NSSE continues to collaborate with CILA and has arranged for NSSE to be used with the 2009 cohort of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNSLAE), a longitudinal project to assess liberal arts outcomes. The project aims to explore not only whether and how much students develop because of their collegiate experiences, but also why and how this development takes place.
NSSE's involvement in this project provides the potential for exploring the relationship between engagement and a variety of outcomes measures, such as critical thinking as measured by the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Critical Thinking Test, and moral reasoning and character as measured by the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). Findings from the first year of the WNSLAE show promising results regarding the relationship between effective educational practice measured on NSSE and key outcomes assessed in the study. NSSE and the WNSLAE research team are conducting further analyses of NSSE data and key outcomes to support cross-validation activities.