Student Perceptions of Construction and Development on Elon University’s Campus

Survey Report

April 28, 2015

By Katie Pownall, MaryClaire Schulz, Shannon Prenetta, John Zimmer and Marika Ball-Damberg

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

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Elon University was founded in 1889 with 76 students enrolled. Since its founding, the

school has prided itself on being a small, liberal arts college offering a hands-on learning

experience to students. As of 2015, Elon was home to 5,782 undergraduate students. With its

growing student population, there has been an increasing number of buildings being constructed

and renovated on campus. Elon University released a strategic plan in 2011 and made clear its

plan to continue its growth and development of campus throughout the next 10 years. While the

development plan primarily addresses the growth of Elon’s campus from the perspective of

administrative officials, the changing environment on Elon’s campus also affects current students

at Elon.

Our team conducted a survey in order to better understand the perceptions of the

construction and development of Elon’s campus held by students. We also examined how

satisfied students were with the development of their specific academic departments separated by

major. Our survey also examined how construction meets student needs, if students feel that on-

campus development matches the university’s brand, and if students would prefer renovations to

new construction. We hope this information could be used to inform university administration on

how to best communicate on-campus construction and development plans to students.

After reviewing the information gathered from the recently conducted focus group, we

formed the following hypotheses:

1. Most students do not feel that Elon’s brand matches the university’s current commitment to construction and development.

2. Students prefer renovating existing structures as opposed to building new ones.3. Construction does not meet student needs regarding:a. Academic resourcesb. Student housingc. Parking

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In order to test our hypotheses, we also formulated three research questions that aided in the

development of our survey. The following research questions were developed to determine

student perceptions and feelings of Elon’s construction and development:

1. Do Elon students believe that Elon’s brand matches the recent construction on campus?2. Do students prefer renovating existing structures or building new ones?3. Does the recent construction and development of Elon’s campus meet student needs?

METHODOLOGY

On-campus construction and development affects the entire current student population of

Elon. We conducted this research using the sample of Elon University’s current study body.

Within this population, a sample of 100 students was taken. We used a convenience sample, as

we posted links of our survey on Facebook pages and through emails to friends using our

personal Facebook and email accounts. The sample is also a nonprobability sample because not

all Elon students had an equal chance to take the survey. If a student was not part of a Facebook

group where the survey was posted or was not emailed the survey, he/she would not have the

ability to take the survey, and those who did choose to take the survey volunteered themselves to

do so. If we had taken a probability sample of 100 students of Elon’s student population, we

would have had a sampling error of plus or minus 9.8 percent with 95 percent confidence.

After posting the survey on various group pages on Facebook and sending out a few

emails, the 100 responses were gathered in just over 24 hours. We did not need to send out

emails or re-post the link on Facebook. On Facebook, the survey was posted in several groups

made up of current Elon University students, such as the Class of 2016 and Class of 2017

groups, residence hall pages, and two sorority group pages. Emails with the survey link were sent

to several Elon University students by one of our group members. Because we received the target

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amount of 100 responses in just one day, we did not need to address the non-response rate to our

survey posts.

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIREQuestions operationalizing hypothesis one are in cyan.Questions operationalizing hypothesis two are in tangerine.Questions operationalizing hypothesis three are in fresh cut grass.Questions operationalizing research question one are in cherry chapstick.Questions operationalizing research question two are in lavender.Questions operationalizing research question three are in maroon.

1. Please indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with the following statements:

There is sufficient parking on Elon’s campus.A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

Elon University provides sufficient attention for the academic facilities in my major.A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

Elon University provides sufficient attention to the development of MY academic department in the following areas:

Academic FacilitiesA. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

Experienced professorsA. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

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Class availabilityA. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

Up-to-date equipment and technologyA. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

Elon University considers itself to be a mid-sized private liberal arts university. I feel that the recent construction and development on campus fits with this description of the school.

A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

The Inman Admissions Center is a vital and useful building on campus.A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

I eat at Lakeside Dining Hall and Winter Garden (Topio’s, Freshii, Biscuitville) on a regular basis.

A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

I would rather Elon put money into renovating existing buildings than continue to construct new buildings.

A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

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I am more satisfied with the renovations on campus (e.g., the recent changes to the library) than about new structures built on campus (e.g., the Inman admissions building).

A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

I support the recent construction of the new Inman Admissions Building.A. Strongly AgreeB. AgreeC. NeutralD. DisagreeE. Strongly Disagree

2. How does the current environment at Elon match what you expected when you chose to attend Elon University?____________________________ (open-ended response)

3. If given a choice about Elon’s development and improvement, I would (check all that apply):

Build new academic buildings Build new residential buildings Build new athletic facilities Improve current academic buildings Improve current residential buildings Improve current athletic facilities Other __________

4. Which school is your major a part of? (If you have more than one major, please select your area of greatest interest).

Arts and Humanities Social and Behavioral Sciences Natural, Mathematical, and Computational Sciences Communications Business Education Independent Other ____________

5. Do you believe that Elon provides adequate funds to all of the academic departments?A. YesB. No

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6. Please explain your answer to the previous question.          ___________________________

7. What year in school are you?A. 1st yearB. 2nd yearC. 3rd yearD. 4th yearE. 5th year or above

8. Do you have a car on campus?A. YesB. No

DATA ANALYSIS & DETAILED FINDINGS The purpose of conducting the survey was to test and discover student perceptions of

construction on campus. We hypothesized, based on the focus group results, that students did not

feel that construction matches Elon’s brand, students would prefer improving buildings that

already exist on campus rather than developing new ones, and that the construction that is

occurring on campus does not meet student needs regarding parking, student housing, and

academic resources. The questions developed in this survey serve to discover whether our

hypotheses accurately match the perceptions of current Elon students and further explore the

posed research questions.

Students agree that construction and development on Elon’s campus matches their

expectations of Elon’s brand

We hypothesized that the construction and development at Elon would not match the

brand image students have of the university. Our survey results did not support this

hypothesis. In question 7, part 1, we asked students to rate their level of agreement regarding the

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following statement: “Elon University considers itself to be a mid-sized private liberal arts

university. I feel that the recent construction and development on campus fits with this

description of the school.” Of the 88 participants that responded, 10.23% (9 participants)

strongly agreed and 48.86% (43 participants) agreed with the statement.  Only 1.14% (1

participant) strongly disagreed with the statement and 13.64% (12 participants) disagreed with

the statement.

This sentiment was supported by open-ended Question 9, which allowed students to

express their feelings about the environment on campus and whether the construction and

development matches their expectations of Elon. The responses of agreement and disagreement

were in similar proportion to Question 7 part 1. Most responses indicated that the environment at

Elon matched their expectations of the school, though many students indicated their displeasure

in class size and availability. One student stated, “I expected more class availability and more

experienced teachers, but overall I am satisfied.” Another stated, “It's a beautiful campus but

some improvement to the older buildings could improve its overall quality.” These results

suggest that issues students have with Elon’s campus do not directly pertain to the construction

on-campus, but rather to the effects of expansion on the student body.

Students generally prefer renovations on campus to new construction

After reviewing the information we gathered from the focus group, we hypothesized that

students would prefer that Elon University renovate the buildings already existing on campus

rather than construct new buildings. Question 10 asked students what they would like to do if

given a choice about Elon’s development and improvement. They were given the options to

build new academic buildings, new residential buildings and new athletic facilities, or improve

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current academic buildings, current residential buildings and current athletic facilities. The

survey responses showed that of the 89 students that answered the question, renovation was

preferred to constructing new buildings in each category. For academic buildings, 75.28% (67

participants) suggested renovations while 22.47% (20 participants) suggested constructing new

buildings. For residential buildings, 65.17% (58 participants) suggested renovations while

22.47% (20 participants) suggested constructing new buildings. For athletic facilities, 42.7% (38

participants) suggested renovations while 21.35% (19 participants) suggested constructing new

buildings. These responses suggest that more students would prefer improvement of campus

structures rather than the construction of new buildings in those same areas.

In Question 6, we posed several questions in the form of a rating scale. Part 2 of Question

6 asked participants if they believe the Inman Admissions Center is a vital and useful building on

campus. We found it interesting that the highest response, at 31.46% (28 of 89 participants)

neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement. 24.72% (22 participants) said they agree with

the statement, and 29.21% (26 participants) said they disagree with the statement. According to

these results, the sentiments regarding the construction of the new Inman Admissions Center

appear to be overall neutral. Students are not exclusively indicating that the new admissions

building is necessary, but they are also not overwhelmingly indicating Inman is not a useful

space on campus.

Figure 1: Student impressions of Inman Admissions Center usefulness

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Part 3 of Question 6 asked students to mark their level of agreement on whether they eat

at Lakeside Dining Hall and Winter Garden on a regular basis. 42.70% (38 participants) agreed

and 19.10% (17 participants) strongly agreed with the statement, meaning that a majority, or

61.8%, of the students we surveyed, utilizes the relatively new eating options (Lakeside Dining

Hall, Winter Garden) that were added to the preexisting Moseley Center.

Figure 2: Student use of Lakeside Dining Hall and Winter Garden

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In part 4 of Question 6, students were asked if they would rather the university put money

toward renovating existing buildings than continue to construct new buildings. For this question,

the majority of participants (51.68%, 46 of 89 participants) marked that they either strongly

agreed or agreed with the statement, as opposed to 15.73% (14 participants) that either disagreed

or strongly disagreed. 32.58% (29 participants) neither agreed nor disagreed that Elon should

renovate current buildings rather than constructing new ones. This supports the findings from

Question 10.

Figure 3: Student level of agreement about funding for renovation instead of construction

In Question 6 Part 5, participants were asked if they support the recent construction of the

new Inman Admissions Building. Similar to the responses for Part 2, the highest response was

neutral, at 35.96% (32 participants). 25.84% (23 participants) agreed, and 22.47% (20

participants disagreed. Again, it appears that students are neither completely supportive nor

unsupportive of the newest construction on campus.

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Figure 4: Student approval of the construction of the Inman Admissions building

Based on the results of these survey questions, these findings suggest that most students

would in fact prefer that Elon spend more time and money renovating the buildings and facilities

that already have a place on Elon’s campus. In the case of Question 6, part 3, students indicated

they do take advantage of the new construction of Lakeside Dining Hall, but this is consistent

with our discovery of a student need for additional dining options. However, students overall

seem to be satisfied with the facilities that are currently available to them on campus and would

rather Elon improve these facilities before breaking ground on new construction.

Student perceptions of the availability of classes largely vary depending on major

Within the data displayed in Figure 5, there is a range of responses. Students majoring in

social and behavioral sciences and business tend to disagree that a sufficient amount of classes

are available. Education majors generally tend to feel there is a sufficient amount of classes

offered to them (although only two education majors completed the survey). The major with the

second largest response rate, communications, had the highest percentages of responses in the

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“Agree” option, with 37.5% (9 participants), although it was followed by only a slightly lower

percentage of responses with the “Disagree” option receiving 33.33% (8 participants) of the

responses. The major with the largest response rate was natural, mathematical, and

computational sciences with 25 participants, and the distribution of responses was equal between

the “Agree,” “Neutral,” and “Disagree” options, demonstrating the varied perception of class

availability even within one major. These findings suggest that the perception of class

availability varies within different majors and could potentially depend on the availability of

specific courses for majors that students are attempting to take.

Figure 5: Cross tabulation of major and perception of sufficient class availability

Overall, students are satisfied with the quality of their professors in all majors

According to Figure 6, a significant amount of students are satisfied with the quality of

their professors across majors. When combining “agree” and “strongly agree” responses, the

lowest percentage of responses was 76.92% (business and social and behavioral sciences). Social

and behavioral sciences had the highest percentage of students that are not satisfied with their

professors at 15.38%. 50 of the 89 total respondents, or 56.18%, agree that they are satisfied with

the quality of their professors. An additional 23.60%, or 21 respondents, strongly agree with the

given statement, bringing the total level of agreement up to 79.78%.

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Figure 6: Cross tabulation of major and perception of professor quality

Students are satisfied with the equipment and technology in their departments

According to Figure 7, which compares students’ majors to their perception of Elon

University’s attention to maintaining up-to-date technology and equipment, students generally

agree that they have up-to-date equipment across majors. Over half of every major, except

“other,” agreed that they have access to up-to-date equipment. The highest level of disagreement

came from the arts and humanities, with 27.27% (3 participants) of respondents disagreeing. 47

of the 89 respondents, or 52.81%, responded "Agree", while an additional 12 respondents, or

13.48%, responded “Strongly Agree,” making the overall level of agreement 66.29%.

Figure 7: Cross tabulation of major and perception of sufficient equipment and technology

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Students are satisfied with the current state of their academic facilities

Figure 8 compares students’ majors to their perceptions of their respective academic

facilities. While there is a range of responses, the majority of arts and humanities, social and

behavioral sciences, natural, mathematics, and computational sciences, communications,

business and education majors agree that Elon provides them with sufficient facilities. Business

students had the highest level of agreement with this statement, with 100% of students (13

participants) reporting that they are happy with their academic facilities. The highest rates of

disagreement were from arts and humanities majors as well as social and behavioral sciences

majors. Between “Disagree” and “Strongly Disagree,” arts and humanities majors had 27.27% of

students (3 participants) who were dissatisfied. Social and behavioral sciences majors had

23.08% of students (3 participants) who were dissatisfied. Overall, this cross tabulation

demonstrates that Elon students are generally satisfied with the current states of their academic

facilities.

Figure 8: Cross tabulation of major and perception of academic facilities

Lack of parking does not meet student needs

The construction at Elon has resulted in the elimination of many parking areas for student

use around campus. As seen in Figure 9, out of the 98 participants that answered, 57.14% (56

participants) have a car on campus and 42.86% (42 participants) of students do not. These results

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demonstrate that a majority of students who participated in the survey have cars and likely need

on-campus parking options, which was a need that was also expressed during focus group

research.

Figure 10 shows that 50.56% (45 participants) believe that there is currently not sufficient

parking on campus. 27% (24 participants) of students indicated that they strongly disagree with

the statement that there is sufficient parking, meaning that over 77.56% of students want better

parking options on campus. These findings suggest that Elon University may not be meeting

student needs in regards to parking on campus.

Figure 9: Students with cars on campus

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Figure 10: Student perception of sufficiency of parking on campus

IMPLICATIONS & KNOWLEDGE GAINED

The results of this survey reveal certain student perceptions regarding on-campus

development that may be useful for Elon University administration to take into account when

attempting to communicate future construction plans.

Our first hypothesis expressed that students generally feel that recent construction and

development on campus does not match Elon’s overall brand. This hypothesis was not supported

by our survey results, as we found that students generally agreed that Elon’s brand as a mid-sized

private liberal arts university was reflected in the recent construction on campus. In an open-

ended response, students expressed some suggestions for improving Elon’s campus in order to

match the brand it advertises, but seemed to broadly agree that Elon’s campus was similar to

what they perceived when choosing to attend the university.

Our second hypothesis was that students generally prefer renovations over the

construction of new buildings. This was reflected and supported by our findings, as we gathered

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from survey responses that students would like to see improvements made to buildings that

already exist on Elon University’s campus rather than spending time and money on constructing

new buildings. As discussed in the analysis of Question 6, part 4, over half of the students that

took our survey either agreed or strongly agreed with this sentiment. In regards to the recent

construction of the Inman Admissions Center, student responses were fairly neutral. Hardly any

participants marked that they felt strongly, either agreeing or disagreeing, about the purpose or

necessity of the new admissions building on campus. On the other hand, most students also

marked that they regularly use the new Lakeside Dining Hall. From the findings of our survey,

we can imply that in the case of construction to add more food and dining options, students are

appreciative of the new additions. However, the Inman Admissions Center does not serve a great

purpose for current students on campus, so they are not invested in the development of this

building. Overall, students are satisfied with the structures that currently stand on campus.

Students are generally more satisfied with the renovations made to buildings than the new

structures that are being built and would prefer more improvements being made before

expanding campus with more construction.   

Our third hypothesis stated that construction did not meet student needs regarding three

areas of student life: parking, academic facilities, and student housing. In terms of both student

housing and academic facilities, many students identified a desire to improve current academic

facilities and student housing, supporting the idea that students prefer renovations to new

construction. On the other hand, a cross tabulation revealed that students are generally happy

with their current academic facilities. While there was some disparity between the responses to

these questions regarding academic facilities, students indicated either satisfaction toward

academic facilities or a desire for improvement of current facilities, not a desire for construction

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of new academic facilities. However, students did express stronger feelings toward parking

options on campus. The majority of students disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement

that Elon has sufficient on-campus parking, identifying parking as a student need not being met

by recent construction and development.

Elon University's administration can use the information gathered through this survey to

improve the ways in which they communicate construction plans to the student body. One of the

main concerns for students is on-campus parking, and the administration could communicate

future efforts to add on-campus parking to assure students they are aware of this need. In

addition, the administration could acknowledge the need for renovations of current buildings

rather than new construction, or explicitly address the need for new construction before new

projects are initiated. Fortunately, students generally feel that on-campus construction and

development does match Elon’s overall brand, and, in the future, the administration could

continue to emphasize the efforts of maintaining Elon’s brand identity through the development

of campus.

SHORTCOMINGS & FUTURE RESEARCH

Because we used convenience sampling for this survey, we cannot generalize our

findings to a larger population. In addition to issues with generalization, we also encountered

problems when asking participants to identify their majors. Some participants seemed confused

by the “other” option and wrote in a major already listen, or participants ignored the statement

asking them to indicate one major and wrote in two fields of study. An additional problem we

encountered was that some participants did not complete the entire survey. For example, only 89

participants answered questions 6 & 7, likely due to their open-ended nature. In addition, our

sampling methods were slightly biased, as we reached out to participants through Facebook and

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email. Because of this limited method, we were overall not able to recruit participants who do

not have Facebook, and only gained a few participants through email. Because our entire group

is communications majors, we also tended to ask more communications majors to take the

survey, which resulted in a slightly skewed sample. For example, some majors, such as

education, were not largely represented in our sample. We also grouped many majors together

under broad academic areas, which meant that majors very unlike each other were sometimes

included in the same group. At times, this made it difficult for us to analyze what exact academic

facilities students were referring to in their responses.

In terms of future research, we could randomly sample Elon’s student population in order

to make our findings more generalizable to entire student body, rather than simply using a

convenience sample. Because there were some issues with instruction in certain survey

questions, namely the major identification question, we could make instructions more explicit

and clear in order to avoid confusion among survey participants in the future. Some participants

also avoided answering open-ended questions, which often yield answers that add valuable

information and insights into our data analysis. In the future, we could make answering these

open-ended response questions mandatory for survey participants. Finally, our cross-tabulated

data examined student majors by overarching academic department, but it may be interesting to

provide a more extensive list of majors for participants to choose from in order to better examine

student feelings toward development of their specific majors.

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APPENDIX 1:  Survey Monkey Questionnaire

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