NSSE constructs include the ten Engagement Indicators like Collaborative Learning, which reflects associated behaviors such as asking another student for help or explaining course material to another student. An example of NSSE content evidence is the Conceptual Framework which grounds NSSE survey items in prominent college student development and engagement literature. The evidences provided in the Conceptual Framework can be employed by NSSE users to judge the degree of alignment between Engagement Indicators, for example, and the items representing those constructs. This alignment then serves as a validation for the meaning of any scores presented in NSSE reporting.

NSSE's Conceptual Framework (2013)

For the development of the current version of NSSE (released in 2013), NSSE researchers conducted cognitive interviews and focus groups with representative student populations to assess new items as well as those that underwent significant revision. Cognitive interviews included requests for students to vocalize their thinking aloud while responding to survey questions, and as a follow-up to provide examples of the particular behaviors being explored. Findings from this study contextualized the interpretation of survey responses. For example, 2012 pilot questions about diversity showed similar responses across schools even though the amount of diversity varied based on the institutions’ student populations. This section also  includes evidence about how students interpret “how often” response options, the hours they devote to different activities, and the accuracy of self-reported grades.

An example of internal structure evidence supporting the NSSE survey is the report on Construct Validity of NSSE Engagement Indicators report. This two-part analysis first allowed survey items to freely load on all possible constructs; results showed that items generally loaded on the ten Engagement Indicator factors as expected. Thereafter, a confirmatory factor analysis examined the fit of the hypothesized measurement models to the data. The models showed good fit, indicating that a) the items measure the Engagement Indicators as expected and b) the Engagement Indicator scores are valid aggregate scores. 

Construct Validity of Engagement Indicators (2013)

NSSE routinely reports scale scores for the ten Engagement Indicators and often presents analyses for the Sense of Belonging and Perceived Gains scales. Cronbach's alpha—a widely-used measure of internal consistency—estimates how closely related a set of items are as a group. It is essentially the average intercorrelation among the items. Alpha scores from the most recent year are listed in the following report:

NSSE Scale Reliabilities

NSSE’s study on the Predictive Validity First-Year Retention is an example of this category of evidence. In theory, higher levels of student engagement should result in a greater likelihood of first-year retention. Thus, a measure of NSSE Engagement Indicator validity would be whether increased scores result in higher probabilities of retention. The study found that all NSSE constructs predicted higher levels of retention. A number of NSSE-related studies have been conducted examining how survey constructs relate to other important higher educational outcomes.

Predictive Validity First-Year Retention (2012 pilot)

NSSE was developed to provide colleges and universities with measures of student engagement and perceptions of the institutional environment to inform improvement of undergraduate education. To that end, NSSE has collected examples of data use from participating institutions for these purposes. In NSSE’s Examples of Data Use database, examples of NSSE use for accreditation, accountability, strategic planning, and program assessment are provided. More demonstrations of effective NSSE data use to inform institutional improvement are catalogued in the Lessons from the Field series.