The Academic Experiences Survey (AES): Measuring Perceptions of Academic Climate in Liberal Arts Institutions

Abstract

The Academic Experiences Survey (AES) consists of five scales: Comfortable in College (feeling at ease, at one’s educational institution), Skills (feeling mastery of writing, critical thinking, reading, and other academic skills), Interdisciplinary Understanding (seeing connections among different disciplines), Liberal Arts Integration (understanding what and how different disciplines contribute to a liberal education), and Future Academic Plans (making course, major, sophomore housing, and first-year summer choices with an eye toward future goals). We present data on different scales’ prediction of retention in college, and enrollment in STEM courses, and longitudinal changes over the course of students’ first year in college.