HSR's Alumni Engagement Blog

Today, I want to talk about the theoretical models that guide our research related to the measurement of alumni attitudes and engagement.  Macey and Schneider (2007) discussed the need for engagement research to objectively measure the psychological states and behaviors implied by this construct. They also underscored the need for engagement research to be able to identify and describe the antecedents, moderators and consequences of engagement. Macey and Schneider were talking about employee engagement, but the implications for the measurement of alumni engagement are pretty clear.  Research must be able to describe the things that engaged alumni do, say, think and feel. They must be able to identify the variables that cause alumni to become engaged, as well as identify those variables that moderate alumni feelings of engagement.   Any comprehensive model of engagement must be able to objectively describe the antecedents, moderators and consequences of alumni engagement.

So what are the behaviors that engaged alumni perform? We can start building this list by first looking at the things that schools want alumni to do - attend events, visit campus, stay in touch, say good things about their alma mater and do good things for the school. Schools want their alumni to value the education they received, think highly of the degree they received and participate in giving. These are all behaviors that engaged alumni can be expected to perform. They provide a basis for the development of Likert-type rating items that evaluate behaviors which engaged alumni perform.

Feelings of engagement also relate to what alumni experienced as students - the quality of classroom instruction, the availability of faculty, the internships and career services that were offered and how students were treated by administrators, staff and the school. When alumni talk about their student experience, they frequently talk about the friendships they made, the favorite faculty who were both mentors and friends and the student organizations, clubs and athletic teams to which they belonged.. All of these experiences relate to alumni feelings of engagement and provide much content for item development.

Alumni attitudes and feelings of engagement are also affected by what alumni have experienced since graduation - the quality of alumni interactions with the school, their satisfaction with alumni outreach programs and what they perceive to be the value of their degree. Schools will differ in terms of the campus experiences they can provide, the amount of alumni outreach they perform, what they ask alumni to do and how their degree is valued by employers. All of this has an effect on alumni feelings of engagement and play important roles in the measurement of alumni engagement.

Figure 1 (above) offers a graphical representation of some of the behaviors we think are characteristic of many alumni communities. It is not comprehensive in the behaviors it describes, but it does provide a working model to begin talking about alumni engagement and the behaviors that relate to this construct. As depicted in figure 1, most alumni communities have a small group of not satisfied alumni. Sometimes this is because of something the school did; other times, it is just due to individual differences – values, beliefs or personalities that are specific to the individual alum. Many schools have a relatively large number of alumni who hold generally positive attitudes toward their alma mater, but do not attend events or participate in giving. A smaller group might be a bit more involved, and it is typically a much smaller group that regularly attends events and participates in giving.

Schools expend a considerable amount of time and resources encouraging alumni to attend events, participate in programs and make financial gifts to their alma mater. Alumni boards, leaders and volunteers play key roles in building an engaged alumni community. Through visits, events and continuous campus updates, schools strive to engage increasingly larger numbers of alumni.  They recruit alumni leaders from their more engaged alumni, and use this team of alumni leaders to accomplish advancement objectives, engage alumni and foster giving. The focus is developing an engaged alumni community that supports its alma mater with gifts. 

Figure 1 offers a theoretical framework for talking about the measurement of alumni engagement and designing strategies for building more engaged alumni communities. Any measure of alumni engagement should be sensitive to the behaviors that engaged alumni are likely to perform, the things that engaged alumni are likely to do, say, think or feel about their alma mater. It should include the variables that are important to alumni when they talk about their alma mater. Figure 1 provides a theoretical framework for thinking about what these behaviors might be.  These behaviors will likely comprise any objective measure of alumni engagement.

Macey and Schneider (2007) also wrote about the need for any model of engagement to address the antecedents, moderators and consequences of engagement – the engagement process. Figure 2 (above) describes the variables that our research has shown to relate alumni engagement - the antecedents, moderators and consequences of alumni engagement. Student experiences appear to be major determinants of alumni attitudes and engagement. The variables that appear to be most important to alumni when they talk about their student experience include the quality of education alumni received, the extent to which the school was focused on student success and well-being and the degree to which alumni feel a sense of belonging to their alma mater. Institutional values and campus community affect the quality of the student experience, as well as moderate alumni attitudes and feelings of engagement. Alumni outreach programs are designed to engage alumni and enhance the alumni community. Alumni engagement is affected by the student experience, campus and alumni communities, alumni outreach programs and institutional values.

As shown in figure 2, alumni engagement levels have a direct affect on alumni decisions to make a gift . Engaged alumni are much more likely to make gifts to their alma mater than are alumni who are not engaged or have less than positive attitudes toward their alma mater.  One of the most basic findings of our research is that satisfied students are much more likely to become engaged alumni, and engaged alumni are much more likely to make financial gifts to their alma mater.

We use the models presented in figures 1 and 2 to talk about alumni engagement, our Alumni Attitudes Survey, survey results, giving and the strategies we use to build more engaged alumni communities and increase giving. They also provide a good theoretical framework for thinking about the measurement of engagement.  In my next blog, I will share some of the Likert-type rating items we use to measure engagement, and talk about the methods we use to determine the variables and items that are important to alumni.

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Although alumni advancement professionals appreciate the importance of building engaged alumni communities, there is little understanding or agreement about what alumni engagement is or how to best measure this construct.  What do engaged alumni do, say or think about their alma mater that makes them engaged?  What are the behaviors we can expect engaged alumni to perform?  What causes alumni to become engaged?  What types of variables affect alumni attitudes toward their alma mater. How do differences in alumni engagement relate to the decision to give?  How do we objectively measure alumni engagement? 

I am frequently asked questions about alumni engagement - What is it? How is it measured?  What does it mean?  Schools frequently asked about our Alumni Attitudes Survey.  They ask to see the items we use and the questions we ask.  In the next few blog posts, I'll write about our approach to measuring alumni engagement, the variables that are important to alumni, the items we use and some of our findings.  I hope you find it interesting, but first let me talk about how I got started.

More than a decade ago, while serving on my alma mater’s alumni board, I volunteered to conduct my alma mater's very first alumni survey.  They were reviewing bids from vendors and asked my advice.  None looked like what the College needed, and having conducted many employee attitude surveys, I volunteered to perform the survey.  I was looking for something interesting and worthwhile to do as a board member. The alumni survey turned out to be a very worthwhile piece of volunteer work.

At the time, alumni surveys were not that common and Web-based alumni surveys were non-existent. A few schools had published the results of paper alumni surveys online.  We reviewed these items  and were able to gleam a small number of rating items .  There was not a lot of consistency in the types of items schools used. 

To develop additional items, we conducted interviews and focus groups with students, alumni, faculty and staff from the College.  The focus of these methods was to obtain specific behavioral examples of things alumni had experienced which affected their attitudes toward the College.  Our focus was obtaining specific, behavioral examples that related to student and alumni experiences.  Things that alumni had experienced or observed that had affected their attitudes toward the College; that had caused alumni to be more or less engaged.  Flanagan (1954) referred to these behavioral examples as critical incident statements.  We used these critical incident statements to develop additional Likert-type rating items that we would use to evaluate alumni attitudes and engagement. 

Since this initial study, we have continued to conduct interviews and focus groups to obtain specific behavioral examples of student and alumni experiences that affect their attitudes toward their alma mater.  Additionally, on every Alumni Attitudes Survey we conduct, we have used open-ended questions to obtain written feedback from alumni about what their alma mater does well, where improvements can be made, why alumni attend or do not attend events and what affects alumni decisions to give.  This written feedback has also provided us with the critical incident statements we need to continuously expand our pool of alumni attitude items.  When we evaluate alumni attitudes, we use approximately twenty-five Likert-type rating items to objectively measure alumni engagement.  We use factor analytic procedures to identify the variables that define alumni engagement and the individual rating items that relate to each variable.  Typically, three variables are identified and approximately 15 items are needed to define these variables.

The most significant work related to the measurement of engagement has been conducted in the field of industrial-organizational psychology. Macey and Schneider (2007) described employee engagement as a psychological state that is similar to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, psychological empowerment and job involvement, and noted that any measure of employee engagement likely includes some of the same items and evaluate some of the same behaviors found on these other measures. While the field of industrial-organizational psychology may be finding it difficult to differentiate employee engagement from these other measures of employee affect, this construct, engagement, appears to readily describe the types of variables that underlay alumni attitudes.  In developing our Alumni Engagement Scale (AES), we also reviewed these measures of employee affect to identify items that might relate to alumni feelings of engagement.

The relationship between alumni and their alma mater is distinctly different from the employer-employee relationships you find in business and industry, or the volunteer relationships you might find in not-for-profit organizations.  The alumni relationship is unique, but “engagement” appears to offer an accurate description of the variables that underlay alumni  attitudes.  The focus has to be identifying the specific behaviors that define alumni engagement - things that alumni think, do, say, feel or have experienced.

I'll write more about the measurement of alumni attitudes and engagement in my next blog.

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