National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) – Good or bad?

A few years ago when there were calls for increased accountability coming from multiple places, including the U.S. Department of Education, one response was to point to the assessment of student engagement using the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The NSSE results were cited as an example of accountability for outcomes. It always seemed to me that we had lots of proxies for outcomes: completion rates, assessments of writing and critical thinking, student satisfaction and then engagement. But, we have almost no examples of measuring learning at the program or major level. That is why our work with Transparency by Design and the Web site http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org places such emphasis on articulating intended program-level learning outcomes, measuring whether those outcomes are achieved, and reporting this to prospective students. We also report on NSSE data, alumni satisfaction, current student satisfaction and more because we think that the intended user of our site – the prospective adult student – should have access to a range of information. If the Web site is to be useful, it should offer various types of information, and the student can decide which information is most important and useful to them.

NSSE data has just been released. But so has a critical study. The study says that the NSSE is seriously flawed and has doubtful validity. I will leave it to those better prepared to assess whether or not the instrument is valid to determine if the criticism is sufficient to reduce the use of, or reliance on, NSSE. But, I find a quote attributed to Stephen R. Porter, author of the critical report, to be most telling: “The promise of a survey instrument that can quickly and relatively cheaply provide an alternative to actually measuring learning has, not surprisingly, been alluring to many colleges.”

Isn’t it time to stop relying on proxies in order to avoid the more difficult work of measuring actual learning outcomes? And, not just measuring writing and critical thinking, but also program-level learning outcomes? After all, isn’t the production of learning outcomes what we are supposed to be doing? Engagement is good, but it is a proxy. Let’s get to work on the real thing—like we are starting to do with Transparency by Design.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike