Wendkos Discourages Taking “Survey Full of Holes”

Multiple times each year, Student Affairs Research & Assessment conducts a Penn State Student Drinking Survey as part of its Pulse program. The results, cited often in various Collegian articles and other reports, are based on the responses of the approximately 2000 full-time students at University Park chosen at random to participate in the survey. The most recent report is viewable here.

Last week, IFC President Max Wendkos sent out an email to the list of University Park fraternity chapter presidents.

Here’s what he said:

Chapter Presidents,

This morning I was informed that Penn State has released a “PSU Student Drinking Survey” to many of the school’s students. This means that there is a good chance that many of your members received it. In one section of the survey, the participant is asked to identify where he lives and if he is a member of a fraternity.

It will be really, really bad for the Greek community if the survey’s results indicate a excess and binge drinking within fraternities.

If your members want to participate, of course they have every right to, but please make sure you e-mail all of them immediately with this concern. The last thing we need right now are more fingers being pointed in our direction. Trust me.

My suggestions:
• Have your members take the survey and indicate responsible and monitored consumption of alcohol by fraternity men.
• Have your members take the survey, but avoid questions in which they have to identify themselves as fraternity men.
• Have your members avoid the survey altogether.
Thank you.

Interfraternally,
Max Wendkos

Here’s a screenshot of the survey questions that relate to Greek life.

I contacted Max to ask for more context regarding his opinions on the survey. I also asked him whether he believed that preserving the reputation of the Greek community at Penn State took precedence to students providing the most accurate responses possible to the survey.

He said, “absolutely not,” and that, “I have been and will continue to be one of the most outspoken advocates for a safer drinking culture at Penn State. I understand that the role of alcohol on our campus is problematic and am dedicated to working with university officials, borough officials, members of the State College community, and other students to change this culture for the better. ”

He elaborated,

My decision to lead the fraternity community to eliminate alcohol from our recruitment program and focus on a more values-based system should speak more loudly than any poorly worded e-mail that I accidentally left open to misinterpretation.

He also explained that he thought the Penn State Pulse surveys are problematic for a number of reasons.

With that being said, I do not believe that an online survey is an accurate predictor of student drinking habits, especially when student participation is influenced by offering iPod shuffles and State College gift certificates (that, interestingly enough, can be used at bars). There is no way that the survey’s issuers can be sure that the information they gather is not influenced by students absentmindedly clicking through the questions in order to become eligible for a prize, by students providing answers that they or their friends find entertaining, etc. This is why I discouraged members of the fraternity community from taking the survey. Since it is common knowledge that Greeks are no longer sitting idly by while this problem continues, I see no reason to distribute potentially misleading information gathered by a survey full of holes.

While the criticisms Wendkos levies on the survey’s methodology are legitimate, his original email request still makes me (and at least the few Greeks I’ve spoken to about the matter) uneasy. A sign of good faith from the IFC at this point would be to cooperate with Student Affairs Research & Assessment, or even just the Department of Statistics, to survey the Greek community on its overall consumption patterns. While instating dry rush and mandating parties have bouncers are both examples of innovative (for the IFC) policy, it will be hard to judge what effect they have without that data.

Sandy

That is so disheartening, even to those who recently have been pleased by the changes the IFC is making to Fraternity social event rules. The IFC needs to work WITH the University to come up with policies that help curb excessive drinking. If they were concerned about this survey, they should have approached Penn State about their concerns and worked to change or eliminate the survey. The email shows nothing but fear and manipulation by the IFC. This doesn’t exactly bolster faith that the reports by hired Security Guards at parties will handled correctly, since the IFC President himself sounds like he’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Liz Remus

I agree with the commenters that IFC is reacting with fear and manipulation of data.

Other than that I found some surprising things about the report. People with a high GPA are less likely to participate in binge drinking as well as non-white students.
samantha

I think what the IFC president did was not a bad thing. In his email, he was just simply providing helpful ideas on how to complete the survey and reminded the other presidents that they are in greek life and they are a representative of the campus, not just their fraternity. I agree also that the survey should not have asked if they are a part of a social fraternity or sorority because they are not the only people at the campus.
Sandy

You don’t ask people to lie on a survey in an attempt to sway the results. “Have your members take the survey and indicate responsible and monitored consumption of alcohol by fraternity men.” What if that is NOT what they’ve witnessed?
Sandy

You don’t ask people to lie on a survey in an attempt to sway the results. “Have your members take the survey and indicate responsible and monitored consumption of alcohol by fraternity men.” What if that is NOT what they’ve witnessed?
The Voice of Reason

Okay, so Wendkos had a hiccup. The guy is 21 or 22-years-old and is in a position where he will be scrutinized for everything he says. For anyone at this school to ask for perfection seems a little bit unreasonable. To be honest, I was expecting something like this at some point. We should only ask that he learn from this situation and not make the same mistake again.

According to the article, Wendkos already expressed that he hoped his actions will speak louder than his “poorly worded e-mail that [he] accidentally left open to misinterpretation.” I would hope that everyone agrees with this assertion. Though he stopped just short of apologizing, I consider this statement to be a clear recognition of his error and I’m satisfied with that.

Furthermore, he makes incredibly valid points about the survey’s validity. There is no way to prove that any of the Pulse’s previous reports carry the slightest bit of merit. I don’t know what researchers determined that the data gathered through these survey’s was valid enough to produce an “official report,” but shame on them. (And props to Wendkos for calling them out on it before the survey’s results were used as a mechanism to point more fingers at the community he was elected to represent.)
GTWMA

This fall, Max and Luke were some of the few leaders who took real action to try to address this problem, While there was still a long way to go and lots that could go wrong in implementing the changes, IFC appeared to be taking the issue seriously and truly searching for solutions.

This effort to manipulate data that is necessary to help understand and address the problem, coupled with the announcement today that Faculty Senate has cancelled a planned Forensic Session on high risk drinking because of lack of interest, raises serious doubts that Penn State student or faculty leaders have any serious will to find a solution to this problem. Reap what you sow.
GTWMA

No, he doesn’t make incredibly valid points. Max’s criticisms would apply to any survey that is not administered in person. So, should we invalidate all surveys? Heck, in-person interviews have a much higher bias for high-risk behaviors, because people are more likely to lie about those behaviors in person. Anonymous CAPI (look it up) would be the best survey approach, but that’s expensive. And there’s a whole science that helps us understand the biases that exist in these surveys. PULSE isn’t perfect–no survey is–but it gives a reasonable view of both the current and trend in drinking.

As for the bias, the validation studies done clearly show that college student drinking is somewhat higher than what they report on web based surveys. If anything, PULSE underreports the problem. Lots of studies, not just PULSE, also clearly show that high risk drinking is MUCH, MUCH higher among Greeks. That’s both because Greek organizations attract those who drank more and earlier in high school, and because they increase the drinking of all members. That’s a well-established fact in the literature.

So, no props to Max. Trying to manipulate data to present a false portrait of your organization isn’t something we should encourage.
The Voice of Reason

“So, should we invalidate all surveys?”

No, I’m not saying that at all. Should we invalidate an anonymous online survey that drives its participation by offering prizes and is not coupled with any other research methods? Umm, yes? And if that’s not enough reason, it’s a survey on alcohol consumption being administered to often immature college students that have proven that they love to over-exaggerate their drinking habits. You realize that our number one party ranking is based entirely on a similar anonymous student survey that Penn State students took, right?

I appreciate your seemingly extensive knowledge of survey research, but I think that you’re using that as a crutch to ignore the obvious.

Max was elected to stand up for the Greek community in situations such as these and I applaud him for doing his job. After a year of Luke, it’s about time that their community has somebody back in office that they know is going to be looking out for them.
IFC Supporters

Okay…Max made a mistake. All Onward State has done was exploit that mistake because no one wants to read anything else. Max – don’t worry about this. We all know what you were trying to do and it certainly was not an attempt to supress the data. If anyone reads this crap and believes otherwise, shame on you. And shame on Onward State for making a story out of nothing. Get a life everybody…especially you…SANDY!
Sam

I’d like to note that the timing of the proposed Forensic Session was what many Councilors found very problematic. I suspect you’ll hear of the rescheduled date in the near future.
Cynical Independent

This doesn’t seem dissimiliar to the incident a few years ago when the IFC president (I forget his name) issued a directive for all Greeks to not talk to the media without his permission.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter because the aura surrounding Greek life continues to crumble. Frats at Penn State are little more than glorified drinking clubs with little social standing. They don’t realize that the joke is on them.

The only reason I really care is that the Greeks continue to give the rest of us PSU students very bad reputations. Other than that I couldn’t care less about Greek developments.
Rational Greek

I’m glad that you saved us some time and called yourself cynical. Wendkos’ e-mail is nothing like Abe Gitterman (the IFC President you were referencing). If you think those two are at all similar you know nothing about either of them and their actions.