NSSE

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is a survey designed to measure and gauge student participation at Champlain College. It is used by other colleges and universities throughout the United States to measure student engagement. The results help administrators and professors assess student engagement and understanding of the material.

In this web-based, quantitative survey, responses exist on a four point Likert scale for all questions. In the first question block, students rank their self-reported frequency of personal information use on a scale of (1) never; (2) sometimes; (3) often; and (4) very often. In the second and third question blocks, students rank how much their instructors emphasized proper information use and their experience at the institution’s contribution to effective information use from (1) very little; (2) some; (3) quite a bit; to (4) very much. For the first time, the college included the Experiences with Information Literacy module — an additional, optional module developed in collaboration with academic librarians.

At Champlain College, the NSSE Survey is conducted every three years during the students' first years and senior years, in rotation with the SSI Survey and MISO Survey; it has been offered for the following years: 2007, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018.

The NSSE survey is made up of four sections, each being modified to cover a different area of research:

• Pocket Guides (formerly Student Experience in Brief) (2009, 2012, 2015, 2018)
• Engagement Indicators (formerly Benchmark Comparisons) (2009, 2012, 2015, 2018)
• High Impact Practices (2015, 2018)
• Narrative for Champlain Community (2009, 2012, 2015 Summary, 2018)

The survey is used to gauge Student Engagement through the following interactions:

• Students' personal use of information. How often they have sought, used, and evaluated information in relation to assignments or course of study.
• Instructor emphasis on aspects of proper information use. How often their course instructors emphasized plagiarism, citation, source type, use of disciplinary conventions, etc.
• The institution's contribution to students' effective information use.

This data is used to analyze the following points:

• Individual Champlain cohort (first-years and seniors) responses and the distribution of their answers
• Comparison between Champlain first-years and seniors
• Comparison between Champlain students and their comparison groups

View past years' NSSE Reports (internal):

• NSSE Report, 2007 (Library)
• NSSE Report, 2009 (Pocket Guide) (Benchmark Comparisons) (Narrative)
• NSSE Report, 2012 (Pocket Guide) (Benchmark Comparisons) (Narrative)
• NSSE Report, 2015 (Pocket Guide) (High-Impact Practices)
• NSSE Report, 2018 (Pocket Guide) (Engagement Indicators) (High-Impact Practices) (Narrative)