Topical Modules are brief sets of questions focused on specific topics such as Civic Engagement, Inclusiveness & Engagement with Cultural Diversity, Mental Health & Well-Being and more, integrated into the core NSSE survey. Modules enable a more in-depth exploration of key areas tailored to your campus’ needs. There are currently twelve topical module options to append to the core survey.
The Topical Module Visual Roadmap was designed to assist institutions with how to approach and facilitate the module process to get the most out of their Topical Modules.
Step 1: Choose Your Topical Module
Decide which modules would be most beneficial for your institution.
- The NSSE Core survey would complement your module choice topics.
- For instance, the quality of interactions with advisors pairing with the Academic Advising Topical Module, etc.
Consider your ideal goal of these decision-makings:
- Initiatives & Growth – Consider what insights or ongoing trends and initiatives the Topical Module could provide (Accreditation, Benchmarking, etc.)
- Strategic Planning – Strategic plans tend to guide the selection of specific Topical Modules
- SACSOC Quality Enhancement Plans (QEPs) - Modules play a crucial role in QEPs and Accreditation by specifically improving education quality of your students in twelve module options.
- QEPs lead to improved student learning outcomes and even more eligibility for federal funding and support for your institution.
- Requests – Consider taking requests from institutional leadership, setting an agenda to discuss the modules early on in the Fall semester, and assessing how your Topical Module can help a new functional area with a project.
- Consider the Stakeholders – Stakeholders can be very helpful in the decision-making process. They are pivotal key players in identifying areas of improvement, assessing effectiveness for your institution, and even providing valuable insights into the experiences and perceptions of how your choice in the Topical Module could help.
Our Partnership Model provides resources on services and Special Research Projects for effective educational practice.
- Consultations: Provide guidance on interpreting NSSE data, empowering your institution, implementing strategies for student success, and presenting at workshops to support data-driven improvement.
- Technical Services & Educational Programming: Coordinate survey administration, deliver customized workshops/webinars, present at conferences, and create resources to foster data use and enhance student engagement.
- Assessment & Research: Partner on assessment initiatives, produce reports, conduct focus groups, engage in research to improve educational practices, and support underrepresented student populations.
Step 2: Promote Your Topical Module
Each institution should evaluate its campus culture and identify effective strategies to engage students in discussing and improving their student outcomes, behaviors, etc. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to boosting student participation, below are items to keep in mind:
Tips: Know your audience, involve faculty and staff, incorporate technology, offer incentives, include students, use social media, and later disseminate results widely to stimulate action.
- Develop a Comprehensive Marketing Plan: Create a detailed promotional campaign that utilizes various media channels to reach students. This could include crafting a brochure or a promotional video.
- Design Engaging Promotional Materials: Produce visually appealing materials such as posters, flyers, and social media posts that highlight the importance of NSSE and the benefits of participation.
- Leverage Multiple Communication Channels: Utilize diverse platforms—including campus websites, learning management systems, and social media—to broadly reach and engage across different student demographics.
Communicate with your key players involved in determining your NSSE Topical Module selections. Consider the Stakeholders again from Step 1.
- Seek to collaborate with higher education organizations, foundations, intermediaries, institutions, and scholars to enhance assessment, research, and the use of student experience data in driving transformation within postsecondary education.
You might also have questions about the frequency of response rates. To maximize the number of respondents effectively and ethically, steps to consider include:
- Consider your campus culture, acceptable practices, and unacceptable survey promotion practices.
- Acceptable practices include guaranteed incentives, press releases, videos, multiple reminders, setting up tables in the student center or union, placing signs on campus buses, and more.
- Consider the IRB ethical considerations in your survey research.
A Comprehensive NSSE Student Recruitment System includes diversifying your recruitment approach
Step 3. Analyze
Analyzing and displaying your results. Let’s understand where and how the data aligns with your institution by reviewing the different types of data you receive.
Your institution’s data file will include data from the main survey, as well as data from the topical module(s) selected.
- Consider analyzing your open-ended comments. This allows your students to share feedback freely.
You can use a variety of different statical software to analysis your data, such as SPSS, R, Stata, Mplus, and etc.
- Once you analyze through the statistical software, you could explore topical areas of engagement by student characteristics, computing engagement indicators, and creating other scales (satisfaction, sense of belonging, and/or perceived gains).
- Consider Step 1, what are you looking for from the data? Remembering previous discussions and goals of the chosen topical module.
- This could influence how you could break down your analysis if you were focusing on certain demographics or goals such as strategic planning or accreditation
Explore the NSSE Worksheet Templates that asks you to guiding questions on analyzing your data
Inclusive Analysis: To ensure meaningful insights, consider disaggregating your Topical Module results to better understand the experiences of different student groups.
- Pay special attention to small populations—such as transfer students, first-generation students, or students from underrepresented backgrounds.
- Rethink your comparison groups—rather than defaulting to broad institutional benchmarks, consider peer institutions with similar student demographics or internal comparisons across different subpopulations.
- Aggregate your data responsibly, balancing the need for summary insights with the importance of highlighting diverse perspectives.
Refer to our Partnership Model in Step 1.
Previous institutions have used NSSE Topical Module data results to highlight the impact of their results.
- At the University of Colorado Denver, a team including the assistant vice chancellor for institutional research, associate deans, and other academic and student affairs staff used NSSE data to address academic advising goals, administering the Academic Advising Topical Module in 2013 to improve advising by providing tailored reports to each unit, with a subsequent goal to create more consistency in advising across units and among advisors.
- In response to 2015 Civic Engagement Topical Module results showing students felt The Universidad de Monterrey could better prepare them for active citizenship, a committee of faculty and student affairs staff identified over 15 experiences to promote civic engagement, set improvement goals, and revised initiatives, such as incorporating community and citizenship discussions into leadership development programs, with plans to assess the impact of these changes in future surveys.
- Academic Advising - In 2021, Youngstown State University participated in the Academic Advising module and saw first-year students responding positively to their perceptions of advising compared to YSU seniors and first-year students at peer institutions.
Campuswide Mapping is another great resource.
Step 4: Disseminate Results
Think about how sharing your Topical Module data will support your institutional improvement to create actionable change through worksheet templates, conceptual approaches, and more. How will your dissemination enhance education policy and practice? The options to consider are:
Consider sharing the specific and concise data with various leadership positions of your institution (Upper level: President, Vice Presidents, Provosts, etc.). Meeting with the key stakeholders as stated in Step 3.
- Meeting with your leadership could look like town halls, workshops, focus groups, or advisory committees to provide decision-making on the Topical Module results.
- Consider the many opportunities on your campus for sharing Topical Module NSSE results, for example, including monitoring academic standards (academic Advising) and even communicating with alumni (Career & Workforce Preparation Topical Module)
- Collaborate with others to see if your institution needs to share the whole data and result files. Remember your goals and outcomes from Step 1.
Collaborate with stakeholders, relevant committees, and departments to establish clear goals and actionable plans based on the NSSE results. Ensure that students, staff involved in the area, and campus representatives with an interest in the NSSE data are included in the communication process.
Hosting workshops, webinars, and small staff meetings to effectively communicate and discuss your Topical Module results. These sessions will encourage engagement and foster dialogue in providing module opportunities for your institution.
Refer to our Partnership Model in Step 1.
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