Empowering Institutional Stakeholders to Convert NSSE Results into Action: Diversity, Student Affairs, Faculty, Communicating Results
The University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW), enrolls over 10,000 undergraduates who pursue 73 baccalaureate programs and, for over 10 years, has been recognized as one of the top public universities in the South. A recent conversation with university leaders from institutional research, academic affairs assessment, and student affairs assessment revealed how this institution has empowered various stakeholders to use NSSE results to take meaningful action in their respective areas. For UNCW executive leadership, NSSE provided a snapshot of student engagement at the university as well as a comparison of UNCW students with self-selected peers. Assistant Vice Chancellor, Lisa Castellino, who coordinated NSSE administration and oversaw the dissemination of findings, discovered that visually representing NSSE results was highly effective for large and varied audiences. Castellino used graphics to cluster UNCW results on the five NSSE benchmarks and to represent its survey scores as compared to peer institutions. She used arrows to indicate whether the institution’s mean was above or below their comparison groups and different colors to denote the strength of differences. Her visual presentation of findings along with a summary of areas of strength, progress, and mixed performance helped make the data easily understood by all campus audiences.
The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment at UNCW recently made NSSE data available through a secure server. The Office had been challenged to respond to various requests by university assessment experts for specialized analyses of NSSE data. By providing server access to NSSE data, campus assessment professionals were enabled to conduct their own analyses related to specific functional areas. NSSE data has now become a living resource for decision making in the university. Future plans include providing access to multiple years of NSSE data and adding more UNCW-specific information, such as student residence, academic major, grade point average, and standardized test results.
Additionally, the Division of Student Affairs has used NSSE data as an impetus for improvement in the areas of advising, diversity, and co-curricular activities. In an initiative focused on career planning and advising, the Division found that survey responses from students of color and those majoring in physical sciences and engineering indicated that they were less likely to consult with faculty or advisors about their career plans. The Division recruited more career advisors of color, developed a mentoring program for minority students, and increased staffing to reach out to physical sciences and engineering majors. NSSE results related to diversity also showed variation in the frequency that students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds participated in conversations with diverse peers.
These findings prompted the Division to host diversity workshops and conferences, to increase support for select subpopulations, and to create new staff positions for advising multicultural organizations and conducting multicultural programming. Finally, NSSE findings and other feedback led to a UNCWeekends campus initiative to increase co-curricular engagement.
The Watson School of Education at UNCW has used NSSE data to develop summary reports that compare student engagement results in individual departments with all other students at the university. NSSE data on diversity have also been made available to the Watson School Diversity Committee. These data were used as part of the basis for discussions in the diversity committee that led to the planning and implementation of a diversity showcase. By combining and averaging three years of NSSE results, academic departments with smaller majors had additional respondents, which provided more reliable measures. These reports, organized around the five NSSE benchmarks, offered descriptive summaries and item level frequencies for first-year and senior students. While NSSE findings are becoming more integrated in the decision making process, the response rate seems to be an obstacle to overcome for academic units like the Watson School of Education.
