Survey helps PSU improve

  Tuesday, March 17, 2015 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

It’s really hard to get college students to give up a few minutes to take a survey, but that’s just what officials at Pittsburg State University hope a selected group of freshmen and seniors will do. On Feb. 17, the College Student Report asked a sample of PSU freshmen and seniors to take the anonymous online National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and PSU officials are hoping many of the university’s students do.

“This is one way each student can help the university do a better job of serving undergraduate students,” said Nora Hatton, director of assessment at PSU. “NSSE helps us identify aspects of the undergraduate experience that we can improve.”

NSSE is based on research that indicates student achievement improves when students participate in certain activities that are linked to student learning.

Each year, NSSE collects information from freshmen and seniors about their participation in programs that the university provides for their learning and personal development. That data is used to compile a number of reports for Pittsburg State that compare PSU student responses with those at the other 715 participating universities across the U.S.

While NSSE doesn’t assess student learning directly, the survey results are used to identify areas in which universities are performing well or in which the undergraduate experience could be improved.

The PSU students who received the invitation to take NSSE on Feb. 17 received reminders about the survey on March 5 and March 25. They will receive additional reminders on April 13 and 28.