Speak Your Mind
The publication of a set of papers critiquing a widely-utilized national survey of college students, and the subsequent cancellation of an academic conference session aimed at discussing those papers, has caused quite a stir in the higher education research community. Many of the details can be found in newspaper coverage here and here , so these are just the highlights: There's a famous survey known as the NSSE (pronounced Nessie) the National Survey of Student Engagement. It is used by many colleges and universities to assess how their students experience college. The resulting data are also used by researchers who study topics such as how engagement relates to institutional resources, college graduation rates, etc. There aren't many such sources of data on the college experience, so the NSSE is a big fish in a tiny pond. For example, as states turn their attention to developing accountability metrics, some are considering NSSE metrics for that purpose. The stature of NS...