EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 1 ! Personnel development and organisational culture 63
other backgrounds, languages and disabilities. There is however a significant difference
between the sexes, with female students scoring lower then male students and hence
showing a more positive attitude towards diversity and equal opportunities (U =
36775; p = 0.001). Refer to table 1.10 in the Appendices for more details.
On the scale about attitudes towards projects and initiatives, the students (N =
713) score an average of 17.3, which shows that the respondents consider the projects
and initiatives to be important since it is closer to 9 (best score = respondents think all
the projects are very important) than to 36 (worst score = respondents think all the
projects are very unimportant). Again, more than half of the students answered at least
once with ‘no opinion’. Significant statistical differences were found between faculties,
with engineers according the least importance to the initiatives. A significant difference
is also noted between different ethnic backgrounds, with students from a Belgian background
scoring the highest (and hence according less importance) than all the other
backgrounds. Hetero and LGB students differ significantly from each other on their
attitudes to initiatives: LGB students consider it significantly more important. The same
goes for women versus men: female students display a significantly more positive attitude
than male students to initiatives and projects. There was no significant difference
between students with and without disabilities on this matter, nor according to the
languages spoken at home. Details about the differences between groups can be found
in table 1.11 in the Appendices. When looking at the items separately, we notice that
respondents attach the least importance to the LGB guide. On the other hand, the free
language lessons for students are considered important to very important by 94.2% of
the respondents. The item about the 1/3-2/3 gender distribution on boards and committees
is considered significantly more important by female students than by male
students. Furthermore, on the item about addressing different channels for getting
more ethnic minorities into job vacancies, a significant difference occurred between
students from different backgrounds. Students from a TMA background have the most
positive attitude towards this item, especially compared to students from a Belgian
background.
The frequencies (in %) of knowledge and use of student services are summarized
in the table below. The large amount of missing responses is marked in the last column.
A future survey should emphasize the importance of answering all of the items,
even if the respondent does not know the service or has never used it.
The services most commonly known to students are the computer rooms and the ‘selfstudy’
centres. The trust persons and the possibility to test themselves for a learning
disorder are least known by the students. The facility students use the most are the
computer rooms. As a matter of fact, this facility was considered the most important by
the respondents since more than 84% considers this important to very important. The
service students use the least is the child care facility (1%), followed by the trust persons
(1.2%). The service to which the least importance is attached is the child care
facility (20% of respondents). Over 27% of the respondents did not even answer the
question about the importance. When we analyse the items separately, we find that
female students consider Sjerp, the self study centre, the course counsellors, study