Marking its 20th year, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) shows positive trends, notably that the percentage of first-year students engaging with professors about topics other than coursework has increased as much as 10% from 2004 to 2019.
The latest survey shows that first-year students are now talking more with their professors about career plans and course topics outside class, and working more with faculty on activities outside coursework, compared with in 2004.
“This suggests that, by and large, faculty who teach first-year students have devoted more effort to having meaningful conversations with students outside of the classroom — a form of engagement that helps to socialize new students, promotes their persistence and facilitates their ongoing development,” said the survey. “It also suggests that institutions have intentionally structured orientations, career services, and support units to connect students to the resources they most need.”
Faculty and student views about these interactions are quite similar. There has been an increase of early interventions rather than leaving it to the students or waiting until a crisis point, said Dr. Alexander C. McCormick, director NSSE and associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Indiana University.
While interaction with faculty has gone up, the percentage of first-year students who spend more than 15 hours per week preparing for classes has also increased within the past 15 years.
This is good news for higher education institutions because NSSE analyses have also shown that the amount of time first-year students spend in academic preparation correlates with institutional retention and graduation rates.
For its latest survey, Engagement Insights: Survey Findings on the Quality of Undergraduate Education, NSSE, based at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Education, surveyed first-year and senior students in the spring of 2019. As many as 531 institutions, 40 of which were outside the U.S., took part.
