National Survey of Student Engagement's (NSSE) benchmarks – one size fits all?

Abstract

Purpose

Administrators of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) argue that the results from the five benchmarks, constructed from the survey's items, “produce a set of national benchmarks of good educational practice that participating schools are using to estimate the efficacy of their improvement efforts”. The objective of this paper is to show that any assessment of educational quality cannot be separated from students' expectations and goals.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are drawn from two sources: five years of NSSE data and Adelphi data. A quantitative approach was used to analyze the data.

Findings

While NSSE items are important indicators of experiences that certain types of students might be seeking and expect from their college, the benchmarks are supposed to provide an overall picture of colleges' educational practices.

Originality/value

This is an original work which was previously presented at the 2005 Northeast Association of Institutional Research annual conference.

Citation

Lerer, N. and Talley, K. (2010), "National Survey of Student Engagement's (NSSE) benchmarks – one size fits all?", On the Horizon, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 355-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/10748121011082653