High-Impact Practices

Due to their positive associations with student learning and retention, certain undergraduate opportunities are designated "high-impact." High-Impact Practices (HIPs) demand considerable time and effort, facilitate learning outside of the classroom, require meaningful interactions with faculty and students, encourage collaboration with diverse others, and provide frequent and substantive feedback. Participation can be life-changing (Kuh, 2008).

Sample High-Impact Practices Report

High-Impact Practice Questions on NSSE

NSSE asks about participation in six HIPs:

High-Impact Practice	Item Wording
Service-Learning	About how many of your courses at this institution have included a community-based project (service-learning)?
Learning Community	Participate in a learning community or some other formal program where groups of students take two or more classes together
Research with Faculty	Work with a faculty member on a research project
Internship or Field Experience	Participate in an internship, co-op, field experience, student teaching, or clinical placement
Study Abroad	Participate in a study abroad program
Culminating Senior Experience	Complete a culminating senior experience (capstone course, senior project or thesis, portfolio, recital, comprehensive exam, etc.)

Unlike most questions on the NSSE survey, the HIP questions are not limited to the current school year. Thus, seniors' responses include participation from prior years.

Scoring

Participation in a High-Impact Practice is reported as the percentage of students who responded "done or in progress" for all HIPs except service-learning, for which they reported at least "some" of their courses included a community-based project. Thus, a HIP score of 26 means that 26% of respondents had participated in the activity.

NSSE reports participation in learning communities, service-learning, and research with faculty for both first-year students and seniors, and also reports participation in internships or field experiences, study abroad, and culminating senior experiences only for seniors.

Although HIPs are already included in each institution's NSSE data file, SPSS syntax to generate a table of HIP participation by student characteristics is available.

Interpreting Results

HIP participation varies more among students within an institution than it does between institutions, like many experiences and outcomes in higher education. As a result, focusing attention on overall participation rates amounts to examining the tip of the iceberg. It's equally important to understand how student engagement (including HIP participation) varies within your institution. The High-Impact Practices report provides an initial look at how HIP participation varies by selected student characteristics. The Report Builder and the Major Field Report offer further perspectives on internal variation and can help you investigate your students' HIP participation in depth.

References

Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

National Survey of Student Engagement (2007). Experiences that matter: Enhancing student learning and success—Annual Report 2007. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research.

High-Impact Practices