Results of the 2003 NSSE and FSSE: Implications for Student Affairs Bowling Green State University

1. Results of the 2003 NSSE and FSSE: Implications for Student Affairs Bowling Green State University

2. Highlights • Why is Engagement Important? • What is the National Survey of Student Engagement? • NSSE 2003 • FSSE 2003 • Using NSSE and FSSE Data

3. San Francisco Chronicle "As an educator, it's an embarrassment that we can tell people almost anything about education except how well students are learning." • Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (January 2001)

4. What Really Matters in College: Engagement “The research is unequivocal: students who are actively involved in both academic and out-of-class activities gain more from the college experience than those who are not so involved.” Ernest T. Pascarella & Patrick T. Terenzini, How College Affects Students

5. Good Educational Practices “Seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education” (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) • Student-faculty contact • Cooperation among students • Active learning • Prompt feedback • Time on task • High expectations • Respect for diverse talents and ways of learning

6. What do we know about students who enter our institution? How are various student experiences (e.g., course-taking patterns, leadership roles) related to outcomes? What is the student’s contribution to learning? What do students learn over time in a program of study? How do out-of-class experiences contribute to learning? What are students able to do with what they know? What judgments can students make about their learning? Looking Behind Student Outcomes From Hutchings (1989)

7. What is the NSSE?(pronounced “nessie”) • College student survey that assesses the extent to which students engage in educational practices associated with high levels of learning and development • NSSE is supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts • Co-sponsored by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and The Pew Forum on Undergraduate Learning

8. Why Another National Survey? • Refocus conversations about quality in undergraduate education • Enhance institutional improvement efforts • Foster comparative & consortial activity • Inform accountability • Provide systematic national data on “good educational practices”

9. NSSE Design Parameters • Relatively short survey • Items directly related to college outcomes • Administered to first-year and senior students at public and private 4-yr institutions • Administered directly by credible third-party survey organization

10. NSSE Project Scope • Highly representative by region, Carnegie classification, public-private, urban-rural • 50 states, DC & Puerto Rico • 127 institutions in 14 self-selected consortia • Data from more than 348,000 students

11. Use and Validity of Self-Reports Accuracy depends on: • Ability of respondents to provide accurate information • Willingness of respondents to provide accurate information People generally respond accurately when questions: • Are about past behavior • Do not explore sensitive, potentially embarrassing areas

12. Self-Reports are Valid When: • Requested information is known to the respondents • Questions are phrased clearly and unambiguously • Respondents take the questions seriously and thoughtfully • Answering does not threaten, embarrass, or violate privacy or compel a socially desirable response The NSSE survey, The College Student Report, was designed by national assessment experts to meet all these conditions

13. What Does The College Student Report Cover? Student Behaviors in College Institutional Actions & Requirements Student Learning & Development Student Reactions to College Student Background Information

14. Survey Administration • Administered to random sample of first-year & senior students • Standard paper survey or Web-based version • Flexible in design to accommodate consortium questions • Multiple follow-ups to increase response rates

15. NSSE 2003 Response Rates • BGSU’s response rate =41% • 42% overall for all NSSE 2003 institutions • Females (71% respondents vs. 56% population), seniors (50% respondents vs. 43% population), and students in Musical Arts (4% respondents vs. 2% population) were over-represented.

16. Analyses • Frequencies and cross-tabulations • Comparisons between first year students vs. seniors, by gender, by race, by college, by full-time vs. part-time • Comparisons with peer universities: George Mason University Illinois State UniversityIndiana State UniversityMiami University of OhioNorthern Arizona UniversityUniversity of Missouri-Kansas City

17. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students spent more than 26 hours per week preparing for class? Only 7% Selected Results What about our seniors? 12%

18. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students spent more than 26 hours per week relaxing and socializing? 14% Selected Results What about our seniors? 11%

19. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students spent 0 hours per week participating in co-curricular activities? 38% Selected Results What about our seniors? 32%

20. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students often had serious conversations with students of another race/ethnicity? 41% Selected Results What about our seniors? 42%

21. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students often had serious conversations with students of different beliefs or values? 51% Selected Results What about our seniors? 52%

22. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students plan to do community service or volunteer work? 77% Selected Results What percent of BGSU seniors actually report doing it? 67%

23. What percent of BGSU’s 1st-year students report participating in a learning community? 35% Selected Results What about our seniors? 27%

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29. Group Differences • Students of color were more likely to report • having serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity than their own • doing community service or volunteer work • that the academic advising they received was good or excellent • making progress in understanding people of other racial backgrounds • that BGSU emphasizes encouraging contact among students from different economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds

30. Group Differences • Females were more likely to report making progress in • acquiring a broad general education • working effectively with others • learning effectively on their own • understanding themselves • developing a personal code of values and ethics • contributing to the welfare of their community

31. Group Differences • Females perceived BGSU as having more emphasis on spending significant amounts of time studying and attending campus events.

32. NSSE 2003Promising Findings (Compared to Peers) • BGSU’s first year students were more likely to work on a paper or project that required integrating ideas or information from various sources, prepare two or more drafts of a paper or assignment before tuning it in, and discuss grades or assignments with an instructor. • BGSU seniors were more likely to work with other students on projects during class; to complete a practicum, internship, field experience, co-op experience, or clinical assignment; to agree that BGSU encouraged them to attend campus events and activities; and to state that their college experience contributed quite a bit or very much to acquiring job or work-related knowledge and skills.

33. NSSE 2003Disappointing Findings (Compared to Peers) • BGSU students were less likely to take foreign language coursework, to study abroad, and to complete culminating senior experiences. • BGSU first year students made fewer class presentations and read fewer unassigned books a year than did first year students in the peer universities. They were also less likely than their counterparts to report that BGSU emphasized analysis skills quite a bit or very much. • BGSU seniors were less likely to use an electronic medium (list-serv, chat group, Internet, etc.) to discuss or complete an assignment than were the seniors in peer universities. They were also less likely than their counterparts to report that their university encouraged them to contact students with different backgrounds from their own.

34. Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) • National pilot test in 2003 • Focuses on: (1) Faculty perceptions of how often their students engage in different activities; (2) The importance that faculty place on various areas of learning and development; (3) The nature and frequency of faculty-student interactions; and (4) How faculty members organize class time and related activities

35. FSSE Methodology • BGSU faculty who subscribed to the faculty listproc were asked to respond to the survey online last spring. A total of 270 of the surveys were completed. The response rate is about 25%, which is lower than the estimated average institution response rate of 43%.

36. FSSE Methodology • Responses were compared • Between faculty teaching lower-division and upper-division courses • With responses from faculty at two peer universities (George Mason University and Northern Arizona University) • With first year and senior student responses to the NSSE

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40. Discover current levels of engagement (institution, major field, year in school) Determine if current levels are satisfactory (criterion reference, normative or peer comparison) Target areas for improvement Modify programs and policies accordingly Teach students what is required to “succeed” Monitor student and institutional performance Using NSSE Data Areas of Effective Educational Practice Areas for Institutional Improvement

41. Learning Communities 1st Year & Senior Experience Academic Affairs Enrollment Managemt Institutional Improvement General Assessment Faculty Developmt Peer Comparison Student Affairs Academic Advising Institutional Research

42. Campus Uses(Internal) • Gauge status on campus priorities • Assess student growth (first to senior years) • Assess campus progress over time • Encourage dialogue about good practice • Link with other data to test hypotheses, evaluate programs • Improve curricula, instruction, services

43. How Do I Find Out More? Office of Institutional Research wknight@bgnet.bgsu.edu NSSE Websitewww.indiana.edu/~nsse

44. How Do I Find Out More? • The Academic Assessment Office at Southwest Texas University has provided a web site with an annotated bibliography relates peer reviewed research studies to each of the NSSE items.