NSSE E-News is a periodic electronic newsletter created to keep NSSE users and others informed about current project activities.
Enter email to sign up.
Contents
Sarraf Appointed Assistant Director for Survey Operations and Project Services
Ideas for Promoting the NSSE Survey to Students
"NSSE 2.0" Goes Live In 2013
How Often Should an Institution Participate in NSSE?
Spring 2011 Workshop in San Francisco
Free Webinar Series Continues
NSSE Gallery of Campus Images
Displaying NSSE Results on Institution Web Sites
Help with your VSA College Portrait
BCSSE Registration Opens Soon
New FSSE Feature – More Customization Options
LSSSE - Key Findings from 2010
News from SNAAP - Tracking the lives & Careers of Arts Graduates
Sarraf Appointed Assistant Director for Survey Operations and Project Services
NSSE is pleased to announce that Shimon Sarraf, a NSSE research analyst since 2004, has succeeded Todd Chamberlain in the important position of Assistant Director for Survey Operations and Project Services. Todd Chamberlain, who served NSSE for many years, left the Center for Postsecondary Research last fall to concentrate on completing his dissertation.
Need Ideas for Promoting the NSSE Survey?
Check out the NSSE Web site for creative and effective displays used by institutions to encourage student participation in the survey.
“NSSE 2.0” Goes Live in 2013
We are very excited that NSSE 2.0 – an updated version of the survey – is in development and will launch with the 2013 administration. NSSE 2.0 will incorporate what we’ve learned over the past decade while preserving NSSE’s signature focus on effective educational practices and diagnostic, actionable information that can inform improvement efforts.
Although it is too early to say precisely what the 2013 survey will contain, the update aims to do the following:
- Refine existing measures and scales.
- Design new measures of emerging ideas relevant to teaching and learning.
- Improve the wording of items for clarity, consistency, and applicability to online instruction.
- Eliminate a few instances of outdated terminology, primarily related to technology.
What about trend analyses? We realize that longitudinal analyses based on NSSE items and measures will be affected by these changes. Therefore, we encourage institutions to consider the implications of these changes for their administration cycles, accreditation initiatives, and strategic plans.
Your input is essential to this project. Opportunities to add your ideas to the development of NSSE 2.0 are coming up. For instance, join our special interest group meeting or our roundtable session at the annual forum of the Association for Institutional Research this May. In the meantime, feel free to contact us with any NSSE 2.0 questions by writing to nssebeta@indiana.edu.
How Often Should an Institution Participate in NSSE?
The most appropriate participation cycle for an institution depends on the purposes for the assessment. To help advise institutions on this common question, we've documented institutional participation patterns and outlined some important considerations for institutions on a new Web page. We'd love to get your input on what influences your cycle of participation. Please share your ideas with your project services team.
Join Us in the City by the Bay!
NSSE and the University of San Francisco will host the Spring Users Workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 26-27, 2011.
The one- and one-half day workshop will provide opportunities for participants to:
- Exchange ideas on their use of NSSE, FSSE, and BCSSE
- Become more proficient in using results for accreditation and institutional improvement initiatives
- Communicate results to different audiences
- Gain insight into educationally effective practices
- Consult with NSSE staff members
We encourage you to submit a session proposal on how your institution is using its NSSE data. Registration fees are waived for workshop presenters.
Find details on registration, session proposal submission, hotel accommodations, and travel information on the workshop Web site.
NSSE Free Webinar Series Continues in 2011!
Have You Participated?
- Representatives from over 887 U.S. and Canadian institutions have registered for at least one NSSE Webinar; some have attended multiple Webinars.
- Overall, recorded NSSE Webinars have been viewed close to 4,000 times.
Join us for our next Webinar: Using NSSE Data in Student Affairs. Date: Thursday, March 24, 2011 Time: 3:00-4:00 pm Eastern Time Presenters: Jillian Kinzie, Associate Director, NSSE Institute, and Tony Ribera, NSSE Institute Project Associate. As demands for accountability increase, student affairs divisions are pressed to demonstrate learning outcomes and conduct assessment. This Webinar offers student affairs professionals ways to explore their NSSE results to gain valuable information about student experiences and suggestions for corroborating these trends with existing institutional data.
Archived Webinars
All Webinars are recorded and can be viewed at your convenience. Consider viewing these recent sessions:
- Improving Your Response Rates. Learn more about what institutions are doing to increase participation in NSSE.
- Engagement Experiences of Student-Veterans, discusses the results from 11,000 self-identified student-veterans who responded to the NSSE survey regarding their engagement experiences. The February 2011 Webinar provided an opportunity for institutional representatives to pose questions and make observations about the experiences of student-veterans on their campuses.
These sessions and previous Webinars are recorded and available for viewing at your convenience, www.nsse.iub.edu/webinars/archives.cfm.
NSSE Gallery of Campus Images
Campus images are featured in reports, presentations, promotional materials, are on the new NSSE Web site. If you are interested in contributing images of your campus, please contact Kathy Anderson, NSSE Institute Project Manager, kanderso@indiana.edu.
Displaying NSSE Results on Institution Web Sites
Do you display NSSE results on your institution's Web site? We created the Guidelines for Display of NSSE Results on Institution Web Sites document to help personnel from institutional research, admissions, public relations, communications, Web development, and other areas, accurately display their NSSE results. A copy can be downloaded from the NSSE Web site, http://nsse.iub.edu/pdf/website_guidelines.pdf.
Web site examples from several institutions can be found here. Examples were chosen that adhere to basic standards of data representation, consistency with how NSSE produces the Institutional Reports and with NSSE’s guide to multi-year analysis.
Help with your VSA College Portrait Data Entry!
If you’re using NSSE in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) College Portrait, note the helpful resources on the NSSE Web site such as: the VSA-NSSE dedicated Web page to link to your College Portrait, examples of additional results to post, and SPSS syntax to aid in formatting your data to populate the College Portrait. More information about using NSSE in your institution’s College Portrait is available at: www.nsse.iub.edu/html/vsa.cfm. If you have questions about using NSSE for the VSA please contact Jillian Kinzie jikinzie@indiana.edu.
BCSSE 2011 Registration Begins Soon!
The Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE, pronounced “bessie”), will officially launch on March 7, 2011. This will be the fifth year of BCSSE administration. In the past four years, more than 250,000 entering first-year students have completed the BCSSE survey at one of 318 institutions across the United States and Canada.
Want more information on BCSSE?
In collaboration with the NSSE Institute, a BCSSE Webinar is scheduled for April 12, 2011 titled, An Updated Look at BCSSE. This Webinar is free and will be presented by Jim Cole, BCSSE Project Manager and NSSE Research Analyst.
More information, including sample reports and administration costs, can be found at: www.bcsse.iub.edu. You may also e-mail us (bcsse@indiana.edu), or call our toll free number: 866-435-6773. We would be more than glad to help you with any questions.
New FSSE Feature: Create your own Disciplinary Categories
Institutions participating in FSSE will have the opportunity to design their own disciplinary categories displayed in the Respondent Characteristics report and FSSE data file, providing institutions the opportunity to construct disciplinary categories that better match their institution’s academic divisions. Current survey participants will be contacted when it is time to customize your choices, but if your institution has not participated in FSSE recently note this increased level of customization will be available in your next administration.
LSSSE – Key Findings from 2010
On January 5, 2011, LSSSE released results from its 2010 survey administration. Findings revealed that law students who interacted with faculty more often, were significantly more likely, to report substantial gains in key areas related to professionalism and ethics compared to students with less faculty contact. Despite the benefit to students, opportunities for student-faculty interaction in law school often are missed. Results also indicated that only half of students (53%) felt prepared to deal with ethical dilemmas that arise as part of legal practice. These findings suggest that law schools can do more to create opportunities to further students’ professional development.
Results from the 2010 survey also revealed that female law students are less likely than their male peers to ask questions in class and to interact with professors, as well as more likely to report that they were motivated to work hard in law school out of a fear of failure or embarrassment in front of their classmates. LSSSE encourages law schools that participated in LSSSE 2010 to investigate their own data to discover whether these trends hold true for their students.
Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)
Led by NSSE founding director George Kuh, cultural policy scholar Steven Tepper, and a National Advisory Board of leaders in the arts, arts education, and cultural policy research, SNAAP is a research project designed to investigate the educational experiences and career paths of arts graduates nationally. It provides confidential findings to educators, and aggregate findings to policymakers and philanthropic organizations to improve arts training, inform cultural policy, and support artists.
In just a couple of months, SNAAP will begin registering participants for its first ever national administration. After successfully concluding the final SNAAP field test this past December the SNAAP team is busy preparing reports for the 154 participating 2010 institutions, and making the final preparations for the 2011 administration.
SNAAP findings allow institutions to learn about alumni experiences after graduation, and provides alumni the opportunity to give feedback about how well their arts education prepared them for the workforce. To register for the first national administration of SNAAP in 2011 or for more information, please contact snaap@indiana.edu or 812-856-5824.