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National Survey of Student Engagement: CU-Boulder 2000
Introduction
In spring 2000 the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) participated in a national administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The NSSE was developed as an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts and is administered by a team at Indiana University. It is designed to assess best practices in educational quality and to provide meaningful benchmark data. A total of 276 colleges and universities, including 15 AAU public institutions, participated in spring 2000.
Samples of UCB freshmen and seniors were invited to participate in the survey; 346 freshmen and 572 seniors completed surveys on the web for an overall response rate of 40% (43% for freshmen and 38% for seniors).
Population and Sample:
The population included the following:
- Freshmen - all first-year freshmen who started at UCB in summer or fall 1999 and who were continuing freshmen in spring 2000 (N=4,284)
- Seniors - all undergraduates enrolled spring 2000 who were within 12-24 hours of graduation in spring or summer 2000 (N=4,785)
Students on Study Abroad and students who requested a privacy flag on their records were removed from the population file. This file was sent to NSSE for sample selection. NSSE selected a random sample of 800 freshmen and 800 seniors to participate in the survey. An additional 700 seniors in the 20 largest majors (e.g., economics, psychology) were oversampled to allow us to characterize these majors separately. For seniors analysis, we have weighted the data to compensate for oversampling and for differential response rates within majors and schools/colleges.
Contact method:
Administration:
| Date | Activity |
| March 9, 2000 | UCB sent e-memo to all students included in the population alerting them to their possible selection in the NSSE sample. E-memo urged all students selected to participate. |
| March 13-14, 2000 | Invitation letter from CU-Boulder Chancellor Byyny sent to all students selected to participate; letter sent electronically by NSSE staff at Indiana University. Web address for survey included in the letter. |
| April 10, 2000 | Second letter sent electronically to all nonrespondents. Second letter included an incentive for responding -- $20 to 50 of the first 100 who responded. [A $500 lottery for early responders was also added.] |
| April 19, 2000 | Follow up e-mail reminder sent to nonrespondents |
The NSSE is different from many other survey instruments used in higher education settings in that it focuses on student outcomes and best practices for delivering a high quality education rather than on student satisfaction.
Items included on the NSSE fall into three broad categories:
- Institutional actions and requirements: specific items about curriculum, faculty behavior (research projects, writing, reading)
- Student behavior: time spent in/out of class doing various things
- Student reactions to college: Students' perceptions of quality of own experiences
Items selected for inclusion in the questionnaire relate to student outcomes, are useful for prospective students, and are straight-forward enough that they are easily interpretable by a lay audience.
The NSSE is available in web and paper format. Universities and colleges participating in the spring 2000 administration could choose web-only, paper-only, or web + paper formats. We selected web only at UCB.
In addition to the NSSE survey items, seven of the AAU public institutions administered a common set of 20 additional items.
Last revision 03/28/06
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cb - l:\ir\survey\nsse\00\report\methods.doc.htm last updated 1/24/01