- What types of incentives do other institutions offer? What is the incentive/prize that students want the most?The most popular incentives NSSE institutions offer are gift cards, bookstore vouchers, and electronic devices. Please note each institution's population is different, so what may be considered a popular incentive on one campus may not be the desired prize on your campus.
- What tips can you give institutions who would like to increase survey participation without incentives?Institutions that choose not to offer respondents incentives can increase their survey response by developing a comprehensive promotional campaign. These campaigns are most impactful when multiple campus offices and stakeholders are involved in creating posters, advertisements, and social media promoting the survey, which includes posters and social media. Institutions that develop an effective NSSE promotional campaign can increase their response rates by 4 to 5 percent (Sarraf & Cole,2014).
- Any suggestions on what information to list on institutional NSSE promotional website? When providing information for institutional promotions we suggest you include the launch date of your NSSE administration, and any approved incentives you will be offering participants.
- What can institutions do when their initial survey invitation yields a low response rate? What are some tips campuses can use to increase response rates? Consider several things when your first recruitment message has garnered a low response rate. First, you should check your NSSE interface to ensure that there has been no issue with the delivery of your recruitment messages. If there has been an error with your messages, please contact your project services team for more help. Lastly, we know that many institutions wish to maximize their survey response rate; the following are a few practices you should consider:
- Customize your survey recruitment messages
- Posting flyers on campus
- Running a social media promotional campaign
- Including small, guaranteed incentives or an incentive lottery
- Sending multiple reminders to complete the survey
- Why is customization of the recruitment email important, to what degree can institutions deviate from the NSSE provide templates? Customization really is a chance to be able to “speak” to students on your campus and inform them about the importance of the survey. Through customization, institutions can better connect the survey's purpose to their intended audience. Please visit this link to learn more about customization.
- How do institutions internally send messages to students to promote NSSE? Each registered institution has access to the NSSE interface, which allows them to download and customize three additional recruitment messages. These NSSE IRB-approved messages can be adapted to your campus needs and sent internally and sent as pre-survey announcements or additional reminders
- What types of campus-wide advertising is permitted?NSSE supports a wide range of promotional efforts to encourage participation in your survey administration, such as; social media, posters, and screensavers. Please note that as of 2022, All participating institutions’ promotional materials will be submitted for IRB review except when these materials closely follow IRB pre-approved content. Please visit this link to learn more about promotions.
- Help with LMS integration (Canvas, specifically) Info on adding the links to LMS/student dashboards? Learning Management Systems portals are a great way to supplement email recruitment, this allows institutions to post unique links to their student portal and/ or LMS (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle etc.). Because portal applications are typically customized when adopted by campuses, and because there are so many applications in use, NSSE staff cannot provide technical support for how to post links. It is therefore critically important that campus contacts managing NSSE connect with colleagues in IT on your campus several months before the survey launch to determine feasibility for posting links. Please visit this link to learn more about LMS technical advice.
- Who should be included in your population file? Please refer to the instructions on the institutional interface regarding instructions for creating your population file. All first-year and senior (i.e., those in the final year before degree) bachelor’s degree-seeking students are included in NSSE population files, not just traditional 18- to 24-year-old students enrolled full time. Include adult learners, part-time students, commuters, and online-only students, provided they meet first-year or graduating senior credit hour requirements. • Include data from all campuses and institutions sharing the same IPEDS number. • Campuses with distinct IPEDS numbers must administer NSSE independently.
- Can you update the population file after the customization period closes? Yes, emails will be sent out to make updates on the population file before collection of data begins in the Spring semester. While updates can be made to the population file to mark students who are ineligible, no new students can be added to the existing file.
- What are the major NSSE deadlines? December 2 – Customization deadline
