Administration & Deliverables

Administrative Procedures
Resources for YFCY Administration
YFCY Reports and Deliverables
Participation Fees
Factor Analysis for YFCY

To view a list of institutions that participated in the 2006 YFCY, click here.
To view a list of institutions that participated in the 2005 YFCY, click here.

 

Administrative Procedures

Since its inception in 2000, more than 150,000 students have participated in the YFCY from over 400 higher education institutions nationwide.  These institutions have benefited from the institutional, comparative, and longitudinal data generated by this instrument. The administration period is scheduled for the end of the first year of college (February-June). YFCY is open to all colleges and universities in an on-campus administration format. The flexibility of the administration process gives your institution latitude with respect to:

	Type of survey administration (i.e., a paper administration, a web-based administration, or a combination of both methods)
	Method of survey dissemination (e.g., in class or other proctored setting, in the residence halls, via campus or US mail, via e-mail, etc.)
	Timing of survey dissemination
	Use of marketing strategies and incentive programs
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 2006 CIRP Freshman Survey respondents, all 2006 CIRP Schools that register for the 2007 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. Web Feature 1: A customized welcome page from your institution. After a student logs into the online version of the YFCY survey, they are directed to a customized welcome page that includes text and a graphic (e.g., logo) supplied by your institution. No other graphic capability will be available aside from your institution's logo. HERI will provide a default version of this welcome page if none is supplied by your institution. Web Feature 2: Integrated supplemental questions (limit: 20 items, 5-point scale). The web-integrated supplemental questions allows your institution to upload campus-specific questions onto the online version of the YFCY survey. Institutions that wish to utilize the 20 supplemental questions without this web option must do so by distributing an extra handout to its entire target sample on their own.

Resources for YFCY Administration

Pertinent documents for the 2007 administration can be found here. 

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

YFCY Reports and Deliverables

Following the administration of the instrument, participating institutions receive a package of deliverables that are intended to enhance each institution's understanding of first-year issues on their campus. In summer 2007, participating institutions will receive the following reports:

	The YFCY Institutional Profile is a report describing the results of YFCY for all respondents at your institution broken out by gender. Also included are comparative results for participating institutions of a similar type.
	The YFCY Follow-Up Report is a comparison of students’ YFCY responses to their CIRP Freshman Survey responses (if available). This report also includes comparative longitudinal data from participating institutions of a similar type.
	This year, both of the above reports will be delivered electronically to enable fast and efficient dissemination to campus administrators and members of your institution's research and planning teams.
	Participating institutions will receive a YFCY Data File that contains individual student responses to all scanned and processed surveys as well as linked CIRP Freshman Survey data, where available.

In addition to the standard package of YFCY deliverables, a number of special supplemental services are available for a nominal fee:

	Peer Group Reports allow your institution to select a group of five institutional peers as a comparison or aspirant group in a report of your YFCY data.
	Data Merges are helpful if you would like HERI to combine your YFCY responses (and CIRP Freshman Survey data when available) with other datasets such as campus registrar's data (for retention studies), responses from local assessment tools, or student responses to other national surveys to create an even more valuable assessment database.
For more information on these and other data services, we invite you to review the 2006 YFCY Data Services Order Form.  The 2007 Data Services Order Form will be available shortly.

Participation Fees

Basic costs include an institutional participation fee of $675 plus a new graduated scanning fee structure*.  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:

$2.50/per survey (first 500)
$2.00/per survey (501-1000)
$1.50/per survey (1001 or more)

Campuses that registered for the YFCY through the CIRP Freshman Survey bonus offer will continue to participate at the discounted price.  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 2007 administration or if you would like to receive more information, please contact us at (310) 825-1925 or heri@ucla.edu.

Factor Analysis for YFCY

Factor analyses are an important measure of the construct validity of the YFCY instrument, i.e., the degree to which a measure actually assesses the underlying theoretical construct it is supposed to assess. This methodology is also a valuable tool to assist with the analysis and dissemination of findings resulting from such a comprehensive instrument. “The primary objective of factor analysis is to construct a small number of variables (called factors) that do a good job of conveying the information present in a large number of variables” (Jaeger, 1990, p. 345). For example, the 2006 YFCY survey includes several critical measures of interaction with fellow students. Some examples are studying with peers, hours per week spent participating in student organizations, and feelings of success at establishing friendships with fellow students. Through the process of factor analysis, we are able to group these items with other important measures of student-to-student interaction under the same rubric. The factor loadings are reported from confirmatory factor analyses. Download the 2006 YFCY factor tables here.