data to evaluate the academic and personal development of students over the first year of college and to assess the impact of institutional programs, policies, and practices on the students' experiences and outcomes. Further, YFCY may be used in conjunction with local baseline data, registrar's data, or other campus-based assessment efforts to enhance your understanding of the first-year experience on your campus.
Trends Analyses
The YFCY Survey repeats items from previous years. As such, institutions are able to start to assess trends in the characteristics, attitudes, values, classroom practices, personal behaviors, satisfaction, and adjustment of their entering freshmen.
Future Analyses
YFCY data also benchmark student characteristics for the second year of college and beyond. Therefore, YFCY not only serves as a follow-up to data collected at college entry, but also serve as baseline data for future analyses of student development and institutional impact.
Publications, Presentations and Conferences
The 2003 Your First College Year (YFCY) Survey: Exploring the Academic and Personal Experiences of College Students is available for purchase. Click here for more information.
To view of list of upcoming and recent YFCY presentations, click here.
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There has long been a need for comprehensive, longitudinal data on the first-year experience. Information on first-year students—at both the institutional and national level—is vital to help researchers and practitioners address student development issues, first-year curricula and co-curricular programs, adjustment to college, and retention. In response to this need the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA and the Policy Center on the First Year of College in Brevard, North Carolina collaborated to develop a new instrument titled Your First College Year (YFCY), which was designed as a follow up to the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s (CIRP) Freshman Survey.
While the YFCY survey has collected national, longitudinal data on first-year students since 2000, the data from the 2005 administration of YFCY represents the largest and most representative first-year student sample that HERI has collected to date. A total of 38,538 first-time, full-time, first-year students responded to the instrument from 144 colleges and universities across the country. Further, over ninety percent of these institutions (134 colleges and universities) also participated in the 2004 CIRP Freshman Survey, creating an unprecedented longitudinal database on first-year college students. Given the sheer number of students in the sample; the fact that there is representation from every control, type, selectivity, and size of institution nationally; and the richness of the data from a longitudinal perspective, these data are an important resource to researchers and campus decision-makers dedicated to the enhancement of the first-year experience. Below are highlights of our findings from initial analyses conducted with the 2005 YFCY data.
Nearly three-fourths of the respondents reported being “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their overall college experience.
The majority of students in the sample were likewise satisfied with the quality of instruction they received, relevance of coursework to future career plans, amount of contact with faculty, overall sense of community among students, campus social activities, and relevance of coursework to everyday life.
In regards to campus facilities, students felt most satisfied with library, classroom, computer, and recreational facilities. Areas in which students were comparatively less satisfied include the registrar’s office, student housing facilities, psychological counseling, career center, and financial aid services.
Although most respondents studied and discussed their courses with other students during the first year, findings suggest that many remain disengaged from their coursework: over half “frequently” or “occasionally” came late to class; almost half turned in course assignments that did not reflect their best work or felt bored in class; and approximately one-third skipped class at least “occasionally” in the first year.
Close to one-third of the survey respondents felt intimidated by their professors in the first college year, which may help to explain why only a minority of these respondents met with faculty members during or outside of class/office hours at least once a week.
The majority of respondents felt “completely successful” in developing close friendships with other students; less than half felt similarly about understanding professors’ academic expectations and adjusting to the demands of college in general; less than a third were completely successful at utilizing campus services, developing effective study skills, managing their time effectively, or getting to know faculty. However, the vast majority of students were at least “somewhat successful” in each of these areas.
The majority of first-year students have some degree of concern about financing their college education, although less than one-third of the respondents work for pay on or off campus. Less than half of the students “frequently” felt overwhelmed, lonely or homesick, and worried about meeting new people in the first year.
Students reported mostly positive interactions with their peers since entering college. Slightly more than one-third of the respondents interacted with family members on a daily basis.
Students’ actual experiences in college often fall short of their expectations, especially with respect to changing career plans, getting a job to help pay for expenses, and participating in student clubs or groups.
As compared with when they entered college, first-year students:
- Spend more time studying, partying, and socializing with friends;
- Spend less time attending to household or childcare duties, exercising, performing volunteer work, attending religious services, and reading for pleasure;
- Drink beer, wine, and/or other types of liquor more frequently;
- Feel more overwhelmed and depressed; and
- Feel less worried about the costs of college.
When asked to assess how much they have changed since entering college, very few of the respondents felt as though their knowledge and skills declined since entering college, but many did not feel as if their knowledge and skills improved either. Areas in which students noted the most improvement included their knowledge of a particular field or discipline, their ability to make their own decisions, and their general knowledge.
If you have questions or require additional information please contact the YFCY project team at the Higher Education Research Institute at (310) 825-1925 or heri@ucla.edu.
The following are Frequently Asked Questions that HERI gets regarding the CIRP Your First College Year Survey. Click on each header for more information about each individual study; click again on the expanded header to close the section. Click here to submit a question that has not yet been addressed.
Administration: Can HERI distribute the survey log-in codes for us?
Yes, for an additional fee. Please check the respective survey overview pages for the exact fee amount.
Related Links: TFS Overview, YFCY Overview, CSS Overview, Faculty Survey Overview
Administration: Can we directly integrate our local questions into the survey?
Only web administered surveys have this option, and it is at an additional cost. Otherwise you must distribute the questions to the students separately with instructions on how to fill in the answers on the survey form. Please check the respective survey overview pages for the exact fee amount.
Related Links: TFS Overview, YFCY Overview, CSS Overview, Faculty Survey Overview
Administration: Do students have to put an ID#?
No, your institution will instruct the students what to enter (if anything). Please note, however, that if nothing is entered in the ID# field, it will be next to impossible to link respondants in any of the follow-up CIRP surveys.
Administration: How do I complete the Research Approval Form?
As of September 2007, all Research Approval and Certification of Research Use forms are to be completed online via the CIRP Online Portal.
Administration: Must the Research Approval Form be completed by an Institutional Review Board member?
This varies from campus to campus. HERI does not require an IRB member to complete the RAF; any appropriate campus representative may complete the form. However, your institution may have rules about who can complete such forms - so please check with your local IRB.
Administration: Should I return unused paper survey forms?
It depends. If your institution is canceling participation in the survey, then please return all forms in the original box to the vendor where they came from to avoid being charged the full participation fee. Otherwise, we do not want unused forms. Do not attempt to reuse forms next year as the survey changes each year. Please dispose of unused forms responsibly.
Administration: What does “Student ID# (as instructed)” mean? What should I tell our students to enter?
Traditionally we used Social Security Number as the student ID, though schools had the option of instructing students to enter their local school ID#. As preference for using student ID's grew, HERI changed the language on the survey forms, but the same rules still apply
- You can instruct the students to enter anything you want (SSN, ID#, birthday)
- Make sure to instruct students to use the same type of ID in follow up surveys to facilitate linking longitudinal data
Administration: What is the administration timeline?
Please refer to the calendar in our forum and the Administrative Guidelines for specific dates. In general, there are 9 steps:
- Register your institution for the survey, ordering surveys/log-on IDs to arrive a week before you plan on administering.
- Set up a PO to pay for the participation fee. You may also include projected processing fees on this PO.
- Complete the online Research Approval Form (RAF) stating whether or not IRB approval was required on your campus.
- Administer the surveys.
- Return surveys to our vendor (you can use the boxes they came in) remembering to include the Transmittal Form in the boxes.
- Fill in the online Administration Report Form (ARF).
- Order any additional data services you may desire.
- Set up a PO to pay for processing fees and/or additional data services.
- Receive survey results from HERI.
Billing: What is included in the participation fee?
Your participation fee includes:
- participation in the current year survey
- any costs involved in mailing surveys to your institution (unless expedited shipping is necessary, in which case it is billed to your institution),
- your Institutional Profile (Report on Excel Spreadsheet), and
- the Data File (in SPSS and raw formats).
Freshmen Survey participants also receive a copy of The American Freshmen: National Norms publication; and Faculty Survey participants also receive a copy of The American College Teacher: National Norms.
Billing: When will I be billed?
There are two invoices you will receive; one when you first sign up for the participation fee and one at the end of administration for the processing fees. Please check the individual survey overview pages for more info on pricing structure. Any additional Data Services that your institution has ordered will be billed for separately when services are rendered. (See Data Services Order Forms for more detailed information about Additional Data Services).
Data Services: Can I get a report or datafile for all years that my institution has participated?
Yes, HERI does offer trends reports and datafiles for The Freshmen Survey only. To place a trends order for you institution, please use the order form linked here.
Data Services: How do I gain access to HERI data?
Please follow the directions given in the Researcher’s Tools section.
Data Services: I can’t find the Data Services Order form, how do I order additional services?
On all surveys from 2007 on, data services will be ordered via the web portal. For orders on older surveys please use the archived DSOs available under Data Services Order Forms.
Data Services: When will we get our results (aka institutional profile)?
Generally speaking, institutions should expect to receive their results (aka institutional profile) from each survey within approximately 6 weeks from the close of survey. The official survey close date is posted in the administrative guidelines for each respective survey, as well as online in the HERI forum.
Registration: How many surveys should I order?
More than you need. We do not charge based on how many forms you order, but on how many completed surveys you return.
Registration: I usually get an invitation in the mail with a registration to mail in, what happened this year?
While we do still mail out "invitations," one is not needed in order to sign up for any HERI surveys. All survey registrations are now done exclusively on-line through the web via the CIRP web portal.
Registration: Is there a deadline for registering?
There is not an actual deadline for registering. However, all institution must complete survey administration by the official survey close date (this may be found in the Administrative Guidelines for each respective survey). You can register up until a week before the survey administration closes, as long as you complete survey administration by the official survey administration close date. To avoid expedited shipping being billed to your institution, please order your surveys at least 10 business days before they are needed.
Registration: When will the registration page be up?
Registration pages for each survey usually go up about a month or two before the survey administration period officially starts.
- The CIRP Freshman survey is usually administered annually during Summer or the start of Fall, as it is given to freshmen who are just beginning at their institution. So look to be able to register in December.
- The Your First College Year (YFCY) and College Senior Survey (CSS) are usually administered annually at the end of the school year, so registration for these two surveys typically go live around some time during the Fall.
- The HERI Faculty Survey is administered tri-annually during the Fall, so expect to be able to register in the late Summer.