Making NSSE Data Part of a Systematic Assessment Approach
The University of Denver (DU) has a tradition of administering the NSSE survey and Janette Benson, the Director of the Office of Academic Assessment, hopes to enhance the tradition by looking at new ways to utilize NSSE results. The oldest private university in the Rocky mountain region, DU serves almost 5,000 undergraduate students. Based on previous NSSE benchmarking results, the college has high levels of engagement in comparison with its peers. Benson believes DU’s NSSE results have the potential to provide the University with much more than comparative information.
Benson is enthusiastic about including analysis of NSSE results as one component of the institutions’ larger academic assessment plan. Drawing on her background as a cognitive developmental psychologist, Benson plans to disaggregate NSSE results. “We should be using NSSE as part of a direct assessment of what the University of Denver is doing on campus for different groups of students,” said Benson. As a faculty member and administrator, she is optimistic that she will help DU’s faculty continue to find value in using NSSE results to learn more about their students.
Institutional Research and senior administrators were particularly excited about DU’s 2008 BCSSE administration. Benson hopes participating in both NSSE and BCSSE will allow the University to collect longitudinal data on incoming students. She believes the institution could benefit greatly by looking at both students with low- and high-engagement scores in NSSE and examine their previous high school experiences and expectations for college.
In the future, Benson plans to examine the types of learning that occur in different educational programs at DU. She will begin by assessing some of the key features of general education unique to DU. Using evidence from the field of cognitive developmental psychology that suggests a higher level of learning goes on in areas where students have the most motivation and expertise, such as their majors, Benson hopes to dig deeper and break down NSSE results by major area of study. She believes the outcomes within the majors might be a better indicator of what students are actually learning.
NSSE comparison reports are a beneficial part of the overall NSSE survey results, according to Benson, and she uses them to benchmark DU’s performance against other schools. By making a commitment to incorporate NSSE into the overall institutional assessment plan, Benson and others will be able to use the data for more targeted analysis. She believes this approach will eventually help DU fully understand how to best educate students in accordance with its institutional mission.
