Alumni SurveysAlumni Surveys
Larry Caretto
Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Advisory Board MeetingAdvisory Board Meeting
October 18, 2006
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What We Have Done• Program objectives refer to
accomplishments of graduates a few years after graduation
• Assess by survey of alumni and employers
• Done in June 2005 and 2006• Commercial Survey by Engineering
Benchmarking Inc. (EBI)– Provides comparisons with other
engineering schools in the survey
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Results to Date
• 2005 survey did not have sufficient employer responses but alumni results are complete
• 2006 survey has alumni results for CSUN, but comparison data is in different format from 2005
• Will show 2005 and 2006 data– No statistically significant difference
between the two sets of alumni responses
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Survey Questions• How important is X in your work?• How well did your program enhance
your ability to do X?• Answers range from 1 (not important) to
7 (very important• Use score from AE and ME students for
department evaluation– 2005: five Aeros and 15 ME’s– 2006: three Aeros and 27 ME’s
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2005 Results
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2005 Results2005 Results
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2005 Results
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2005 Results
Importance of TopicsScale: 1 = Not important 7 = Very important
Error bars show 95% confidence interval
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Ethic
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2006 Results
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How well did program enhance your ability?Scale: 1 = Very poor 7 = Very well
Error bars denote 95% condifence limit
1
2
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7
Desig
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Apply s
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Refer
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Analyz
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Lifelo
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Apply m
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Desig
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Formula
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Ethic
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2006 Results
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Importance Minus Preparation
-1.0
-0.9
-0.8
-0.7
-0.6
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0.0Ora
l com
munic
atio
ns
Writ
ten c
omm
unicat
ions
Ethic
s
Team
work
Pilot t
est
Desig
n
Formula
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roble
ms
Global
/soci
etal
Moder
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Apply m
athem
atic
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Solve
proble
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Lifelo
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ning
Analyz
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Apply s
cien
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Conduct e
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Desig
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2006
2005
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Comparison with Others• First comparison for 2005 data• 23 institutions participated
– Range of institutions including Stanford and Prairie View A&M
• Results shown for seven Aero departments and 15 ME departments
• Get weighted rating where 100% is highest rating from both CSUN Areos and ME’s and 0 is lowest from both
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Comparison with Others II
• Detailed results on next chart– In 15 of 17 factors CSUN ME rating is 50%
or above– Experimental abilities and use of reference
materials and modern engineering tools were rated at 75% or above
– Design rating is 55%, just above midpoint– Written communications and applying
knowledge of mathematics were below 50%
142005 Results
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Second Comparison• In 2006, 24 institutions participated
– Sample: Stanford, Texas, Syracuse UCSD, and Carnegie Mellon (CSUN only CSU)
• Departmental results in different format• Total alumni in survey from all
institutions is 70 Aeros and 761 ME’s• Compare weighted means for CSUN
and all institutions• Get ratio of CSUN mean to mean of all
institutions (including CSUN)
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2006 Comparison
Questions Ratio of means
Laboratory Preparation 1.04
Engineering Logic Preparation 1.00
Educational Abilities Preparation 1.01
Communications Preparation 1.00
Overall Effectiveness 1.01
Necessary Skills Provided 1.07
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Conclusions• Survey differences prevent easy
comparison of both years of data• 2005 survey identified two below
average areas (mathematics and written communications) and several highly rated areas
• 2006 survey showed CSUN ME Department alumni at average for all schools in survey