With debates surrounding the use of college rankings as a yardstick for helping students choose a college, the National Survey of Student Engagement, or the NSSE, wants to play by different rules.
The NSSE (pronounced Nessie) is a study that goes beyond traditional college ranking markers like SAT scores of incoming freshmen and college tuition.
Rather, the NSSE’s goal is to measure the quality of an undergraduate education by examining how actively-involved students are with their studies, professors and the campus community. The organization believes that the more engaged students are, the more likely they are to learn.
Since its debut in 2000, NSSE has surveyed nearly 1,200 schools at least once.
The NSSE survey consists of 85 questions, 42 of which contribute to five categories, or “benchmarks” levels of academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, the extent to which a college offers an active and collaborative learning environment, opportunities to take advantage of cultural or extracurricular experiences, and whether the school creates a supportive environment for different groups on campus. Research shows that these activities, while not direct measures of learning, are associated with student success.
Colleges used to keep their results quiet using their data as an internal assessment tool to make changes. For example, after NSSE results at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, VT, demonstrated that first-year students benefit from regular interaction with professors, the school set a goal to increase the percentage of full-time faculty who teach first-year seminars.
This year, for the first time, NSSE is encouraging participating schools to make their scores publicly available, so students and parents can use the info to help them access colleges. We thought you might be interested to know, so when you are going through the college search and college selection process, be sure to check out the national survey of student engagement at each college!
