Student Questionnaires FAQs

In addition to demographic data and student debt trends, the ESQ, GSQ, and AQ each collect distinct information:

• The ESQ asks about students’ plans for ministry and reasons for attending seminary in general and your school in particular.
• The GSQ asks about levels of student satisfaction with academic/cocurricular resources, incurred debt, and professional plans.
• The AQ revisits many of these questions, allowing for longitudinal comparison between GSQ and AQ results.

Deans, faculty, and directors of student services find these data useful.

There are strengths to both in-house surveys and the ATS Student Questionnaires. While in-house surveys focus on the details of your school, the ATS Student Questionnaires will allow you to compare your institution to other ATS member schools. ATS provides participating institutions with detailed reports that include full-color graphics, enabling comparison of your school’s data against the Total School Profile compiled from all ATS member schools using the same instrument(s). In addition, ATS may provide custom group reports for certain regions and denominations in the United States and Canada.

The ATS Student Questionnaires allow you to customize up to 20 additional, English-language questions that appear at the end of a questionnaire, enabling your school to collect particularly useful information such as cohort grouping (by location/modality, etc.), and just-in-time questions.

The ATS Student Questionnaires also have the distinction of having been developed alongside the ATS Commission’s Standards of Accreditation, with many of the tables and charts in our reports relating directly to the standards. ATS provides several resources on how to use the ATS Student Questionnaires in the self-study process (see the “Resources for Interpretation” section of the Resources web page).

Finally, member schools may access the ESQ and GSQ and receive support from ATS research and IT personnel. To review the fees associated with the ATS Student Questionnaires, see the Pricing Guide.

Most schools administer the ESQ during the orientation period for new students (typically fall and/or spring term) or in a required class for first-year students. The GSQ is often given just prior to graduation. The AQ can be administered to alums at any time, though it is recommended that institutions wait until their alums are three to five years out of school before surveying them.

Whatever your approach, be sure to leave yourself enough time to prepare and inform students about the questionnaire and to do follow-up as necessary. See the Student Data Calendar for more information.

The ESQ/GSQ/AQ are administered online by participating schools directly to students/graduates.

Respondents must follow a web address link or URL to access the questionnaire batch created for them by the school. School coordinators can find that URL by clicking on “Launch Questionnaire” within the Batch Details page and share the URL with respondents (e.g., embedding it as a clickable hyperlink in an email or rendering it as a scannable QR code). ATS offers an email template for schools to customize. See the Administrator’s Manual for more detailed instructions.

The ESQ and GSQ each take 15 to 20 minutes to complete. The AQ may take slightly longer.

Setting up an online batch of questionnaires and inviting your students/alums to participate takes just two emails and a few clicks of your mouse. Simply submit an online order form to gain access to the instruments (ESQ, GSQ, and/or AQ). Within five to ten business days, you will receive an activation email (subject line: “ATS Account Activation”). This email includes a link to activate your Questionnaire Management Interface account and set your password. ATS provides administrative support to guide you through the entire process. Submitting a completed, verified batch to ATS for processing takes just one additional click. See the Administrator’s Manual for more detailed information on reviewing and submitting responses.

The ATS Student Questionnaires are entirely paperless, from schools’ placing their orders to receiving their processed reports and data.

Access to the Questionnaire Management Interface (QMI) system resets annually so that we can keep each academic year’s data separate. For returning users, account activation is reset on August 1. Once the order form is completed and processed, the school coordinator will receive an email (subject line: “ATS Account Activation”) within 10 business days. This email includes a link to activate the administrator’s QMI account and reset their password.

Note that the account activation link expires after one week. If you do not activate your account within a week or need further help, reach out to Qmail@ats.edu to request a new activation email.

As a school coordinator, you will have access to information through the Questionnaire Management Interface (QMI) that empowers you to hold your students accountable. When your students complete the survey and click “FINISH,” they will receive a numeric completion code that they can print/submit to you as proof of completion; school coordinators also have the option to view online any names provided by students who have completed a questionnaire. Equipped with that information, you can determine the best way to follow up with your students and encourage those who need to complete the questionnaire.

For more information about encouraging participation, please connect with ATS staff and fellow QMI users through Engage ATS under the “ATS Student Questionnaires” community.

Note: a questionnaire must be at least 60 percent complete for inclusion in final reports.

Access to final reports, which include full-color charts and tabular data, will be emailed to the school coordinator within several weeks, allowing for easy circulation of data within the school to review charts and tables for basic information. If you are interested in more in-depth interpretation of the data, ATS also provides schools with the raw data for each of their questionnaires in an Excel document. For more on interpretation or using the questionnaires in the self-study process, ATS provides online resources, annual questionnaires-related workshops, and accreditation-related self-study workshops for member schools. More information can be found on the Resource for Using the Questionnaires page.

Archived copies of the ESQ and GSQ Total School Profiles can be downloaded from the ATS Student Data and Resources page, along with the latest annual webinars showcasing data gathered from the Entering and Graduating Student Questionnaires. Registration information for these and other opportunities are posted under “Upcoming Events” on the ATS website.

The cost for the ESQ and GSQ can be found in the Pricing Guide. Participating member schools receive online access to all instruments (ESQ, GSQ, and AQ). Access to each online instrument for the academic year (ending July 31) includes:

• One full-color electronic data report in PDF format per batch
• One spreadsheet of raw data in Excel XLSX format per batch
• Inclusion of submitted data in the ATS Total School Profile report
• Inclusion of submitted data in an established composite report based on institution’s regional or denominational peers, where applicable
• Access to digital/remote training webinars, workshops, and consultations

If a school desires to create batches for more than two cohorts, charges may apply. Please see the Pricing Guide for more information, including access to the AQ.

Absolutely! In fact, online questionnaires make it even easier to gather data from your extension sites. You may choose to set up a separate cohort for each extension site or online program. If you have someone at your school who is proficient with Excel and/or analyzing data, you could also choose to add a custom question to your survey that would allow you to identify distinct cohorts at your institution.

Supported language translations include Spanish, Korean, and Chinese (both Traditional and Simplified). To make these available to your participants, select the options for survey languages from the checklist in the system on the Batch Details page.

Note: Only the standard sets of questionnaires will be translated, not reports or any additional customized questions. See the Administrator’s Manual for more details.