lessened, KSU students still devote more time taking care of dependent family members than do their peers at other institutions. KSU students also scored higher in every other area that would take time away from their studies. Better advising and counseling of students may help some of them better adjust their personal schedules to achieve a better ratio of time spent on academics and time spent on other activities.

The College Student Inventory (CSI) is another helpful instrument in assessing factors that impact student performance. The CSI measures students' academic attitudes, interests and needs, and it provides students with information that can help them develop the skills necessary to get the most from their college experience. This assessment is completed by students enrolled in the University Orientation course (UNV 101), and has been completed by approximately 1100 KSU freshmen since the Fall 04 semester.

There are two versions of the CSI, and while they differ slightly, they both measure common factors within the following three major categories: (1) Academic Motivation, (2) General Coping, and (3) Receptivity to Support Services. Both forms have been used in UNV 101 courses. The CSI Form A (193 questions) was used between Fall 04 and Spring 07 semester, and over 700 students completed it. However, in an effort to increase the response rate, the more commonly used and shorter CSI Form B (100 questions) was adopted in Fall 2007, and this version has now been completed by over 300 freshmen at KSU. Each student's responses are presented in both graphic and written form on their individual CSI Student Report. This report presents their score for each factor as a percentage, and then compares these percentages to those of a larger sample of 93,000 college students across the U.S. who also completed the CSI during the summer and fall of 2007.

For all of the factors, the national norm is the 50th percentile, so higher scores (percentages above 50) indicate a higher than average level of each factor (whether the factor is viewed as positive or negative). For example, the “Desire to Finish College” factor represents a student's commitment to complete their college degree program – and is an indication of the value they place on a college education. Therefore, when a student has a score of 65.8 on the Desire to Finish College factor, it means he/she has a stronger commitment to finish college than 65.8% of the 93,000 other students at four-year colleges and universities who completed the CS/ that same year.

The comprehensive CSI Summary and Planning Reports for Fall 2004 through Spring 2008 (received by the UNV 101 Coordinator) provide important summaries of the self-reported information shared by the KSU freshmen enrolled in the UNV 101 course. For evaluation purposes, the CSI Summary and Planning Reports for eight semesters have been combined to present the percentile scores for 20 factors, or scales, for the approximately 1,100 KSU freshmen who completed the CSI. However, only the factors with percentile scores that are well below or well above (plus or minus 10) the national norms for the CSI are included in Table 7, below.

The first data presented on the CSI Summary and Planning Report are the scores on four factors labeled “Summary Observations.” These scores are derived from the students’ responses on other CSI factors, or scales, combined with the demographic information students provide on the survey. The four factors are: (1) Dropout Proneness, (2) Predicted Academic Difficulty, (3) Educational Stress, and (4) Receptivity to Institutional Help. The “Summary Observations” factors are provided to help university staff members identify students who are in serious Educational Stress and in particular need of academic assistance. Each Report actually includes a list of students with a

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