Four years of college present students with many opportunities for personal growth. They may enhance their feelings of academic self-confidence and self-esteem by learning how to adapt to the MIT environment and by gaining experience in relationships with peers and faculty. They may achieve competence by mastering the content of their classes and strengthening a variety of life skills, such as leadership, writing and public speaking abilities. Of course, it is difficult to disentangle the influence that the undergraduate experience has on student development from the effects of maturation and influences external to the college experience. Still, it is useful to examine the extent to which students think they have changed over the four years, regardless of the source of these changes. To do this, the survey examined personal development by adapting a question used by the 1994 COFHE Senior Survey. Students were asked (a) "How important to you personally are each of the following types of knowledge and abilities?" and (b) "To what extent were these improved by your MIT education?" This permitted a comparison between MIT seniors and seniors at other universities (see Section 12, Comparisions Between MIT and COFHE, in the printed version of the Senior Survey). Although some of the items in the COFHE survey were adapted to fit MIT, the answer categories were kept the same. As in the COFHE survey, students were asked if their undergraduate education improved these particular types of knowledge or skills "not at all," "a little," "moderately," or "greatly."Ten of the fifteen listed types of knowledge and abilities were considered "very important" by over two-thirds of the students. Within this group of ten there were five where 50 percent or more considered there had been moderate or great improvement (analytical/problem-solving skills, intellectual curiosity, self-understanding, ability to work in a team, and design skills). For the remaining five (self-esteem, academic self-confidence, writing skills, creativity, and public speaking ability) there were large disparities between what students thought was "very important" and what had improved "moderately" or "greatly" while at MIT. Four items ranked low in importance and even lower in improvement: knowledge of social and/or political issues, appreciation of the arts, awareness of ethical issues, and proficiency in foreign languages. The item with the largest disparity between importance and improvement was self-esteem: 88 percent of the students thought this was "very important," while only 35 percent noted this had improved either "moderately" or "greatly." (See figure 11-1.)
It is possible that reports of no improvement simply mean that students rated themselves very highly on this characteristic upon entrance to MIT and, therefore, lack of change does not reflect on their MIT experience. While this may be, the open-ended comments and comparisons with the COFHE data reported in Section 12 suggest that we should reflect on the meaning of these findings. This issue will be discussed further in Section 14, the concluding section of this report.
- Students with lower GPA's reported considerably less improvement in academic self-confidence, self-esteem, intellectual curiosity, and analytical skills than those with higher GPAs. The self-esteem finding appears particularly striking. One might have expected that large percentages of students in the highest GPA group would perceive that their self-esteem improved during their college years, but this was not the case. Among those in the highest GPA group, only 51 percent indicated their self-esteem had improved to a "moderate" or "great extent." Among those in the lowest GPA group, only 13 percent indicated improvement. (See figure 11-2.)
- Women were more likely than men to think that awareness of ethical issues, appreciation of literature, art, music, and drama, and teamwork were important. Men were more likely to indicate that analytical and problem-solving skills were important.
Gender was also related to perceived improvement. Higher percentages of men than women indicated moderate or great improvement in academic self-confidence, self-esteem, creativity, and design skills. (See figure 11-3.)- Smaller percentages of students in the School of Science than in the other four schools thought leadership and teamwork abilities were important. As one might expect, larger percentages of students in Engineering and Architecture and Planning thought design skills were important and had improved.
Effect of activity participation on improvement in knowledge and abilities
As seen earlier, seniors participated in many co-curricular, extra-curricular, and work-related activities during their four years. Aside from the enjoyment or possible remuneration (for paid work) that students gained, we wondered whether activity involvement was related to improvement in certain abilities and types of learning. As the results below indicate, six activities in particular were related to the improvement of certain abilities.
- Moderate or high participation in athletics, living group activities, community service, and student government were significantly related to improvement in leadership abilities. (See figure 11-4.)
- There was also an association between UROP participation and improvement in skills and abilities. Students with a high level of involvement in UROP activities reported greater improvement in writing skills, public speaking ability, academic self-confidence, and intellectual curiosity than students with less involvement. (See figure 11-5.)
- Students who had moderate or high participation in literature, art, music, or drama were more likely to report improvement in their appreciation of the arts, as one would expect.
Improvement in knowledge and abilities and outcome measures
Table 11-1 presents the correlations between outcome measures and improvement in knowledge and abilities. Improvement in self-esteem, academic self-confidence, creativity, and intellectual curiosity correlate most highly with satisfaction with undergraduate education. These areas also correlate highly with encouraging a high school senior to attend MIT and satisfaction with the major.
Table 11-1 Correlations Between Improvement in Knowledge and Abilities and Outcome Measures (Gamma Coefficients)
Outcome Measures
Knowledge and Abilities Satisfaction with major Satisfaction with undergraduate education Would encourage similar HS senior to attend MIT Self-esteem .32 (a) .67 (a) .60 (a) Academic self-confidence .37 (a) .59 (a) .47 (a) Creativity .36 (a) .54 (a) .44 (a) Intellectual curiosity .35 (b) .51 (a) .40 (a) Analytical and problem-solving skills .37 (a) .49 (a) .27 (a) Leadership abilities .23 (c) .44 (a) .32 (a) Ability to work as a member of a team -- .44 (a) .27 (a) Public speaking ability .25 (b) .39 (a) .29 (a) Design skills or other practical hands-on skills -- .37 (a) .34 (a) Self-understanding -- .30 (a) .33 (a) Writing skills -- .30 (a) -- Appreciation of literature, art, music, drama -- .26 (c) .24 (c) Knowledge and understanding of social and political issues -- -- -- Proficiency in language(s) other than your native language -- -- -- Awareness of ethical issues -- .31 (a) -- Level of significance as indicated by chi-square test: a = p<.001 b = p<.01 c = p<.05 -- = Not significant on chi-square test or no meaningful relationship as indicated by gamma score
