National Survey of Student Engagement:

A Summary Report of Winthrop University Results for 2003

Office of Assessment

August, 2003

 Introduction

 This report summarizes the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) completed by 505 Winthrop University students (282 First-year students and 223 seniors) in the Spring of 2003.  Winthrop was one of 437 (up from 321 in 2001) four year colleges and universities nationally that participated in the 2003 NSSE.   It is the only public university in South Carolina to have administered the NSSE each of the past three years.

The NSSE project surveys undergraduates at four-year colleges and universities to assess the extent to which they engage in a variety of good educational practices.  The 2003 year was the fourth in which the survey was nationally administered and the third in which Winthrop participated.  The project is supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts and cosponsored by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and The Pew Forum for Undergraduate Learning.

The NSSE’s instrument, The College Student Report, consists principally of items related to institutional contributions to student engagement, important college outcomes, and institutional quality.  Questions pertain to both student perceptions of the extent to which the institution actively encourages student engagement as well as to student reports of actual behavior. A copy of The College Student Report may be examined on-line at www.indiana.edu/~nsse.

Major sections of this introduction were taken or adapted (with permission) from the NSSE Overview provided by the National Survey of Student Engagement project.

NSSE 2003 Institutions and Respondents

The NSSE 2003 sample was comprised of 348,000 first-year and senior students who were randomly selected from electronic data files provided by the participating four-year colleges and universities.  NSSE sampling procedures call for an equal number of first-year and senior students to be sent the survey with the standard sample size determined by the number of undergraduate students enrolled at the institution.  Students at the majority of colleges and universities, including Winthrop were asked to respond to a web version of the survey.  NSSE data indicate that mode of administration (web-based versus paper survey) has “little practical impact” on student responses, although these are some items (e.g., regarding use of technology) on which web-based responses are more positive.

Profile of NSSE 2003 Institutions

Table 1 below shows the degree to which NSSE participating institutions approximate the characteristics of the national profile of all four-year colleges and universities. The source of the comparative data is the 1999-2000 IPEDS database, the most recent complete data file available.

Table One

Profile of NSSE 2003 Institutions

                                                                             NSSE 2003                    National

Carnegie Classification

Doc/Res-Ext                                                          10%                             11%

Doc/Res-Int                                                           9%                               8%

Master’s I & II                                                       45%                             43%

Bac-Liberal Arts                                                     19%                             16%

Bac-General                                                           17%                             22%

Sector

Public 4-year                                                          42%                             37%    

Private 4-year                                                         58%                             63%

Table 1 shows that NSSE schools generally mirror the national profile of four-year colleges and universities.

Profile of NSSE and Winthrop Respondents

Table 2 below shows selected respondent characteristics.  The first column represents Winthrop first year and seniors who responded to the survey; the second column represents the profile of students at four-year colleges and universities in Winthrop’s Carnegie classification,  and the third column shows the profile of the national NSSE sample.

Table Two

NSSE 2003 Respondent Characteristics

Winthrop University

 Sample Response Rates and Sampling Errors for NSSE 2003 and Winthrop

 The average institutional response rate for NSSE 2003 was 43%.   Winthrop’s response rate was 37%.  However, it should be noted that this response rate indicates the percent of student sampled that responded, not the percent of the relevant student population.  The numbers of Winthrop respondents was very substantial for an institution of our size.  The 2003 Winthrop sample consisted of 1370 students (696 First-year students and 674 seniors). 

 Estimated sampling errors are given below.  These are an estimate of the margin by which the true score on a given item could differ from the reported score (e.g., due to differences between the sample and the total population of students).  To interpret the sampling error, assume that 60% of respondents answer “strongly agree” to an item. If the sampling error is +5%, then there is a 95% chance that the true population value is between 55% and 65%.
 

Sampling Errors

                                                            Winthrop University                                 NSSE 2003

Overall                                                             3.7%                                                    0.3%

First Year                                                         5.0%                                                    0.5%

Senior                                                              5.6%                                                    0.5%

Winthrop University Results

 The following table summarizes the 2003 results for Winthrop students.  The table includes the following:

 Variables

 The items from The College Student Report appear in the left column in the same order they appear on the instrument.  Response set values are also provided to help you interpret the numbers.

 Mean

 A mean is an arithmetic average of all responses on a particular item.  Means are provided for Winthrop, for other institutions in our Carnegie Classification, and for the NSSE national sample.

 Class

 Responses to each item are reported for first-year students and seniors.

 Statistical Significance

Items with larger mean differences than would be expected by chance alone are noted with one, two, or three asterisks, referring to three significance levels (.05, .01, and .001). The smaller the significance level, the smaller the likelihood that the difference is due to chance.  Please note that statistical significance does not guarantee that the result is substantive or important.

(Please note: if you are viewing an electronic version of this report you may need to enlarge the font size or download and print a hard copy in order to see the asterisks and thus interpret the significance levels).

Effect Size

Effect size indicates the “practical significance” of the magnitude of the mean difference.  It is calculated by dividing the mean difference by the mean standard deviation of the comparison group with which the institution is being compared (Carnegie classification or national sample).  In practice, an effect size of .2 is often considered small, .5 moderate, and .8 large.  A positive sign indicates that Winthrop’s mean was greater, thus showing (in most cases) an affirmative result for the institution.  A negative sign indicates the institution lags behind the comparison group, suggesting that the student behavior or institutional practice represented by the item may warrant attention.  An exception to this interpretation is the “coming to class unprepared” item where a negative sign is preferred (i.e., meaning fewer students reporting coming to class unprepared).  For some items (e.g., time spent providing care for dependents) results are not necessarily “positive” or “negative.”