NSSE Survey Overview

Right now, one of the most popular methods of studying college quality, is known as the National Survey of Student Engagement. Its use has spread to more than 1,400 different 4 year colleges, using benchmarks to judge institutional quality against a national average in five different categories: How challenging the academics are. How much active/collaborative learning is used.

How much the students and faculty interact. How enriching the students find their education. How supportive the campus environment is for success.

Every year the survey collects data from hundreds of different schools in order to discover how much and what the students gain from attending that particular four year college, comparing them against "similar" institutions and providing information about what these schools could presumably do to improve the undergraduate experience. Once the data is collected, it's used to publish several papers and reports that serve as guides to the educational community, and is released to college students, parents, academic advisers and more to help them make decisions about colleges and college programs. Over 584 colleges currently support the survey yearly, with nearly 4 million students completing the survey since 2000.

Overall, it's been one of the most successful national survey programs ever created for the educational system.

In an article dated a little over two years ago, two researchers filed a report stating that the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) has been used incorrectly, and does not provide accurate enough data for it to be valuable in the research world. The researchers argue that the survey has several problems, including: Large Error Margins – The researchers argue that the error margins in these types of surveys are too large to compare against an accurate baseline, and may be providing these colleges with results that shouldn't correlate to action. Little GPA Correlation – The researchers also found that few of the categories seemed to correlate to GPA.

Only the question about enrichment in the educational experience seemed to compare favorably to a student's grade point average. Difficulty Learning Next Steps – Finally, the researchers argue that while the data may be interesting, it isn't actionable. They state that the data doesn't appear to give enough indication about what could be changed, how, or why, and whether or not it would have an effect on students' grades or quality.

The makers of the survey responded by stating they welcome the analysis and have in the past considered making changes to their own baselines to compensate, but in the end decided that these changes would not be meaningful.

Those that work in higher learning should recognize that even widely used national surveys could have their problems. The best way to improve your own college or school is to both utilize external research, like that of the NSSE, and also perform smaller surveys in house to understand more about student life as it directly relates to your university. Smaller studies are where you'll get the most accurate results and the ones that will help you make decisions as to the future of your university. But larger studies still have their place, and may be a useful tool for understanding your own educational system.