Custom Reports to Shape Expectations for Student Engagement
Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa, has reviewed their 2013 results and drawn critical questions about how results align with expectations for student engagement, and has used these findings to prompt discussions about where they want their students to be. In order to better communicate their NSSE data and to translate results into something that would encourage change and action at the college and school level, the university disaggregated the data and created reports for colleges and schools. In addition to recreating many of the NSSE aggregate reports, they also recreated their NSSE Snapshot, highlighting the top five items in which each department or college excelled and the five areas in which they were below their peer comparison groups.
For initial analysis, they used the NSSE Report Builder to do some benchmarking and to create a structured report for each college and school. With the Report Builder, first, the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment ran analysis by undergraduate major and exported the data to Excel. From there they created a template, so that the reports could be easily replicated across all of Drake’s many colleges and schools. They programmed each spreadsheet to automatically highlight cells with the five top and five lowest items for first-year and senior students. These custom reports focused on comparative data in two ways—national benchmarking based on major field and internal benchmarking with Drake students in different colleges. For some of the colleges and schools, they also disaggregated the data to align with the outcomes areas for the college or with disciplinary accreditation standards.
To share the reports, staff from the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment set up face-to-face meetings with deans and associate deans to discuss and present the data. Disaggregated results by major were shared side by side with comparative data. The comparative data provided information for administrators to see how the results aligned with areas of need or current priorities and informed discussions about ways to both use and share the data. In response to these reports and meetings, several colleges and schools have taken action. For example, the College of Business and Public Administration has undertaken a review of their curriculum in order to enhance students’ development of writing skills. The School of Education and School of Journalism and Mass Communication have started a review of their curriculums to look for opportunities to enhance students’ development of quantitative skills. Additionally, these conversations led to support for the faculty senate to review the core curriculum and contributed to a recommendation to examine their developmental sequence for greater focus on integrative learning. Reports were also prepared at the institution level to share with several campus groups, including the faculty senate, dean’s council, and academic affairs council. Looking at their Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and NSSE results together, these groups observed an integrative learning gap for Drake students.
Drake’s NSSE Snapshot revealed that Drake students’ ability to take on diverse perspectives was low in comparison that of their peers. Specifically, while Drake students were comfortable experiencing different cultures, they were less comfortable discussing values with others and trying to understand somebody else’s perspective.
These results were shared with the Academic Affairs Leadership Group, which includes representatives from student life and the assessment committee. To address this issue, a group was tasked with looking at how discussions with diverse others could be addressed systematically in Drake’s core curriculum. Additionally, they are looking across other internal surveys and existing data to contextualize this discussion. Overall, in response to this issue, campus conversations have shifted to finding ways to better emphasize critical thinking and integrative learning.
Drake is also using NSSE data to examine effective practices that support student engagement and learning. The graphic display in Figure 2 was created to illustrate the positive gains in engagement at Drake related to participation in High-Impact Practices (HIPs) and mirrors an approach used in an AAC&U publication, Assessing Underserved Students’ Engagement in High- Impact Practices. The display offers an accessible way to discuss HIPs that influence student-faculty interaction with the goal of determining strategies for increased impact across the university. Using a combination of data triangulation, customized report creation, and sharing results with relevant campus committees, Drake has developed a clear picture of the student experience and where it can be enhanced.
