National Survey of Student Engagement 2001 Data for Indiana University Bloomington

NOTE: Downloadable NSSE documents are linked in the text below. They are Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required to read PDF files—click here to download Acrobat Reader.) Printed copies of these documents are available from the Dean of Faculties office: dof@indiana.edu, 855-2809.

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is rapidly becoming an important means of evaluating undergraduate education in the nation’s institutions of higher education. It presents valuable information to the faculty and administration of an institution, and it is potentially valuable to prospective students and their parents in making an appropriate college choice.

The survey attempts to measure five benchmarks of an undergraduate college experience: Level of Academic Challenge, Active and Collaborative Learning, Student Interactions with Faculty Members, Enriching Educational Experiences, and Supportive Campus Environment. First-year students and seniors participate in the survey each year.

One product of the survey is the Institutional Engagement Index, which is based on a regression analysis for each of the student categories in each benchmark area. The dependent variable is the average benchmark score, and the explanatory variables include a broad range of institutional characteristics that might explain score variability. Based on this regression, predicted average scores can be calculated and compared with actual average scores. In the case of IU Bloomington, the actual scores are higher than the predicted scores in all categories.

A second product of the survey is the Institutional Benchmark Report, which provides a context for comparing the actual scores for a particular benchmark area with respect to the average of other institutions of the same type (IU Bloomington falls into the Doctoral/Research Extensive category of the Carnegie Classification), as well as the national average of all institutions. This report also presents a list of the items that are used to measure the 5 benchmark areas of effective educational practice.

Level of Academic Challenge is measured by 11 items on the survey and comparative data for each of these is presented in Table 1. Table 2, Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5 present a similar level of detail for the other 4 benchmarks.

A third product of the survey is a table of National Benchmark Deciles. This portrays where the IU Bloomington actual scores fall in percentile terms relative to the distribution of actual scores for institutions in the National category and the Res/Doc-Extensive category. As an example, note that if the bar on this graph extends through the 60% column, the IU Bloomington score falls between the 60th and the 70th percentile. Through this lens the IU Bloomington data based on senior responses to the survey is very positive, showing a relative advance (in some cases substantial) over those based on first-year student responses. An exception to this is Level of Academic Challenge, which although still above the median for seniors in our peer institutions, has fallen back from a 70th+ percentile position for first-year students.