NSSE: National Survey of Student Engagement


	Volume 6, Issue 5 May 2007

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NSSE E-News is a bimonthly electronic newsletter created to keep NSSE users and others current about project activities. It includes information on new NSSE Web site resources, media coverage on NSSE and its related surveys, updates on the administration of the NSSE family of surveys (FSSE, LSSSE, and BCSSE), NSSE data for institutional research and student affairs, Users Workshops and conference highlights; and NSSE presentations and improvements.

BCSSE Updates
NSSE Users Workshop
NSSE 2007 Comparison Groups - All Customizable
LSSSE Updates
NSSE in the News
Web Site Resources
NSSE RoadShow
Pre-forum Workshop at AIR

BCSSE Updates

NSSE recently launched the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE, pronounced "Bessie"), which measures entering first-year students' pre-college academic and co-curricular experiences and their interests in and expectations for educationally purposeful activities during college.

BCSSE 2007 Registration Ongoing!

Registration for BCSSE is going strong. As of May 25, 70 institutions across the US and Canada were registered to administer BCSSE to approximately 63,000 incoming first year students. There is no registration deadline. However, we advise interested institutions to notify us at least 3-4 weeks prior to their intended BCSSE administration.

What Will a Participating Institution Receive?

Within six weeks after surveys have been returned to BCSSE, schools will receive:

An electronic report containing summary data results,
An advising report for each student who completed a survey,
A copy of the BCSSE data file so institutions can conduct their own analysis as needed, and
A codebook that describes the information in the data file.

Institutions participating in both BCSSE and NSSE during a given academic year will also receive a combined BCSSE-NSSE summary report and a combined BCSSE-NSSE data file with their NSSE Institutional Report in August of the following calendar year.

Learn more about BCSSE today! Visit the BCSSE Web site here or call us at 866-435-6773.

NSSE Users Workshop

Highlights of Spring Users Workshop at Wichita State - Plans Firming Up for Fall Workshop at the University of Nevada, Reno

The Spring Drive-in Regional NSSE Users Workshop co-hosted by Wichita State University, Friends University, and Newman University, was held on April 19-20, 2007, at the Wichita State campus. The event drew 78 institutional representatives from 32 colleges and universities and included faculty, staff, and administrators with commitments and responsibilities for enhancing the quality of the undergraduate learning experience. Participants took advantage of opportunities to learn more about using NSSE data from colleagues at peer institutions and NSSE staff members. The sessions focused on topics such as using NSSE data for new and experienced users, multiple-year analysis of NSSE data, student response rate and nonresponse error, the characteristics and level of engagement of students at urban universities, and ways to combine NSSE and FSSE data. Workshop participants also had the opportunity to sign up for individual consultations with NSSE staff members to ask detailed questions about or gather new ideas about ways to analyze their NSSE data. A special highlight of the workshop was a Kansas-style barbecue dinner held at Botanica, the Wichita Gardens - a spectacular series of formal gardens in spring bloom.
Responses to the sessions were very positive. Participants commented that they gained new ideas on interpreting and integrating their NSSE data to bring back to their home campuses. Presentations from the workshop are posted on the NSSE Web site.

Fall 2007 NSSE Users Workshop: University of Nevada, Reno

The fall workshop will be held at the University of Nevada, Reno, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 16-17, 2007. Details on registration, accommodations, travel, and session schedules will be available on the NSSE Institute Web site in early summer, at http://nsse.iub.edu/institute/. We hope you will consider joining us in Reno as well as presenting a workshop session on the ways your institution is using NSSE data. Consider presenting on topics such as: communicating results to internal and external constituents, incorporating the data into accreditation efforts, combining use and analysis of NSSE and FSSE results, and launching and sustaining institutional assessment and improvement initiatives. An online proposal submission form will be available on the workshop Web site.

NSSE 2007 Comparison Groups - All Customizable.

For the first time ever, NSSE institutions are able to customize all three comparison groups (or two if they are in a consortium) for their 2007 reports. We hope that this new level of flexibility will enable institutions to identify the most relevant, appropriate peer institutions from the available pool of NSSE 2007 participants.

The standard NSSE reports display results for your institution and three comparison group columns. In the past, these columns included: (1) selected peer or consortium, (2) peers based on Carnegie classifications, and (3) all current-year NSSE participants. Institutions now have the option to customize all three columns by either: (a) choosing a default peer group for each column, or (b) building selected peer groups. The default peer groups for 2007 are:

Column 1 -	NSSE 2007 institutions in your school's geographic region and sector (private/public) Consortium institutions will not be able to customize this column.
Column 2 -	NSSE 2007 institutions with the same Basic 2005 Carnegie classification as your institution
Column 3 -	All NSSE 2007 institutions

Institutions will be able to pick their comparison groups by completing the 2007 Report Info Form. This form, which will be available from May 23 to June 8, will be accessible at the NSSE Institution Interface. NSSE participants will be notified via e-mail when the form is available. The form will also ask you to confirm or update key information about your institution for use in producing the 2007 reports.

LSSSE Updates

The LSSSE staff is reviewing and analyzing data from more than 27,000 law students who completed the survey this spring. Law schools will receive their reports during the first week of June, just in time to discuss the results at faculty workshops and summer planning meetings. As part of an ongoing effort to help schools put their data to action, we have created new User Tools for this year's report. In addition to the Accreditation Toolkit that maps the survey items to ABA accreditation standards, the 2007 binder includes a new Facilitator's Guide along with a sample customizable presentation. We trust that these tools will be useful as law schools continue to pursue effective methods for putting LSSSE data to use. To that end, LSSSE staff members will also present a users' session at the upcoming conference of the Institute for Law School Teaching in Boston (See NSSE RoadShow for details). This session will be aimed at helping schools work with and better understand their LSSSE results. For more information on this and other upcoming events, visit www.lssse.iub.edu.

NSSE in the News

NSSE continues to make headlines as it launches its new survey, the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE). In the national and local press, NSSE or student engagement are mentioned almost every week. In past months, stories appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Washington Post, and numerous local and campus newspapers. Much of discussion focuses on the following topics:

NSSE results can guide college choice
Focus on student-institution fit and educational quality, not rankings
Assessment of higher education institutions
Using NSSE data for campus improvement.

Another highlight was the radio broadcast of the interview with Tom Nelson Laird discussing how NSSE data were used to determine the effect of enrollment status on student-faculty interaction and the effect the percentage of part-time students has on full-time student interaction with faculty. The full broadcast of the interview is available here. A related article is also available from Inside Higher Ed: Click here.


ARTICLE	DATE	PUBLICATION
USAToday USAToday takes a stand on college rankings	May 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education "Playing the rankings game": Is NSSE an alternative?	May 2007
College Connection Radio broadcast of the interview with Tom Nelson Laird discussing how NSSE data were used to determine the effect of enrollment status on student-faculty interaction and the effect the percentage of part-time students has on full-time student interaction with faculty	May 2007
Journal Gazette Grade inflation is a growing problem	May 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education Lessons from Student Engagement	April 2007
Inside Higher Ed As more and more students enroll part time, colleges have considered whether they are providing appropriate academic support for them.	April 2007
The China Post "College choice: focus on fit, not rank"	April 2007
The Daily Free Press "College rankings not precise marks, academics say"	April 2007
The Washington Post Assessing Areas of Improvement for Colleges and Universities	April 2007
The Chronicle of Higher Education "Canadian Students Prefer 'Campus Feel'"	April 2007
University of Calgary Gauntlet Students and Administrators will partner to use NSSE results for institutional improvement	April 2007
Thousand Oaks Acorn Using NSSE data to choose your college	April 2007
The Peninsula: Qatar's Leading English Daily "With college choice, focus on the fit, not the rank"- Take a look at NSSE resources	April 2007
Indiana University Media Relations "Getting more students prepared for, into and graduated from college is a 'cultural challenge,' says George Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research"	April 2007

Web Site Resources

Sample reports available online!

Are you trying to plan how you will use your Institutional Report? Would it be helpful to know how NSSE reports are formatted so that you can prepare to distribute and analyze them appropriately? Sample Institutional Reports and Annual Reports are available on our Web site. Use these links for the most recent editions:

2006 Institutional Report: http://nsse.iub.edu/html/2006_inst_report.cfm
2006 Annual Report: http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/index.cfm

FAQs

Although we are happy to provide customer service via telephone, you may find it convenient to first check for answers to your questions by reviewing our FAQ page, which is organized by question type: "Institutions," "Parents," or "Students." This is available at http://nsse.iub.edu/faq/index.cfm. If you do not find answers to your questions or you need additional information, please contact us at our toll-free number, 866-435-6773.

NSSE RoadShow

The following is a list of conferences or workshops where NSSE staff members will present information on one or more of our surveys.

June

Jun. 3-5

AIR Forum

Kansas City, MO

Jun. 7

Northeast Association of Pre-Law Advisors, 35th Annual Conference

Philadelphia, PA

Jun. 7-10

NASPA International
Assessment & Retention
Conference

St. Louis, MO

Jun. 8

Institute for Law School Teaching, Annual Conference at Suffolk University Law School

Boston, MA

Jun. 11-12

Canadian Association of College and University Student Services National Conference

Saskatoon Saskatchewan

Jun. 13

Association of New American Colleges Summer Institute

Elon, NC

Jun. 14-15

Lawlor/Hardwick Day Summer Seminar

Minneapolis, MN

Jun. 20-23

ACPA Student Affairs
Assessment Conference

Columbus, OH

Jun. 21-23

AAC&U Greater Expectations Institute

Burlington, VT

Jun. 26-Jul. 1

The Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education: Learning Communities
National Summer Institute

Olympia, Washington

July

Jul. 2-5

Pacific Rim First Year in Higher Education Conference

Brisbane, Australia

Jul. 12-14

Pre-Conference Assessment Workshop (NSSE & CCSSE)
San Diego Marriott in Mission Valley

San Diego, California

Jul. 15

National Association of Campus Auxiliary Services Advanced Leadership Academy and the Institute for Managers

Bloomington, IN

Jul. 23-27

Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) 2007 Summer Academy: Cultivating Access & Success for Students of Color: Inspiring Communities of Learners

Santa Ana Pueblo, NM

Pre-forum Workshop at AIR

Analysis of Multiple Years of NSSE Data: Tips and Strategies
Sunday, June 3, 12:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

This half-day workshop is for institutions that possess multiple years of data from the NSSE. Through group exercises and discussion, attendees will examine longitudinal engagement data in order to assess institutional change and/or the impact of program or policy initiatives. Topics to be covered include: NSSE survey changes that impact multi-year analyses; appropriate longitudinal analyses using engagement data; models of multi-year analyses; methods and syntax for merging multi-year NSSE data; and different ways to represent multi-year data in reports and visual presentations. Participants are encouraged to share their own experiences, lessons learned, and questions.