MC2 Student Survey Information

1999-2000 MC2 Student Survey

In fall 1999, WWU mailed paper surveys to 4,000 students that were randomly selected to participate in the Motivating Campus Change (MC2) Survey. Those 4,000 students were given the option of completing the paper survey or completing the survey via the Internet.

To encourage participation, researchers offered students their choice of a check for $10, two free movie tickets, or entry into a $1,000 drawing in exchange for their completed survey. Incentives like these are commonly used in research to obtain representative samples, that is, samples that include participants whose characteristics and behaviors are in proportion to that of the overall population, in this case, WWU's student body.

To further encourage participation, researchers stressed to participants that their survey responses would be kept confidential. This is an important point, because quality research always requires honest responses. Researchers also did not link participant's names to their surveys. Instead, their surveys were coded with a unique ID number.

Of the 4,000 students invited to participate, 187 could not be reached (mail was returned). 826 total students completed the survey, a response rate of 22 percent-not bad for a college survey. Of those 826, researchers found that some groups were over-represented. For example, females make up 57 percent of the WWU student body, but nearly 70 percent of the survey participants were women.

To adjust for this, researchers randomly selected and removed 300+ females from the database. They then conducted comparative analyses of those 300+ females against the females that remained in the study. On 25 key alcohol and drug variables researchers found no differences between those researchers deleted and those researchers retained.

Researchers followed this same procedure for several other demographic variables, including ethnicity, year in school, on- vs. off-campus, and student status (part- vs. full-time). The end result was a representative sample of 515 students, which fairly and accurately represents the overall WWU campus.

2000-2001 MC2 Student Survey

Researchers followed the same procedures from the 1999-2000 MC2 Survey to analyze the results of the 2000-2001 MC2 Survey. Of the 5,237 students invited to participate, a much larger number than the previous year, researchers were unable to reach 383 (mail returned). A total of 1,804 students completed the survey-a 37 percent response rate. After removing over-represented groups from the survey, a sample of 1,200 WWU students was used for all analyses.

2001-2002 MC2 Student Survey

Researchers followed the same procedures from the 1999-2000 MC2 Survey to analyze the results of the 2001-2002 MC2 Survey. Of the 6,183 students invited to participate, researchers were unable to reach 112 (mail returned). A total of 2,104 students completed the survey-a 35 percent response rate. The data have not yet been analyzed to determine if researchers need to remove participants who may be over-represented.

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