Analyzing Qualitative Data Through Summer Evaluations to Outline Expectations Family Members have about their Iowa State Orientation Experience

Iowa State University hosts a two day orientation program through the New Student Programs office every summer. This project explores and determines whether the expectations of family members and guests were met during summer orientation through the use of quantitative and qualitative survey data. Our research analyzes over four thousand family orientation evaluations collected during the summer 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 terms. Determining whether family member’s expectations were met allows New Student Programs to improve summer orientation year after year. Meeting family member’s expectations indicates successful orientation programming while failing to meet family member’s expectations indicates a need for improvements. Our project presents our findings after coding the qualitative and quantitative data recorded on the family evaluations to demonstrate whether Iowa State’s orientation programming met the expectations of family members and guests.