The Whitworthian

Issue date: 11/20/07 Last Updated: 11/29/07

Ninety percent of freshmen and 89 percent of seniors who took the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) last spring, said if they could start college again, they would attend Whitworth.

The NSSE results were released in early November.

Director of institutional research Gary Whisenand said the goal of the survey is to measure student perceptions of how engaged they are with the institution. The survey is a way to hold schools accountable, Whisenand said.
 
"The survey measures the degree of student satisfaction with the institution," Whisenand said. "Internally, it's a way for us to monitor what's happening at Whitworth."

According to the NSEE Web Site, 610 colleges and universities participated in the 2007 administration of the survey.

"The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is designed to obtain, on an annual basis, information from scores of colleges and universities nationwide about student participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development," according to the NSEE Web Site.

Whitworth participated in the survey in 2005 and 2007, according to the Web Site.

Whisenand said an e-mail was sent out to all freshmen and seniors last spring with a link to the survey. The survey was voluntary, Whisenand said.

He said Whitworth also decided to send out the survey to all juniors as well.

"We oversampled for internal purposes and included juniors as well," Whisenand said.

Wisenhand said the institutional research department can use the additional data to do extended analysis.

"By oversampling, we can do some analysis by majors, such as how students in major X perceive issue Y," Whisenand said.

He said Whitworth had a 69 percent response rate and more than 900 surveys were completed.

The average response rate for the 2007 NSSE was 36 percent, Whisenand said.

The survey has five benchmark categories and shows the median percentage response.

According to the survey, Whitworth scored better than its competitor universities in all five categories.

Whisenand said there was discussion following the release of Whitworth's 2005 NSSE survey results and that changes took place.

He said there has been some talk after the 2007 NSSE about being more intentional about assigning longer papers (20 pages or more).

Whisenand said he will probably be presenting the results to department chairs soon.

Whisenand said the survey compares Whitworth's results to other Christian universities, smaller master's degree institutions (with fewer than 200 students enrolled in graduate programs) and with all the schools that completed the 2007 NSSE.

"Comparative data between schools can be a little bit of a problem," Whisenand said. "It's [comparisons] always a little disconcerting."

Whisenand said Whitworth is mainly interested in comparing the results of the survey with the 2005 data.

The sponsors of the NSSE invited all participating colleges and universities to submit their statistics to be posted on the USA Today Web site, according to a Nov. 12 article on insidehighered.com.

USA Today published survey results from 257 colleges and universities, according to the article.

Whisenand said Whitworth chose not to participate in USA Today program because "we weren't sure how USA Today was going to use the information."

Whisenand said there was no advantage in participating in the program, since the report is accessible to the general public on the Whitworth Web site.

He said it is up to each particular institution to decide whether or not they will release their NSSE survey results.

Whisenand said prospective students want to be able to compare the institutions they are considering.

"There's a place for these things," Whisenand said.

Contact Julie Wootton at julie.wootton@whitworthian.com.

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