Sharing and Disseminating NSSE Results

Sharing NSSE Results

NSSE encourages public reporting of student engagement results in ways that serve to increase understanding of college quality and that support institutional improvement efforts. Many colleges and universities have made some or all of their NSSE survey results publicly available on their institutional websites. Find examples of institutional websites that display NSSE results in support of the assessment, transparency, and accountability initiatives in higher education.

Find recommendations for translating your institution's NSSE results into an accessible and accurate format in Guidelines for Display of NSSE Results on Institutional Websites.

Sharing Results with Prospective Students

NSSE provides institutions with a short report intended for prospective students and families, "A Pocket Guide to Choosing a College: NSSE Answers from Students". Results are paired with questions from the Pocket Guide. Institutions can feature this report on their Admissions pages, or create more institutionally specific materials. See a few examples of print materials that help prospective parents and students understand an institution's NSSE results and the relationship of college success to student engagement.

Good Ideas on Sharing Your NSSE Data

User-tested ideas for sharing results with faculty and students, administration and planning for dissemination, are featured here:

Formed “action team” of faculty and staff to spearhead administration and promotion and to help analyze results.
Hosted lunch to discuss findings with faculty.
Student ambassadors met with first-year courses and senior capstones to discuss impact and importance of participation.
Placed ads promoting survey and explaining results in campus paper.
Held a college-wide symposium on NSSE, with discussion groups.
Involved student affairs to promote survey administration and to solicit students for focus group to examine the survey results.
Put table tents with findings in dining halls.
Created “Get engaged!” t-shirts to give away at an all- campus NSSE forum.
Joined a consortium to get more responses to questions of interest to our institution (urban).
Passed out Nestle candy bars on flyers with a “Got NSSE?” campaign slogan reminding students to check their email for their NSSE invitation.
Inserted flyers on NSSE into graduating senior packets.
Chalked notice about NSSE on campus walkways; put ads in campus newspapers and streamers on campus computers in the InfoCommons and computing labs; put an article on the institution website homepage.
Pulled together a focus group of representatives from student-focused campus organizations.

Shared results and scheduled a time to meet with deans. Didn’t just send a report.
Provost required deans and faculty to submit plans for improving NSSE scores.
Added “group” variables to pop file, made it easier to identify group characteristics.
Discussed multi-year comparison in a retreat. Conducted trend analyses to check past years’ performance against actual performance (on benchmarks) and to set goals for next survey administration.
Involved marketing students in promotion of survey and getting student feedback.
Kept deans informed of administration process—their students in sample, templates of letters, when survey was in the field, and provided updates on their response rates throughout.
Created colorful brochure with graphs, tables of data of interest to campus, deans, VPs.
Formulated student affairs benchmarks to generate more interest in results.

Relevancy. What data is most compelling for your campus, units, departments, students, student affairs, deans? Tease departments or units with small sets of results, not the whole report.
What campus initiatives might benefit from NSSE data? Connect results to “hot issues” on campus and send to relevant groups.
How can you use comparison group data to motivate reflection and action on your results?
Can you look at your results relative to past performance
and absolute standards and commit to getting better?
What other institutional data can you link to NSSE results?

Working with NSSE Data: A Facilitators Guide

For more information, check out the NSSE Data User's Guide, a step-by-step instruction manual for institutional leaders who facilitate workshops or discussion sessions with campus stakeholders on understanding, interpreting, and taking action on NSSE data.

Sharing and Disseminating NSSE Results

Sharing NSSE Results

Sharing Results with Prospective Students

Good Ideas on Sharing Your NSSE Data

Sharing With Faculty And Students

Sharing With Administration

Planning For Sharing

Working with NSSE Data: A Facilitators Guide

Evidence-Based Improvement in Higher Education resources and social media channels