Indiana University Bloomington Getting Faculty Involved in the Student Engagement Conversation: The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement Presentation at the Assessment Institute Indianapolis, IN, October, 30, 2006 Thomas F. Nelson Laird, Susan D. Johnson Amanda Suniti Niskodé Indiana University Bloomington

QUIZ QUESTION: Faculty members expect students to study nearly as much as students actually reported: A) Twice B) Three times C) Four times

QUIZ QUESTION: Full-time faculty in the 2006 FSSE spent what percentage of their time teaching? A) 43% B) 55% C) 110% (Wow!!!) D) 60%

Overview Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) What We’ve Learned from FSSE Interesting findings and selected results How Institutions Can Use FSSE Examples of campus uses Combining NSSE-BCSSE-FSSE data sets Small Group Discussions

Assessing Student Engagement National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Annual survey of first-year students and seniors at four-year institutions that measures students’ participation in educational experiences that prior research has connected to valued outcomes Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) Parallel survey designed to measure faculty expectations for student engagement in educational practices that are known to be empirically linked with high levels of learning and development Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) Survey administered in the fall of students’ first year designed to measure students entering characteristics and the importance they place on student engagement

Why FSSE? Institutions sought ways to include faculty in the discussion of effective educational practices Several campuses demonstrated success with homegrown faculty surveys that paralleled NSSE IU Center for Postsecondary Research pilot tested a faculty survey in 2003 and launched in 2004 It is important to understand faculty expectations and perceptions as institutions seek to target areas of improvement

QUIZ QUESTION: What does FSSE help us learn? A) Faculty perceptions of how often their students engage in different activities B) The importance faculty place on various areas of learning and development C) Faculty’s opinions of the way students dress these days! D) The nature and frequency of interactions faculty have with students E) How faculty members organize class time F) Everything but C! ANSWER: F!

FSSE Survey Faculty perceptions of how often their students engage in different activities The importance faculty place on various areas of learning and development The nature and frequency of interactions faculty have with students How faculty members organize class time

FSSE Registration Four-year colleges and universities are eligible to take part if they are concurrently participating or have participated in NSSE in the previous year Online registration at www.fsse.iub.edu Can also link to FSSE registration after registering for NSSE at www.nsse.iub.edu Registration open until late September Institutions provide: Institutional contact information Estimation of the number of faculty to be surveyed

QUIZ QUESTION: Faculty Responses What makes it easier for faculty to respond to FSSE? ANONYMOUS to the Institution

FSSE Administration Third party administration--IU Center for Survey Research Faculty surveyed in the spring Institutions choose faculty to be surveyed Administered online as a web-only survey Survey options Course-based questions Typical student questions

Course-Based Option Each faculty member responds to questions about student engagement based on a course taught during the current academic year Questions have appeared on previous administrations of FSSE

Course-Based Option Key Question Please respond to the following questions based on one particular undergraduate course section you are teaching or have taught this academic year Level of students in your selected course section: Lower division (mostly first-year students and sophomores) Upper division (mostly juniors and seniors) Other (please describe)

Course-Based Option Example Question & Items About what percent of students in your selected course section do the following? (None, 1-24%, 25-49%, 50-74%, 75% or higher) Frequently ask questions in class or contribute to class discussions Frequently come to class without completing readings or assignments

Course-Based Option Example Question & Items How often do students in your selected course section engage in the following? (Never, Sometimes, Often, Very often) Receive prompt written or oral feedback from you on their academic performance. Have serious conversations in your course with students of a different race or ethnicity than

Typical Student Option Each faculty member responds to questions about student engagement based on the typical first-year student or senior taught during the current academic year

Typical Student Option Key Question During the current academic year, have you had more first-year students or seniors in your classes? More first-year students than seniors More seniors than first-year students I have taught neither first-year students nor seniors this academic year

Typical Student Option Example Question & Items About how often has the typical [first-year student, senior, student] done each of the following? (Never, Sometimes, Often, Very often) Asked questions in class or contributed to class discussions Come to class without completing readings or assignments Received prompt written or oral feedback from faculty on his or her academic performance Had serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity than his or her own

FSSE Reporting Frequency Distributions NSSE/FSSE Report Item-level frequencies NSSE/FSSE Report Student/faculty frequency comparisons for similarly worded items No institutional comparisons Annual Report (FSSE is a component of the NSSE annual report)

QUIZ QUESTION: FSSE 2006 In 2006, how many institutions participated in FSSE? A) 10  B) 934 C) 131 D) 57 ANSWER: 131 institutions!!! 20% doctoral, 45% master’s, 35% baccalaureate 52% private

FSSE 2006 Over 21,000 faculty respondents 46% women 16% faculty of color 23% Professor, 22% Associate, 25% Assistant, 22% Lecturer/Instructor, 7% other Average institutional response rate = 54%

What We’ve Learned from FSSE

Time Spent on Overall Activities FSSE National

Time Spent Preparing for Class Upper-division faculty members responses to how much time students are expected to spend and how much time students actually spent preparing for their courses How much time seniors reported spending preparing for class (from NSSE 2006) Faculty members expect students to study nearly twice as much as students actually reported Between the Physical Sciences and Education, difference in expectation nearly 2 hours, while difference in time spent by seniors a little more than half an hour Ed v bio

Students Don’t Always Meet Expectations: Time Studying

Time Spent Lecturing Across course levels, Biological/Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering faculty report spending a greater percentage of time (between 57% and 62%) lecturing while Education faculty spend the smallest percentage of time (around 26%) Ed v bio

Illustrating How Class Time is Spent

Differences in Deep Learning Combination of 3 subscales measuring the emphasis faculty place on higher level thinking, reflecting on one’s own learning, and incorporating information and ideas from multiple sources into one’s own thinking and work Higher-order learning Integrative learning Reflective learning Faculty in engineering and physical sciences place less emphasis; conversely, faculty in arts and humanities and education appear to place greater emphasis on deep learning Ed v bio

Disciplinary Differences in Emphasizing Deep Learning Soft Hard

Faculty Do Matter! On campuses where faculty place greater emphasis on or require more use of effective educational practices, students do more Faculty emphasis on one area of effective educational practice (e.g., active and collaborative learning) is connected to student use of effective educational practices in other areas as well as improved student outcomes (see Kuh, Nelson Laird, & Umbach, 2004; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005)

How Institutions Use FSSE

Campus Uses of FSSE Schools use FSSE results in many ways, including: Faculty development programs Faculty workshops and retreats Scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) Assessment and improvement Institutional research Curricular reform Accreditation and self-studies

BCSSE-FSSE-NSSE Combinations Brigham Young University (BYU) and Radford University compare students’ descriptions of their academic experiences (NSSE) with the expectations described prior to starting classes (BCSSE) FSSE responses will make it possible to examine faculty perceptions alongside student experiences BYU’s Faculty Center will report findings during faculty training and internal workshops

BCSSE-FSSE-NSSE Combinations University of Maine at Farmington (UMF) will triangulate data from all three surveys Established a baseline which to assess the impact of its shift from a three-credit to a four-credit model for full-semester courses This strategy will help UMF Identify concerns that may emerge from the shift Administrators assess the effectiveness of these efforts

Small Group Discussion

Guiding Questions How does your campus incorporate faculty information into its assessment program? How would/do you use results like those in this presentation on your campus? To whom should this information be presented on your campus?

Assessment Items and Presentation Feedback If you were running the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, what questions would you ask about classroom activities and faculty practices?

For More Information Email: tflaird@indiana.edu sudjohns@indiana.edu aniskode@indiana.edu FSSE website: http://www.fsse.iub.edu NSSE website: http://www.nsse.iub.edu Copies of papers and presentations, including this one, as well as annual reports and other information are available through the websites