February

NSSE 2023 Survey Launches February 22

NSSE is pleased to announce that the 2023 survey administration will launch February 22. 

Quick facts on NSSE's 2023 administration:

  • 549 institutions have registered to participate, the most since 2020. 
  • More than 2 million students will be invited to complete the survey.
  • 468 (68%) of participating institutions elected to use at least one Topical Module.
  • 106 participating institutions are particpating in consortia. 
  • The most popular Topical Module chosen was Academic Advising (167 institutions).

To read more significant information to know about the NSSE 2023 survey launch and administration, including edits to the core survey, access to early raw data, experimental efforts, and the new Mental Health and Well-Being Topical Module, visit our recent blog post.

Annual Results 2022 Preview

Rebounding Engagement, Quality of High-Impact Practices, and Hot Topics in Higher Education

NSSE’s Annual Results publication—Engagement Insights: Survey Findings on the Quality of Undergraduate Education—is NSSE’s yearly dissemination of selected research findings and institutional stories that have broad relevance to the improvement of undergraduate education. It addresses timely issues in higher education, with special value for institutions that participate in NSSE. Beginning this February, it will be released in three installments. 

  • First, we present patterns of engagement and student time allocations, focusing on trends from 2019 to 2022 to explore shifts during the pandemic.
  • In the second story, we dig deeper into the quality of high-impact practices (HIPs), using data from the NSSE HIP Quality Topical Module to gain a more nuanced understanding of some HIPs. Parallel FSSE data also inform some of these findings.
  • Our third story discusses several current topics of interest and debate in higher education, concentrating on an experimental set of mental health items that was used in the development of a new Topical Module, BCSSE data from transfer and older students about perceptions of affordability and financial concerns, and transferable skills as an aspect of return on investment.

The first installment of Engagement Insights will be released in early February. Look for our email announcement then!

BCSSE 2023: Registration Opens March 1

Discover how first-year and transfer students are transitioning to life at your institution.

Common content regarding:

  • students' academic expectations
  • students' expectations to work collaboratively with peers
  • students' expectations regarding academic help-seeking
  • much, much more!

Learn more about BCSSE, like how much it costs, how data is reported, and where to register by visit the BCSSE webpage on our website.

Visit the BCSSE landing page

BCSSE results aid institutions in improvement efforts, such as:

  • academic advising
  • retention efforts
  • first-year program design and evaluation
  • accreditation self-studies
  • recruitment

NSSE Report Builder Updated with 2022 Data

NSSE recently updated its popular Report Builder tool with data from the 2022 administration. The Report Builder currently includes data going back to 2009, including data from all U.S. and Canadian participating institutions. 

The NSSE Report Builder is designed to target specific questions about normative patterns of engagement, such as "Do international students interact less often with faculty than their U.S. peers?" or "How do your first-generation students compare to those at other colleges and universities?". Through a simple series of steps, it walks users through the filter process, prompting them to query carious categories with the end result being a customized report.

Read more about the NSSE Report Builder in our recent blog post. In addition to further information, the blog post also offers access to a link for practice using the Report Builder and instructions for how to access your institution's 2022 data.

FSSE Continues Move to Interactive Reporting

The FSSE team is thrilled to continue to provide institution-specific, interactive Tableau dashboards to help clients make the most out of their FSSE administration! Carried over from their inauguration during the 2021 administration, these dynamic reports are easy to disaggregate with filters by faculty identity demographics, employment characteristics, and selected course characteristics, allowing for more intuitive engagement with FSSE data.

Institutions now have access to institution-specific dashboards for FSSE administrations from 2014 to the present. Designated institution contacts can find these dashboards in the Data & Reports Table on the NSSE Institution Interface. FSSE’s public data also now features a variety of aggregate visualizations that can be found on our website. As always, please reach out to us at fsse@indiana.edu with any questions you might have about this exciting update! 

Blog: NSSE Sightings

Involving Faculty in NSSE Recruitment

As institutions gear up for their NSSE administration, schools are exploring a variety of ways to increase student participation in the survey. One strategy schools can pursue that is not cost-restrictive is to involve faculty and staff on their campuses. 

stock photo of guy looking at three question marks

FAQ: Preparing NSSE Promotions

NSSE Project Services answers Frequently Asked Questions regarding promoting and customizing the NSSE survey experience.

Tips & Tricks to Customize NSSE 2023 to Your Institution's Needs

NSSE Project Services offers tips and tricks for customizing the NSSE survey to your institution's specific needs, whether it be during the 2023 administration or an administration in the future. 

Intersectionality and Sense of Belonging: Unpacking the Student Veteran Experience

Over the last decade, a concerted effort has been made to transition, support, and graduate student veterans through national and campus policies and improvements. However, few studies have examined student veteran engagement, belonging, and campus integration at a national scale.

New Content for NSSE 2023

NSSE staff focused heavily on reviewing the core questionnaire for the 2023 administration, with a critical eye toward inclusion and equity. In consultation with internal and external experts, we implemented a series of edits to help ensure that students see themselves reflected in response options and make the survey more relevant for today’s undergraduates.

group of students walking happily across campus

Seniors’ Plans for Unconventional Careers: How Creative Coursework and Creative Confidence are Related

The Journal of Education and Work recently published an article, co-authored by NSSE associate research scientist Angie L. Miller, exploring how exposure to creative coursework, as well as confidence in creative thinking, was able to predict students' plans for self-employment and starting a business.

Recent Webinars

More Than a Feeling: Suggestions for Exploring the NSSE Perceived Gains and Satisfaction Items

In this session, we review the NSSE High-Impact Practices and Engagement Indicators and the survey items that quantify HIPs and EIs on institution campuses, through perceived gains and satisfaction.

Teach Me How to NSSE! A Crash Course in Customizing and Promoting for Your Most Successful NSSE Administration Ever

In this session, we will review NSSE customizations and updates to our promotion guidelines that may help you increase participation at your institution.

HIP, HIP, Hooray! A Guide to Your HIP Quality Topical Module Results and Data

In this session we reviewed the module items, data, and reports, and offer guidance on interpreting results. As 2022 was the module’s inaugural year.

Lesson from the Field

Mapping HIP Participation (Clemson University)

For years, Clemson had wanted to reproduce a report that connects their NSSE data and disaggregates high-impact practices (HIPs) by student demographic factors based on the data that can be verified at the institution.

By engaging in its project ClemsonForward, Clemson was able to map, define, and identify data while also understanding where and who was engaging in this process and areas that needed improvement. This work entailed partial use of institutional-level data, partial use of programmatic-level data, and some good old-fashioned walking around campus to talk to those who had pieces of the student engagement puzzle. However, much of their data is not centralized which prevented from engaging in learning more about the HIPs that they were engaging in across their campus. They began this process by identifying the institutional scope of HIPs and conducted a two-part focus group with faculty and staff stakeholders. They also made use of the partial data they had and combined it with data that was available at their campus through various offices. The longitudinal aspects of this project was carried out with a entering cohort of students by identifying each students' involvement in high-impact practices each semester for the entire time they spent at the institution or for six years until they left the institution with or without a degree.

With an intent to provide a roadmap for other institutions to fully understand engagement and drive change on their campus, they decided to focus on activities that fit the criteria of high impact practices or better known as HIPs.

To learn more about Clemson’s case, including its 10-year strategic plan ClemsonForward and its goals, visit the NSSE Lessons from the Field webpage.

NSSE in the News

I can't afford to have an unpaid internship in college

Her Campus

The Roommate Lottery

Mary Christie Quarterly

Is The Workload Too Much For Student-Athletes?

Flagler College Gargoyle

IU advisors are instrumental to student success

Indiana University President Pamela Whitten

OU's freshmen seek help with coursework from many sources

Oakland University

A Rare Survey of Faculty Morale Shows That the Pandemic’s Effects Continue to Ripple

The Chronicle of Higher Education