For the four years that we have enrolled incoming freshmen, we have achieved nearly 70% participation each year. We are currently following almost 10,000 students longitudinally, with follow-up surveys administered each spring. This compares quite favorably to general rates of college student participation in online surveys, which are usually around 35% (NSSE, 2011). I believe that one of the factors that contributes to our high participation is that a central part of Spit for Science is that we want our participants to feel ownership over the project. We want them to be proud to be in the study, and to be informed about the results.
