Faculty Perceptions Versus Student Realities

One of the most valuable aspects of the Inclusivity Index compares the faculty perceptions of the schools qualities through the eyes of the students to the actual student scores. This provides the basis for faculty reflection and dialogue to understand these differences, ultimately leading to more alignment. This is seen as improving the faculty’s understanding of the students and ultimately, their relationship with the entire student body.

The graphic portrays the results of this analysis for all first-time surveys in the 7 – 12 Inclusivity Index version. It arrays the 21 qualities based on the difference between the faculty score and the student score. Keep in mind, the Inclusivity Index faculty survey purposely poses the statements from the perspective of a student’s experience. This explicitly is not the faculty member’s perception of school, but the lens of the student.

The highest positive difference on average is the quality Academic Validation where the faculty believes that the student experience is 1.0 points higher than students actually score the quality. Qualities have a potential to be scored in a range of ± 4 which across the entire sample of hundreds of students as a practical upper limit of ± 2. In this context, the deviation of one point is sizable. At the other extreme, faculty are most overly pessimistic about the Socioeconomic quality by an even larger factor of -1.5.

When judging these differences, it is helpful to look for themes at both extremes. Of the seven themes marked in blue as overly optimistic, Academic Validation (teachers care about student’s academic success), Holistic Development, Social Support, Academic Support, and Intercultural (sometimes noted as Multicultural) Orientation are also the entire group of five educationally related qualities the survey terms as Educational Process. Conversely, three of the four most overly pessimistic qualities, Socioeconomic, Harassment and Discrimination Bias make up half of the Personal Experience group of qualities.

These observations may raise questions as well as help you think about:

·       Why are the Educational Process qualities so consistently overestimated?

·       Are there messages in the nature of the underestimated qualities which seemingly represent themes distinct from Educational Process?

·       What are the benefits of faculty and student alignment on how to describe the student experience?

·       Should clarifying these differences be a priority for the school’s actions?