COACHE Reports and Related Documents
GVSU has joined The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) for 2023-2026. This is a long-term project at the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, led by R. Todd Benson, focusing on faculty. As part of the collaboration, during Winter semester 2024, faculty were asked to participate in COACHE’s Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey. Findings from the survey are available on this page as well as several helper documents. The reports offer comparisons to a set of five GVSU-selected peers and to the larger 2023-2024 COACHE Cohort, which includes 85 institutions.
Note: GVSU has no access to the raw data from the survey. All quantitative and qualitative analyses, including redaction of comments, have been done by the COACHE team at Harvard, not the steering committee nor anyone else here.
Notes from the conversation sessions held in October 2024 are available.
Please direct any questions to Senior Associate Vice President Ed Aboufadel.
GVSU 2024 COACHE Preview Report
The Preview Report provides an overview of Grand Valley State University's results and comparisons with other institutions.
Video Introduction to the Preview Report
A recording of the first 15 minutes of one of the Fall 2024 COACHE sessions, with an overview of the GVSU 2024 COACHE Preview Report.
COACHE Chief Academic Officer Report (the full report)
The COACHE Chief Academic Officer Report is available as a set of web pages, password protected.
Also available (password protected) are the "Deans' Reports" from COACHE, which are spreadsheet reports of data, broken down by benchmark. The link leads you to a OneDrive directory which includes a file called "About the Deans Reports".
Navigating the Full Report
COACHE provides extensive documentation on how best to view and interpret the data. We encourage those of you who want to take a “deep dive” to read through this documentation and/or watch the “quick guide” videos.
To locate specific quantitative findings: On the left menu, select "Means and Frequencies", then choose "Means" or "Frequencies", and then the desired category.
Please remember that it is important to consider both the absolute and relative values (both the raw number and its position relative to other similar institutions).
Note that the report displays the abbreviated versions of the survey items, which do not always fully or accurately reflect the complete wording of the items as they appeared on the survey. Therefore, it is beneficial to review The COACHE Survey to see the actual survey items.
Statement on Open-Ended Comments (in the full report)
There were three COACHE questions that gathered qualitative responses. These responses can be found by selecting the menu item "Analyses and Visualizations", and then "Global Views".
- “Please check the two (and only two) best aspects about working at your institution.” (Q267A) There were 25-30 boxes that could have been checked. If the respondents checked “other” they could leave an open-ended qualitative comment.
- “Please check the two (and only two) worst aspects about working at your institution.” (Q267B) There were 25-30 boxes that could have been checked. If the respondents checked “other” they could leave an open-ended qualitative comment.
- “Please use the space below to tell us the number one thing that you, personally, feel your institution could do to improve your workplace.” (Q270) This question only gathered open-ended qualitative responses. There were 373 responses. Note that this question only asked about what could be improved. Therefore, by design, the responses to this question are predominantly critical.
Useful advice about written comments on student evaluations also apply here. Namely:
- Look for trends in comments and avoid placing too much weight on individual comments.
- Focus on comments that reflect important components of faculty work rather than personality, etc.
- Focus on how the qualitative data can help illuminate patterns in the quantitative data.
- Don't cherry-pick or harp on specific negative comments.
Coding of Open-Ended Comments by the COACHE program at Harvard
The COACHE program provided this coding document that describes their rubric to assign codes.
Item Results for All Benchmarks
A spreadsheet breaks down quantitative findings for each item on the survey.
The COACHE Survey and Map-to-Benchmarks
The COACHE Survey and a document that maps survey items to the COACHE benchmarks.
Archive of Communications to Academic Affairs
Full Report Announcement (November 26, 2024)
Note to Affiliate Faculty (October 17, 2024)