NSSE: National Survey of Student Engagement

NSSE is becoming increasingly helpful in improving student success and building public confidence in the commitment of colleges and universities to improve teaching and learning.

Paul E. Lingenfelter, President, State Higher Education Executive Officers

2009 \| 2008 \| 2007 \| 2006 \| 2005

In the News (2008)

ARTICLE	DATE
Survey: 20 percent of students don’t complete homework Indiana Daily Student Article released by the IDS discussing NSSE results related to homework completion. The article quotes Alex McCormick serveral times.	December/2008
Survey shows improvements in Teaching Assistants Charlatan News Results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) show a decrease in the percentage of students who feel the quality of Teaching Assistants needs to be addressed.	December/2008
Making Engagement Data Meaningful Inside Higher Ed When the annual figures for the National Survey of Student Engagement come out each year, some colleges issue a press release and move on. Gallaudet University in Washington, however, is making this data central in an effort to revise its undergraduate curriculum and institutional mission.	December/2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education Diagnosing Why Some Students Don't Succeed George Kuh discusses the concern that too many students are dropping out of college. He goes on to discuss how colleges can enhance student learning and increase the number who persist in their studies and graduate	December/2008
Dr. Kuh: Early Interventions Are Crucial to Retaining At-Risk Students EducationDynamics Dr. George Kuh, director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, revealed key propositions crucial to student success during an EducationDynamics Webinar titled Retention 2.0: From Theory to Tactics.	December/2008
The Observer Online Exams add stress to the holidays According to a national survey, studying and preparing for class is not high on many students' to do list, and as finals approach, this leaves many students feeling nauseous at the thought of exams. The most recent National Survey of Student Engagement, released last month, reported that about one in five students frequently come to class without completing readings or assignments - just one example of being underprepared.	December/2008
EducationDynamics Webinar Wall Street Journal Higher Education Experts Dr. George Kuh and Dr. Jennifer Jones Address Emerging Trends Influencing Student Retention and Initiatives Proven to Increase Persistence	December/2008
University reaches out to transfer to keep them connected Daily Skiff This article highlights TCU's effort to provide transfer students with opportunities to get connected with the campus community. NSSE shows transfers often fall through the cracks. The National Survey of Student Engagement stated that transfer students reported less interaction with faculty, a less-supportive campus environment, less "active and collaborative learning," and fewer "enriching educational experiences."	December/2008
Survey opens dialogue for improvement RedandBlack.com The University will expand learning opportunities - such as faculty-student research - after results from a national survey show a need for improvement. A steering committee of 14 administrators and professors evaluated the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement, a survey of about 2,000 students - half freshman and half seniors - about their learning experiences at the University. The group issued a report on what to emphasize in the next few years.	December/2008
Sources for Understanding Undergraduate Student's Use of Technology StudentAffairs.com Article written by project associate Kevin Guidry about students and their use of technology	December/2008
What Do Faculty Mean to Students? The Chronicle of Higher Education The author raises questions around student-faculty interactions and questions why students and faculty lack engaging relationships.	November/2008
Report challenges online-learning assumptions eSchool News This article talks about DEEP learning and its occurance in distance education. The article uses NSSE data to suport its arguement.	November/2008
Transfer students overcome hurdles Yale Daily News This article talks about engagement for transfer students at Yale University. It uses NSSE data to support its arguement.	November/2008
Report challenges online-learning assumptions eSchoolNews This article quotes Bob Gonyea and Thomas Nelson-Laird while highlighting NSSE findings that challenges online-learning assumptions. Online students report deeper learning approaches, more challenging coursework than their peers in face-to-face classes	November/2008
2008 NSSE Results Mornings With Ray and Dianne Interview with Alex McCormick about the 2008 NSSE results	November/2008
Is a College Degree Really Worth the Cost? US News and World Report The articles looks at the financial benefits of attending college. the article mentions NSSE as a measure of quality.	November/2008
An Antidote to College Rankings? Time Schools' biggest grouse against rankings is that they take a complex institution and crunch it down into a single score. Critics castigate U.S. News & World Report not only for rewarding schools for such things as outspending their rivals, but also for basing a whopping 25% of a college's ranking solely on how its reputation is rated by administrators at rival institutions. Enter the National Survey of Student Engagement, which tries to provide a detailed picture of how well a school is judged by its customers, i.e., the students who attend them.	November/2008
Survey Finds Transfer Students Disengaged, but Some Colleges Are Working to Change That The Chronicle of Higher Education Attending more than one college is increasingly common, and transfer students tend to be disconnected from and overlooked on their new campuses. More than 40 percent of seniors who responded to the survey had started at different institutions, according to the report. Compared with "native" seniors, transfer students lagged behind on four of the survey's five measures of engagement, or the extent to which they are immersed in academics and campus activities.	November/2008
Does It Matter Where You Go to College? The Chronicle of Higher Education Viewbooks, rankings, and accountability measures cast colleges as distinctive and readily comparable. But the average student experience doesn't differ that markedly among institutions, says this year's National Survey of Student Engagement. Rather, the survey found, more than 90 percent of the variation in educational quality occurs among individual students on the same campus. "The current climate really drives us to focus solely on interinstitutional comparisons," says Alexander C. McCormick, director of the survey.	November/2008
Hands-on programs flourish USA Today Not all learning takes place on campus. Studies show that internships, study abroad and service learning often stimulate and sustain active learning.	November/2008
Beyond college rankings The Journal Gazette This article notes findings from the 2008 NSSE results reinforces evidence that popular college rankings miss the mark and students need to look closely at specific areas of study, not just at a university’s overall reputation. The article also highlights engagement for online educations and the affects of writing on engagement	November/2008
College students skip homework, still get A's The Chicago Sun-Times Nearly one in five college seniors and 25 percent of freshmen say they frequently come to class without completing readings or assignments. Many of those students say they get mostly A's on their report cards. These findings support other studies that suggest a disconnect between what college professors expect and what students do.	November/2008
Which universities get top marks? 87,000 students have their say On Campus: Macleans.CA This article highlights the 2008 NSSE results and the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium. The articles introduces NSSE, its benchmarks, and gives a general ovreview of what students are saying in canada. Additionally, it ranks schools by student reponses.	November/2008
College students 'get away with' poor preparation USA Today "College learning is a two-way street," says Indiana University associate professor Alexander McCormick, director of the National Survey of Student Engagement, which conducted the study. "The purpose here is not to dump on faculty, but when a substantial chunk of students come to class unprepared, it suggests that they can get away with it." Students report spending about 31/2 hours a week preparing for each class. That's about half what instructors expect from a typical student. 59% of seniors and 55% of freshmen said they frequently worked harder than they thought they could to meet an instructor's standards.	November/2008
Faculty play role outside class as mentors, models USA Today Sometimes, professors are more than classroom instructors. Sometimes they're mentors or cheerleaders. This article highlights several institutions where faculty members have served as role models and advocates for students.	November/2008
Transfer students can save money, graduate faster USA Today Forty percent of those surveyed in 2008 were transfers. As tuitions soar, more students are opting to save thousands by starting at community colleges and later transferring to four-year institutions. Many colleges and universities are offerring transitional programs from local community colleges.	November/2008
NSSE: Assessing the undergraduate experience USA Today This year, 386 four-year colleges and universities in 46 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are participating in an ongoing collaboration between USA TODAY and the National Survey of Student Engagement to provide new tools and information to help college-bound students assess the quality of the undergraduate experience at schools they're considering.This year's 82-question survey of 380,000 randomly selected first-year and senior students at 722 four-year colleges and universities. This article gives a general overview of NSSe findings	November/2008
Internships, study abroad, community service enhance learning USA Today Schools that successfully encourage high-impact activities are highly engaged. They also testify to what can happen, on campuses of all types, when students are coached to follow their hearts and adhere to intellectual disciplines in the process.	November/2008
Writing leads to deeper learning, study finds USA Today It's pretty hard to get through college without ever having to compose a paper. Now, the National Survey of Student Engagement puts a number on just how much students write: 92 pages on average for first-year students. 146 pages on average for seniors. 114 for seniors studying the physical sciences. 172 for seniors studying the social sciences. When courses provide extensive, intellectually challenging writing activities, the NSSE report found, students engage in a variety of positive activities. They are more likely to analyze, synthesize and integrate ideas from various sources. They grapple more with course ideas both in and out of the classroom. And they report greater personal, social, practical and academic development.	November/2008
Encouraging Colleges to Look Within Inside Higher Ed While Alex McCormick acknowledges that institution-wide averages found in other assessments are worthy of note, he argues that such figures cannot be used to provide institutions with the means by which to improve themselves. McCormick notes that prospective college students and their parents need to realize that a generous ranking by one or more sources taking broad institutional views — U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges being among them — does not always indicate a high quality “throughout the undergraduate experience.” McCormick states, “I want people look beyond their average score and U.S. News [rankings] and show that there are better ways to focus on individual measures of success. A major focus on this is calling attention to this internal variation within institutions.”	November/2008
Exclusive focus on average scores misses the mark when comparing colleges and universities, survey finds Indiana University School of Education This article highlights the release of the NSSE 2008 results. Analyses of key "Benchmarks of Effective Educational Practice" reveal that in almost every case, more than 90 percent of the variation in undergraduate education quality occurs within institutions, not between them. A related conclusion is that even institutions with high benchmark scores have an appreciable share of students whose undergraduate experience is average at best.	November/2008
College survey relies on students to rate their education The Journal Sentinel Online This article higlights how NSSE helps schools improve practice on college campuses in Wisconsin.	November/2008
2 Studies Raise Questions About Research Based on Student Surveys The Chronicle of Higher Education Students often paint a distored picture of their academic success in self reported surveys. This article highlights a paper presented by Bob Gonyea and Jim Cole. The presenters note in many cases students report higher SAT and ACT scores on surveys than actual score reported to the institution.	November/2008
Students Engaged in Extracurricular Programs Perform Better Academically, LEAP Study Reports Diverse Issues in Higher Education Students who engage in learning communities, internships, service learning programs and undergraduate research projects perform at higher levels than their peers who do not. Though these high-impact educational practices increase any student’s academic performance, they are most beneficial to traditionally underserved students — minority and first-generation students. Yet this population is least likely to participate in the programs, according to the study’s author George D. Kuh	October/2008
College students embrace communities for those with shared academics, interests The Detroit News The article addresses some of the trends in living learning program. Jillian Kinzie, associate director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University Bloomington states, "It's an attempt at the largest institutions to design more intimate settings, particularly academic in nature, in the residence halls. It makes a large, impersonal residence hall seem smaller and more vibrant intellectually."	October/2008
More adults must juggle obligations The Augusta Chronicle The article uses NSSE data to touch on students balanace of work and school. According to the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement, 41 percent of freshmen and 46 percent of seniors at Augusta State work at least 20 hours or more a week off campus while going to school.	October/2008
Putting What Works to Better Use Inside Higher Ed This article talks about the AACU and the report’s author, George D. Kuh, efforts to help colleges bolster their performance in educating students.	October/2008
Under Pressure The Wall Street Journal Today's children have close ties to their parents. Some research has shown that children listen to the same music and same taste as parents. Children are likely to listen to advice given by parents. In response to a first-ever question in the National Survey of Student Engagement last year, 75% of college freshman and seniors said they almost always took their parents' advice.	October/2008
The College Portrait Encourages Transparency Among US Colleges Finding Dulcinea Colleges and universities are participating in a project that could place them at the vanguard of the higher education accountability movement. The College Portrait accountability tool offers high school students, parents, guidance counselors and stakeholders an easy way to compare profiles of higher education institutions. This article notes that the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) represent a new approach to determining the quality of higher education institutions and their best practices.	October/2008
Stick-Thin, Airbrushed, Made-Up... Real Or Fake? White Dove Books This article discusses body image and the college experience for women. It references the National Survey of Student Engagement; it states women are more likely than men to have "high aspirations for their educations, more likely to enroll in college and to stick with it until they earn a degree.	September/2008
Assessment and General Education: Resisting Reductionism Without Resisting Responsibility Red Orbit The focus of this piece is on the difficulty in generalizing longitudinal collegiate assessment. The present utility of institutional assessment lies in its potential capacity to enable us to begin to understand what we are doing, and to plan for educational change. If we truly can measure student learning at the levels of sophistication necessary to know whether we are achieving the outcomes we strive for, then assessment data should enable us to begin to make informed judgments about what we are doing wrong, and what we are doing right. And then we can adjust our learning strategies accordingly. The author notes the NSSE as a credible instrument thought to hold the great promise.	September/2008
Educating Generation Net-Can U.S. Engineering Woo and Win the Competition for Talent? Red Orbit U.S. engineering education needs to evolve if the country is to maintain its preeminence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. The paper compares the current generation of college students, Generation Net, with previous generations, explores motivations and choices along the engineering pathway (pre-college to the workforce), examines students';;; knowledge and skills relative to faculty practices, and concludes with three scenarios of engineering education and the workforce, including the consequences of stasis or change. This article notes that the experiences of student affairs deans plus attitudinal data found in the 2007 National Survey of Student Engagement help paint a picture of current undergraduates and their parents.	September/2008
Exploring Millennial Student Values and Societal Trends: Accounting Course Selection Preferences RedOrbit The values that younger (Millennial) versus older (non- Millennial) students express in choosing a class are contrasted with the skills and attitudes they need to compete. The first half of the paper reviews current literature regarding Millennial student expectations, skill competitiveness, and work opportunities. This is followed by examining priorities on class section selection as a vehicle for investigating student values. This article references NSSE data throughout the paper.	September/2008
SCSU Names 9 Graduates to be Honored St. Cloud Times The Distinguished Alumni Award winner is George Kuh, who graduated in 1971 from Saint Cloud and is chancellors professor of higher education at Indiana University in Bloomington and director of the Center for Postsecondary Research.	September/2008
Hovering Or Helping? The Hartford Courant This article talks about helicopter parents and there impact on the student experience. Research compiled by the National Survey of Student Engagement revealed that almost 40 percent of freshmen have had a parent or guardian intervene on their behalf to solve a problem at college.	September/2008
Students Face a Long List of Obstacles on the Way to College Degree Pittsburgh Post-Gazette To help students succeed, many colleges are offering more first-year programs and academic help. Some are even redesigning courses to make them more effective. Alexander McCormick sees ";;weeding out";; as ";;an old-school attitude that is in fact dying out as we take increasing responsibility for the success of our students.";;	August/2008
Sharing Information About ‘Struggling’ Med Students Inside HigherEd This article addresses some of the findings from a survey that looked at medical students who feel they are struggling academically. George Kuh gives his perspective on student performance in this article.	August/2008
Benefits of Diverse Student Body Seen The Advertiser.com UL administered the National Survey of Student Engagement last year, and one set of findings pointed to a interesting - and important - benefit of expanding opportunities for students to interact on campus.	August/2008
Congress Flunks in Higher Education Act The Christian Science Monitor This article focuses on the need for better measures of ranking colleges and universities. The article points out that the National Survey of Student Engagement could serve as the industry’s answer for ranking.	August/2008
More Students Enter Workplace While Still in College NewsDay.com This article looks at students desire to work while attending college full time. In 2007, the number of college seniors who reported working for pay off-campus rose to 66 percent, compared with 59 percent in 2006, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement.	August/2008
Brainstorm: Book Readings for Class The Chronicle of Higher Education Mark Bauerlein looks at the NSSE question “Number of books read on your own (not assigned) for personal enjoyment or academic enrichment”. The article brings up some of the statistics from the Annual Report. He concludes that we need more data on whether teachers are adding shorter readings that make up for the loss of longer ones.	August/2008
Send Off: Taking Kids to College is a Bittersweet Experience The Free Lance Star The article focuses on students’ dependence on their parents and the impact of student/parent relationships. The article quotes NSSE annual report by stating, National Survey of Student Engagement found that 86 percent of first-year students are in ‘frequent’ contact with their mothers, while 71 percent remain connected with their dads.	August/2008
Where’s the Data? Inside Higher Ed This article questions the impact class size and faculty appointment have on student learning. Kevin Carey points out weak and non-existent literature around self-evaluation of teaching and learning, and argues that there is a significant amount of work that needs to be done in measuring student learning. He mentions how the NSSE survey indicates a desire for self-study, but concludes institutions needs to explore the diversity of teaching pedagogy at their institution.	August/2008
Private Colleges, Serious About Assessment Inside Higher Ed A meeting of the Council of Independent Colleges’ Collegiate Learning Assessment Consortium prompts Inside Higher Ed to write that many private colleges are serious about assessment. The meeting focused on the use of the CLA with some discussion focused on issues common to most assessment instruments and efforts, including the NSSE (cost, student motivation, faculty acceptance, etc.).	August/2008
Sex Ed: Study Reinforces Case for Women’s Colleges MBC News A news article from Mary Baldwin College discusses a report commissioned by the Women’s College Coalition (WCC) that appears to support and complement data in the 2006 NSSE. The findings seem to support the importance and effectiveness of women's colleges.	June/2008
Researchers Worry About Inflated Measures of Student Engagement The Chronicle of Higher Education Researchers at Cornell University presented a paper at the annual conference of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) arguing that "surveys of student engagement had low response rates—and that most respondents were women with good grades."	May/2008
Learning beyond the classroom The Comment Bridgewater State College's student newspaper discusses student engagement and Bridgewater's participation in the NSSE.	May/2008
A Different Way to Fight Student Disengagement Inside Higher Ed In a discussion of "disengagement," NSSE is highlighted as a step in the right direction (albeit an incomplete step).	April/2008
FSSEC report recommends URI improve faculty-student relations The Good 5 Cent Cigar The student newspaper at the University of Rhode Island reports that URI's Faculty-Staff-Student Engagement Committee "recommended that students and staff at the University of Rhode Island pursue activities beyond classroom education to enhance faculty-student relationships." NSSE results were included in and informed the report.	April/2008
More colleges make consumer information public USA Today USA Today updates the total number of institutions participating in the NSSE-USA Today Initiative to 332. In addition to discussing reactions to the initiative, the article also briefly discusses other voluntary accountability efforts.	April/2008
Communication and Comfort Across Ethnic Lines Inside Higher Ed NSSE data are referenced and NSSE Director Alex McCormick quoted in an article discussing student diversity in higher education.	March/2008
Colleges Encouraged to Improve the Student Experience By Using Identified Best Practices Diverse Issues In Higher Education Diverse Issues in Higher Education discusses some of the latest findings of and releases from the Building Engagement and Attainment for Minority Students (BEAMS) project.	March/2008
Harsh Realities About Virtual Ones Inside Higher Ed Michael Bugeja, author of "Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age," discusses engagement in relation to technology use by today's students. He specifically discusses the NSSE and a few of the questions asked on the NSSE.	March/2008
2008 STUDENT SURVEYS: Complete results MacLean's Canadian magazine MacLean's publishes a listing of the 2007 NSSE Benchmarks for most of the Canadian institutions that participated.	February/2008
Students grade their schools MacLean's Canadian magazine MacLean's publishes and discusses NSSE results in relation to their own college and university rankings and evaluations.	February/2008
Study: Colleges shouldn't fret over hands-on parents USA Today Research conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA confirms earlier findings by NSSE regarding the positive impact of parental involvement.	January/2008
Academic Leaders Offer Thoughts on Reforming Higher Education at AACU Meeting Chronicle of Higher Education For the closing session of its annual meeting on Saturday, the Association of American Colleges and Universities brought together three prominent academic leaders to discuss how educators might make some of the organization’s lofty ideas for improving undergraduate education a reality...	January/2008
Professors help students virtually USA Today Jillian Kinzie, Associate Director at the Center for Postsecondary Research, is quoted in an article discussing professors' virtual office hours.	January/2008
MSU wants students engaged in campus life Minot Daily News George Kuh, IU Chancellor's Professer and Director of the Center for Postsecondary Research, recently spoke at Minot State University. Topics Kuh discussed during his keynote included lessons Minot State should learn from the DEEP project and Minot State's NSSE results.	January/2008
Are 'helicopter' parents a bad influence on students? AFT Speak Out George Kuh and Donald Pollock discuss the pros and cons of parental influence on their children's education.	January/2008