BCSSE Scales provide valuable information about distinct aspects of past and expected student engagement and beliefs about the upcoming year. BCSSE’s ten scales are calculated from 45 core BCSSE items. Many of the BCSSE Scales parallel NSSE Engagement Indicators, which were rigorously tested both qualitatively and quantitatively in a multi-year effort that included student focus groups, cognitive interviews, and two years of pilot testing and analysis.
BCSSE targets three distinct groups of entering students: (a) first-year recent high school graduates, (b) transfer students, and (c) older students with little or no prior experience in higher education. Most scales apply to all three groups while two are only for first-year students and one is only for transfer students (see below for scales and items that apply to each group).
Scale scores range from 0 to 60. To compute them, component items are converted to a 60 point scale (e.g., never=0, sometimes=20, often=40, and very often=60), then averaged together as student-level scores. Download the scales and important items here.
