1. 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

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

3. 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%

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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!

8. 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

9. 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
Can also link to FSSE registration after registering for NSSE at
Registration open until late September
Institutions provide:
Institutional contact information
Estimation of the number of faculty to be surveyed

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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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)

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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)

20. 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

21. 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%

22. What We’ve Learned from FSSE

23. Time Spent on Overall Activities
FSSE
National

24. 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

25. Students Don’t Always Meet Expectations: Time Studying

26. 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

27. Illustrating How Class Time is Spent

28. 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

29. Disciplinary Differences in Emphasizing Deep Learning
Soft
Hard

30. 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)

31. How Institutions Use FSSE

32. 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

33. 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

34. 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

35. Small Group Discussion

36. 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?

37. 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?

38. For More Information
FSSE website:
NSSE website:
Copies of papers and presentations, including this one, as well as annual reports and other information are available through the websites