The graphs and tables show the percentage of participants who reported positive experiences with a particular condition. In some cases, they also show the percentage point change in the share of participants who rated the condition positively. For example, many items use a 6-point scale with the options: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Somewhat Agree, Agree, and Strongly Agree. In those cases, an experience is considered positive, if participants:
“Agree” or “Strongly Agree” with positive statements, like: “I feel accepted in this class.” or
“Disagree” or “Strongly Disagree” with negative statements, like: “People here would be surprised if I, or someone like me, did well in this class.”
Composite scores for each learning condition are weighted means of the individual item scores. For example, if scores on three items were 20%, 30%, and 40%, then the composite score of those three items would be 30%, assuming the same number of participants answered each item. If twice as many participants answered item 1 (20%), then that question would be weighted more heavily and the composite score would be 28%.
When data are missing because a participant did not complete the survey or chose not to answer a particular question, their previous responses are carried forward (or “imputed”) to ensure that changes are only shown when participants’ responses actually changed—not just because of who happened to respond to a particular survey. See What do we do with missing data (when participants skip a survey)?
When Networks and Communities have Classes/Groups of different sizes, every participant's response is equally weighted.