National Survey of Student Engagement:

A Summary Report of Winthrop University Results for 2005

 

Office of Assessment

September 2005

 

Introduction

 

This report summarizes the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) completed by 570 Winthrop University students (377 First-year students and 193 seniors) in the spring of 2005. Winthrop was one of 529 (up from 473 in 2004) four year colleges and universities nationally that participated in the 2005 NSSE.   It is the only public university in South Carolina to have administered the NSSE each of the past five 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 2005 year was the sixth in which the survey was nationally administered and the fifth 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

http://www.nsse.iub.edu./

 

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 2005 Institutions and Respondents

 

The NSSE 2005 sample was comprised of more than 660,000 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 there are some items (e.g., regarding use of technology) on which web-based responses are more positive.

 

 

Profile of NSSE 2005 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 2005 Institutions

 

                                                                             NSSE 2005                    National

 

Carnegie Classification

Doc/Res-Ext                                                          11%                             11%

Doc/Res-Int                                                           8%                               8%

Master’s I & II                                                       47%                             43%

Bac-Liberal Arts                                                     19%                             16%

Bac-General                                                           15%                             23%

 

Sector

Public 4-year                                                          47%                             38%    

Private 4-year                                                         53%                             62%

 

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 selected as peer institutions, the third column represents the profile of students at all four year colleges and universities in Winthrop’s Carnegie classification, and the fourth column shows the profile of the entire national NSSE sample.

 

 

Table Two

NSSE 2005 Respondent Characteristics

Winthrop University