First Year Check-in at DCU

First Year Check-In at DCU is an app-based survey to help monitor your own progress and support the University in understanding how new students are adapting to DCU, simply download AthenaCX and get started Install - IOE | Install - Android' 

As you start your university learning journey at DCU, we recognise that getting settled into your programme means adapting and adjusting to a completely new way of working and learning. 

To help monitor your own progress, and to support the University in understanding how new students are adapting to DCU, we have developed an app-based survey specifically designed to keep in touch with all new first year students for the duration of semester one. 

The study is called ‘First year Check-in at DCU’ and invites you to take part in a weekly short survey, which takes less than 2 minutes to complete.  The survey asks questions about how you are settling into your studies at DCU in three ways,

1. Belongingness: the degree to which you feel a sense of belongingness to the university and or programme of study.  
2. Engagement: the ways in which you are engaging with your studies
3. Self-Confidence: the degree of self-confidence you feel in your abilities to be successful in your studies

Information gathered from the survey will be used in two ways.    Firstly, you be able to monitor your own level of Belongingness, Engagement and Self-Confidence on the app, and monitor their progress throughout the semester.  These scores are confidential, and only visible to you. Secondly, the University will receive anonymised data from all those who participate.  Each week, we will use this information to help us to refine and target information on activities and resources that might help students adjust to university learning during the first semester.

How to get involved

Getting involved is easy, simply download the AthenaCx app and get started!  Once downloaded, select “First-Year Check-in at DCU” from the list to participate.  The first stage of participation is the “onboarding survey” which asks some basic questions to help classify different student groups. 

Once you have completed the first stage, you will begin to receive a prompt from the app every Monday to participate in a short survey, which should take less than two minutes to complete. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers- just answer the questions as honestly as possible.

Participation is voluntary, anonymous, and you can withdraw at any time.   

For queries relating to student experience please contact Student.support@dcu.ie
Technical queries maybe directed to Celine.heffernan@dcu.ie