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 The
second round of a new assessment of college and university quality has
confirmed its original finding: "There's an educational advantage
to small size," says George D. Kuh, director of the National Survey
of Student Engagement (NSSE). Not all small schools score higher on NSSE
than large universities, says Kuh, a professor of higher education at
Indiana University at Bloomington, but their size gives them a built-in
edge.Liberal arts colleges also generally outscored other institutions in the first year. The second year findings, which, Kuh says, are in line with the first year's, were released November 14. Last year, nine CIC schools ranked high on the list, including Elon University (NC) and Sweet Briar College (VA), which were rated "exemplary institutions." Kuh presented and discussed some of the findings from the new survey during his keynote address at the Council of Independent Colleges' Institute for Chief Academic Officers (see story) . The survey, conducted among 155,000 students at 470 institutions over two years, gauges the extent to which colleges encourage learning by scoring responses to 40 questions. It measures five benchmarks of effective educational practices: level of academic challenge; amount of active and collaborative learning (class presentations, group projects, tutoring, etc.); interaction with faculty members; access to enriching educational practices (internships, study abroad, etc.); and level of campus support (help in coping with nonacademic responsibilities, support for social life, etc.). Last year, liberal arts colleges outpaced other institutions in every benchmark except supportive campus environment. At a time when "most campuses are pretty splintered" between academic and student life personnel, notes Kuh, a less obvious benefit of NSSE is the intuitive acceptance of the five benchmarks by people on and off campus because of their common-sense appeal. He calls them "a common language that can foster collaboration on campus."  Kuh
points out that institutions can, if the students surveyed consent, check
the transcripts of the students surveyed against their answers to see
if students in different majors have quite different experiences in benchmark
areas. If so, the institution can explore whether it is something in the
curriculum that accounts for this. Low or disappointing NSSE scores serve as a diagnostic tool for schools, he says. "It can't tell you exactly what you were doing wrong, but it can tell you where student experiences are not comparable to peer institutions or not meeting a school's own expectations." Campuses are following up on NSSE findings about their students. In preparation for his address at the Council's Institute for Chief Academic Officers, Kuh recently surveyed a number of CIC member campuses to see what use they were making of the results. "Everyone said, 'we're going to use it in our strategic planning, we're going to use it in our accreditation reports'," Kuh noted, adding that many schools have turned the findings over to their assessment or retention committee. While there has hardly been enough time since receiving NSSE's first findings for schools to make major changes, many CIC schools reported the findings had provided evidence solidifying plans for reform. For example, at Juniata College (PA), freshman scores on NSSE were somewhat disappointing. Because many Juniata freshmen take large lecture classes in introductory chemistry and biology where there is little student participation, several science faculty members decided to experiment with technology that allows immediate student feedback. During a lecture, a professor can pose a multiple choice question to see if students understand a concept; they press an infrared device to answer. The technology is being tried in courses in four fields. Provost James Lakso says the experiment "might have happened anyway," but the NSSE findings were a spur. He said that NSSE confirmed something that Juniata has said about itself for some time, that the college "is both challenging and supportive." Lakso also noted that it demonstrated that Juniata's effort starting in 1995 to become a more "writing intensive" college had succeeded. At Columbia College (SC), NSSE results influenced plans to redesign the core curriculum. Columbia had planned two interdisciplinary "signature" courses for freshmen, but after reviewing the NSSE results, decided to go beyond the first year in redesigning general education. It added "learning communities" built around all members of a class studying a common topic, with juniors choosing either a service-learning experience or a mentoring relationship with community leaders, and a senior "capstone" experience ranging from an internship to a special class in the major. These three innovations "were being considered, but were brought to the forefront for all faculty by the NSSE data," says Columbia Vice President Linda Salane. Another small school that asked not to be named performed very well on four benchmarks but poorly in terms of a supportive campus climate. "NSSE corroborated what the dean and provost already knew" from exit interviews with seniors, Kuh says, but the bad news succeeded in arousing the faculty, which is trying to figure out how to improve things. NSSE also revealed that students are studying less than half as much as faculty believe they should. "The old rule of thumb," says Kuh "is students ought to spend two hours outside class [preparing] for every hour they spend in class." In fact, they report spending at best one hour and more than 20 percent of freshmen and seniors report frequently coming to class unprepared. "How can faculty allow that to happen?" asks Kuh. "What is the responsibility of the faculty member for holding students accountable for being prepared, or doesn't it matter? Moreover, how can you graduate from this place with a 3.5 GPA or a 3 point even and frequently come to class unprepared?" Kuh says there's an explanation for why faculty let students get away with studying so little. He calls it "the disengagement compact, which is, 'You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. The more I require you to work, the harder I have to work.'' Independent |
