Thank you for your interest in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE, pronounced " nessie"). Our agreements with schools that participate in NSSE prevents us from reporting the results for individual colleges and universities. However, individual schools may provide their NSSE results if asked. In fact, many institutions have posted key findings from their students' responses to the survey on their institution websites. To learn more about a specific institution's NSSE results, we encourage you to visit their website or to directly contact the school’s admissions office.
View our About NSSE page to learn about what NSSE does, who is surveyed, how results are used, and the ways NSSE helps colleges and universities understand how their undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college. You may also be interested in our most recent Engagement Insights: Survey Findings on the Quality of Undergraduate Education.
Please explore our website further for valuable information on the college student experience. This page provides beneficial information about NSSE for the following audiences:
Students currently enrolled at colleges and universities who have been invited to complete the survey
Parents, students, high school counselors, and college admissions staff involved in the college search and decision-making process
Professional education and career counselors
FAQs for Students Invited to Participate in NSSE
College and universities participate in NSSE because they want to learn more about what their students think and how they can improve the undergraduate experience at their institution. Find out what students need to know when they receive an email invitation to participate in the survey.
The National Survey of Student Engagement is a survey specially designed for students like you to provide information about your undergraduate experience, including your views about the quality of your education and how you spend your time. The survey has a broad scope, with hundreds of colleges and universities of all types and sizes participating each year. But the main reason your school is participating is that it wants to learn more about what students think and do so it can improve the undergraduate program.
At most institutions, the survey is being completed by a random sample of students, but at selected institutions, all first-year students and seniors are being surveyed. As allowed for educational assessment purposes, your school gave us a file with the names and mailing or e-mail addresses of all eligible students. Theoretically, every first-year student and every senior at your institution had an equal chance of being chosen because the names were randomly selected from the list your school provided. The odds of being chosen depend in part on the number of students at your school. In general, the smaller the school, the greater the chance of being selected; the larger the school, the smaller the chance, unless your school chose to select all first-year students and seniors.
At most institutions, the survey is being completed by a random sample of students. For these institutions, this procedure ensures that every eligible student has an equal chance of being identified. This selection process increases the chance that survey results will be valid as long as enough students complete it. However, this procedure does not allow for adding people after the original group was identified from the list of students your school provided. At selected institutions, all eligible students will be surveyed. So, as you can see, it is very important that you complete the National Survey of Student Engagement, as it's not possible to ask someone else at your institution to take your place. Each individual response increases the confidence your school can have in its results.
The information from this study will be used in several ways. First, your answers will be combined with those of others at your school, analyzed and summarized in the aggregate. Your school will be able to examine the information in different ways; for example, to learn about the experiences of women and men or the experiences of students in different major fields. This is extremely valuable information because most schools do not have good information about how students spend their time and what they think of their institution. With this information in hand it is possible for people at your school to identify areas where, with some adjustments, the student experience can be improved. In other words, the more your school knows about its students and what they think of the institution, the more likely it is that faculty, academic and student life administrators and others can take appropriate action.
Another way the information you provide will be used is in comparisons with other schools that are more or less like yours. This isn't done very often, primarily because comparable information across institutions does not exist. Finally, a set of national benchmarks will be established for different types of institutions. A benchmark is a level of performance, reflecting an area of practice (in this case, educational practice) that potential consumers, customers, or others use to determine the quality of a product, service, or educational institution. The for-profit sector has used benchmarking practices for years and your answers to the National Survey of Student Engagement will allow your school as well as other colleges and universities across the country to do this.
Absolutely. One of the most important reasons to do this survey is so that your school discovers what you and other students at your college do and think.
Schools will use the information from The National Survey of Student Engagement in different ways. Most will share the results in summary form with faculty, staff, student leaders, and other groups that have a 'need to know' what it's like being an undergraduate at your school. Most colleges have an assessment committee that collects information about various aspects of institutional performance, including the student experience. Surely your school's assessment committee will analyze information from The Report very carefully and use it in their own reports and in future planning for other assessment activities.
Your college will also use the information in reporting to external authorities, such as regional accrediting agencies, which are responsibletothe general public for assuring quality in higher education. Your school may also share the results with other institutions in order to learn how your school compares. Finally, the information will be of keen interest to prospective students as it reveals what you and other students at your school do andthinkof their education. So, there are some very different uses, all important. Perhaps the most important is for your school to learn about you and your classmates, and where it should focus attention to improve.
Each year, hundreds of schools are involved in the survey. This is an annual study, so the information you provide will become part of a database that researchers will be able to use to compare your responses with those students in the future. These studies will look at the collective experiences of undergraduate students, not individuals.
Simply put, your school needs to know what you think of your undergraduate experience, the kinds of activities in which you engage, and how you are benefiting from your studies. Without this information, it's not very easy for faculty and staff at your institution to identify the areas that can and should be improved. And because you were randomly selected from among your classmates to represent your school, it's imperative that you make your views known. Unlike many other surveys, the National Survey of Student Engagement has a real chance of making a difference in terms of how people at your institution use the information. There is great interest in this study for two reasons. First, your institution chose to participate; it wasn't required. This means there are people who want to see the results. Second, there are numerous people beyond your school who would like to know how well your school is doing - prospective students, their families, alumni, and others. So, your answers - after they are combined with those of your classmates - will be read with interest by a wide variety of people.
You've heard the expression, 'think globally, act locally'? This is a national project with immediate local implications; thousands of students are getting the same survey. And people will be interested in what undergraduate students as a group think about their education. But it's also important that your school find out directly from you about your experience and then share what it learns through comparisons with other colleges and universities. This will, possibly for the first time, give your faculty and administrators an answer to the question: 'How well are we doing?
Survey results provideinformationyour school can act on quickly. Your answers combined with those of your classmates will identify areas that your institution can examine more closely. For example, compared with other schools like yours, do students have more or less meaningful contact with faculty? Do students at your school study more or less than students at other schools? Do you and your classmates think your school supports them in their efforts? Answers to these and other questions on this survey will pinpoint areas that need immediate attention. Finally, this survey differs from most others you get because what you say will become part of a continuing study that people at your schoolas well as hundreds of other colleges and universitieswill continue to use for the foreseeable future. So, your answers will not only help yourschool,but many others as well.
The project is located at Indiana University and is directed by Dr. Leonard Taylor. The Center for Survey Research at IU administers the surveys. These people are supported by dozens of others who help design, package, mail, and collect the surveys and then analyze and report the results to your school and the other participating colleges and universities around the country. These people were originally asked by a philanthropic organization, The Pew Charitable Trusts, to do this study.
For Parents and Students Making College Decisions
Our newly revised guide for parents and students, A Pocket Guide to Choosing a College: Questions to Ask on Your College Visits, is provided through school counselors, college admissions offices, and educational organizations. The guide suggests questions students and parents might ask when visiting a campus or exploring colleges online that can help them make the difficult choice of the institution that best fits the student.
English- and Spanish-language versions are available for download and free copies are provided to high-schools, colleges, and nonprofit educational organizations. Since June 2011, NSSE has provided 263,000 Pocket Guides and 14,000 Spanish language versions of the guide for use by prospective students and their families.
More detailed information in question-and-answer format targeted to parents and students on how NSSE survey results can be used in the college search process.
Individual schools may provide their NSSE results if asked. In fact, many institutions have posted key findings from their students' responses to the survey on their institutional websites. To learn more about a specific institution's NSSE results, we encourage you to visit the institution's website or to contact the admissions office of the school directly.
Please note that our agreements with schools that participate in NSSE prevent us from reporting the results for individual colleges and universities, but we hope that broader NSSE findings can help you consider what research shows about the characteristics of a quality undergraduate education, so that you can approach schools of interest with questions that will better prepare students and parents to make a decision.
National Survey of Student Engagement cited ashelpfulresource incollege decision makingprocess.
In a broadcast titled "Tough Choices for Colleges and Students," Minnesota Public Radio hosted a discussion on the new challenges and opportunities in financial aid created by the economic recession for parents and students navigating the college selection process. At one point in the program, Marty O’Connell, the Executive Director of Colleges That Change Lives, noted that parents and students needed to "think differently" and look beyond institutions with high-profile reputations to those colleges and universities with more "bang for the buck," ones that would support students to do their best work. She recommended the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) website as an excellent resource to help families take a "long view" of education as a "value for a lifetime," and explained that the NSSE survey asked important questions on critical and creative thinking, on writing and speaking well, and on how students "learn to adapt" to the college environment.
The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) can be helpful in several ways. For example, in the fall of each year NSSE prepares the Annual Results report. This document summarizes the major findings from student surveys about their experiences and the factors that are important to high levels of engagement, which is a good predictor of learning. Reviewing the Annual Results can give one a better understanding of the activities that should be a part of the undergraduate experience. You can interpret the results of the survey as standards for comparing how effectively colleges are contributing to learning.
"Best College" rankings are typically based almost exclusively on an institution's resources and reputation. Unfortunately, these rankings say little about the student experience. NSSE data focus on what is far more important to student learning -- how students actually use institutional resources for learning and how they feel about the quality of their educational experience. This is a much different and more accurate way to think about what to expect from a college than what rankings represent. In fact, the NSSE project has determined that a school's academic reputation, as judged by others, says very little about the extent to which active learning, student-faculty interaction, and a supportive environment characterize a campus.
According to Russ Edgerton, a national leader in education and the former director of the Pew Forum on Undergraduate Learning, "Students and parents should be asking colleges the kinds of questions NSSE asks. How much do students study and how rigorous are their assignments? How much writing is expected? How often do students interact with their teachers in meaningful ways?"
Following Edgerton's recommendation, you would do well to ask questions about the extent to which students typically engage in effective educational practices. We've listed a few questions below as illustrations.
1. Academics
Challenging intellectual and creative work is important to student learning. Better colleges and universities emphasize the importance of academic effort and have high expectationsoftheir students. To find out how challenging the academic programs are, ask:
How much time do students spend studying each week?
Do courses challenge students to do their best?
How much writing is expected?
How much reading is expected?
Do class discussions and assignments include the perspectives of diverse groups of people?
Are students expected to use numbers or statistics throughout their coursework?
How often do students make course presentations?
2. Learning with peers
Students learn more when they share what they are learning with others, and work with each other on assignments and projects. To find out how students collaborate in the learning process inside and outside of class, ask:
How often do students work together on class projects and assignments?
Do students help each other understand difficult material?
How often do students work together to prepare for exams?
How often do students interact with others who have different viewpoints or who come from different social or economic backgrounds?
3. Experiences with faculty
When students interact with faculty inside and outside of class, their teachers become role models and mentors. To find out how well students and faculty interact, ask:
Are faculty members accessible and supportive?
Do faculty members clearly explain course goals and requirements?
Do students receive prompt and detailed feedback on tests and assignments?
How often do students talk with faculty members or advisors about their career plans?
How often do students talk with faculty members outside class about what they are learning?
How many students work on research projects with faculty?
4. Rich educational opportunities
Experiencing a variety of educational opportunities makes learning more useful and meaningful. To explore opportunities for learning, ask:
How many courses include community-based service-learning projects?
What types of honors courses, learning communities, and other distinctive programs are offered?
How many students get practical, real-world experience through internships or off-campus field experiences?
How many students study in other countries?
What co-curricular activities are most common (performing arts, athletics, fraternities and sororities, guest speakers, etc.)?
5. Campus environment
Students perform better and are more satisfied when their institutions support them academically and socially. To discover how students view the campus environment, ask:
Do students use learning support services (tutors, writing center, etc.)?
How satisfied are students with academic advising?
How well do student services staff (career planning, student activities, housing, etc.) interact with students?
What healthcare, counseling, and other wellness opportunities are available?
How well do students get along with each other?
Are students satisfied with their overall educational experience?
Student engagement is an understandable, meaningful way of thinking and talking about collegiate quality. We hope that this information about NSSE is helpful to you in your college search process.
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