Last month, Queen’s launched the 2019 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) for first- and fourth-year students.

 

The NSSE measures student behaviour and institutional practices, inside and outside the classroom, associated with positive learning outcomes. The survey is administered among first and fourth-year students in first-entry undergraduate programs.

 

“The NSSE survey helps the University to get a snapshot of the student experience on a variety of measures, including faculty-student engagement and active and collaborative learning—two places where Queen’s is closely monitoring our progress,” Deputy Provost (Academic Operations and Inclusion) Teri Shearer wrote in an email to The Journal. 

 

Eligible students will have received a link to the survey through their Queen’s email in February. The core survey questions are designed to gather information pertaining to demographics, perceptions of the university environment and coursework, and estimates of educational and personal growth since beginning university.

 

For the past few years, response rates have hovered around 22 per cent.

 

The University will use the results of the survey to analyze a few key areas of their operations to effectively allocate resources to support increased student engagement learning activities. 

 

“NSSE scores are used to measure aspects of the Student Learning Experience in the university’s Strategic Framework,” Shearer said. 

 

Academic programs analyze their NSSE scores through the Cyclical Review Process, a system that tracks the “quality and enhancement of academic programs.”

 

Other individual programs use their NSSE results to monitor the success of any initiatives they have implemented to improve particular aspects of their students’ experience since the last survey.

 

Queen’s also uses results to determine how they compare to other post-secondary schools across the country. 

 

“The University closely monitors our annual NSSE results, in particular as they compare to similar programs at comparator institutions,” Shearer wrote. 

 

Beyond obtaining general information about the student experience, the University is hoping this year’s survey will provide feedback concerning the state of cultural diversity on campus.

 

“We chose to include an optional module on ‘Inclusiveness and Engagement with Cultural Diversity,’ which will provide us with an indication of how our students currently experience inclusiveness and cultural diversity,” Shearer wrote. “A comparison of the results of these questions over time will enable us to assess the effectiveness of initiatives to increase diversity and inclusion across campus.”

 

The survey will be available for completion until May 15.