UMKC Campus Climate Survey

Rankin Climate, which is serving as the outside consultant for UMKC’s climate survey, defines university climate as the “current attitudes, behaviors and standards of faculty, staff, administrators, and students, as well as UMKC’s environment and policies, which influence the level of respect for individual needs, abilities, and potential.” The climate is often shaped through personal experiences, perceptions and institutional efforts.

In reviewing efforts by other universities to conduct comprehensive culture climate studies, several best practices were identified. One was the need for external expertise in survey administration. The administration of a survey relating to a very sensitive subject like culture climate is likely to yield higher response rates and provide more credible findings if led by an independent, outside agency. Members of a college community may feel particularly inhibited to respond honestly to a survey administered by their own institution for fear of retaliation.

Rankin Climate, our consultant, has developed a repository over the years of tested questions from administering climate assessments at more than 250 institutions across the nation. The consulting firm worked with a Climate Survey Working Group at UMKC to develop a survey for UMKC, consisting of a number of questions from that larger repository and some questions specifically tailored for UMKC.

Submitting the survey to the university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) is an important step of the campus climate study project. There are several benefits to going through this process, even if the survey is considered to be “exempt” or “not human subjects research.” Firstly, it provides some assurance to potential participants that their responses to the survey will remain confidential. People who have participated in social science research may recognize and expect that the process has been reviewed by IRB. They may feel more comfortable sharing their confidential information and personal stories. Secondly, going through an IRB review provides some protections to the Principal Investigators (PIs) who will be entrusted with analyzing and managing the data, including both Rankin Climate and the institutional PIs. The expectation is that the data will not be shared with others, as designated in the data security plan. Lastly, an IRB review provides some cache to the study in the eyes of those who conduct research professionally, such as faculty members and scientists. These individuals understand what an IRB review requires and the protections for the data to which research professionals commit.

The primary investigator from UMKC for the Institutional Review Board process is Amy Prettejohn, interim director of Institutional Research.

The survey is being administered to all faculty and staff at UMKC. Climate exists in microclimates, so creating opportunities to maximize participation is important, as well as maximizing opportunities to reach populations that may be very small. Along these lines, the consultant recommended not using random sampling which may miss particular populations where numbers are low (e.g., Native American faculty).

The consultant, Rankin Climate, will provide a final report that will include: an executive summary; a report narrative of the findings based on cross tabulations selected by the consultant; frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations of quantitative data; and content analysis of the textual data. The reports provide high-level summaries of the findings and will identify themes found in the data. Generalizations for populations are limited to those groups or subgroups with response rates of at least 30%. The committee will review draft reports and provide feedback to the consultant prior to public release.

Rankin Climate uses a research data security description and protocol, which includes specific information on data encryption, the handling of personally identifiable information, physical security and a protocol for handling unlikely breaches of data security. The data from online participants will be submitted to a secure server hosted by the consultant. All Rankin Climate analysts have CITI (Human Subjects) training and approval and have worked on similar projects for other institutions.

The consultant has conducted more than 250 institutional surveys and maintains an aggregate merged database. The data from the UMKC project will be merged with all other existing climate data stored indefinitely on the consultant’s secure server. No institutional identifiers are included in the full merged data set held by the consultant. The raw unit-level data with institutional identifiers is kept on the server for six months and then destroyed. The consultant will notify the committee chairs of any breach or suspected breach of data security of the consultant’s server.

The consultant will provide the primary investigator with a data file at the completion of the project.

No, not this year. April is typically when staff expect to take the Pulse survey. However, these questions are included in the UMKC Climate Survey and will be reported to University of Missouri System Human Resources through the UMKC Climate Survey data. In short, participation in the UMKC Climate Survey is participation in the Pulse survey.