National Survey of Student Engagement

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), referred to as “nessie,” is a survey of college freshmen and seniors designed to assess how involved students are in practices associated with high levels of learning. The survey is intended to be useful for institutional improvement and for public accountability. Because it is a national survey it provides comparison information of institutions. Questions fall into three broad categories.

• Institutional actions and requirements: specific items about curriculum (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. WCU’s administration of the NSSE was entirely web-based.

PASSHE Consortium

A majority of the institutions in the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education (PASSHE) created a participated in 2008 NSSE administration as a consortium. WCU is one of the PASSHE consortium participants. Consortium participants were allowed to include 20 additional questions on topics not covered by the core NSSE survey, for example, advising and course availability. Therefore, the summary of our NSSE results included information that is not part of the regular NSSE survey.

Selected sample of NSSE results at WCU:

NSSE 2008 Pocket Guide Report (PDF)

Using NSSE Data in Student Affairs (PPT)