Will These Trees Ever Bear Fruit?: A Response to the Special Issue on Student Engagement

Abstract

to the special issue (fall 2011) on student engagement. For professional fairness, the Review has chosen to publish the response without external review. There is broad consensus that U.S. higher education needs to do better. Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners have called attention to a range of challenges: too many students enter college unprepared for college-level work, yet many developmental programs are little more than revolving doors; too many students who begin college never graduate, often accumulating considerable debt; the most rapid enrollment growth is among the groups that higher education has historically served least well-so institutions have

How Do We Know How Students Experience Higher Education? On the Use of Student Surveys

“…The key response to the criticism regarding the accuracy of self-reported learning gains is that surveyssuch NSSE-never claimed to collect precise responses about either learning gains or behaviours, but are based on the principle of a reasoned and informed judgement, which allows the institutions to use the data to screen major occurrences and major trends over time and across institutions (Ewell 2009;McCormick and McClenney 2012;Pike 2013). The criticism regarding the selection of "benchmarks" has been refuted by pointing out that major surveys rely on interviews and focus groups both in formulating and in pilot-testing the questions.…”

“…The criticism regarding the selection of "benchmarks" has been refuted by pointing out that major surveys rely on interviews and focus groups both in formulating and in pilot-testing the questions. The key focus of these qualitative appraisals is precisely to test participants' understanding and the consistency of interpretation of the questions (McCormick and McClenney 2012;Pike 2013). Pike (2013) notes that the primary use of student surveys is often ignored by the critics and that major validation lies in these surveys' appropriateness for institution-and group-level decision-making.…”

“…In the case of NSSE he offers empirical evidence that the NSSE benchmarks can be used to assess the extent to which an institution's students are engaged in educationally purposeful activities, and the extent to which colleges and universities are effective in facilitating student engagement (Pike 2013). Furthermore, several authors highlight that the survey benchmarks were designed so as to "represent clusters of good educational practices and to provide a starting point for examining specific aspects of student engagement" (Ewell et al 2011;Kuh 2001;McCormick and McClenney 2012;Pike 2013, p. 163).…”

A Conceptual Model on the Impact of Mattering, Sense of Belonging, Engagement/Involvement, and Socio-Academic Integrative Experiences on Community College Students’ Intent to Persist

“…are reflective of institutional practices and student and faculty behaviors; and provide colleges and universities with "actionable" data to improve the college student experience (Kuh, 2001;McClenney, 2007;McCormick & McClenney, 2012). As noted by Kuh and colleagues (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 2005), high levels of engagement are required to effect student success in college.…”

“…According to the leading proponents of the surveys, the CCSSE and NSSE were originally developed to provide faculty and administrators with information pertinent to effective educational practices bearing directly on student learning and retention (Kuh, 2001;McClenney, 2007;McCormick & McClenney, 2012). Moreover, the instruments are designed to permit institutions to conduct "relative comparisons" for groups of students within and outside the institution.…”