2004 Data from National Survey of Student Engagement Offers New Insights into Student Success

The 2004 annual report of the National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE), Student Engagement: Pathways to Collegiate Success, provides new findings about how college students spend their time, what kinds of activities they engage in, and how they evaluate their own growth in college. Data from this year's survey shows that students who spend more time preparing for class, participating in cocurricular activities, and working on-campus are more likely to be engaged in other areas of campus life and to report educational and personal growth. As in previous years, the survey also reveals that a majority of students spend significantly less time studying than their professors say is necessary for success.

The 2004 NSSE report is based on survey responses from more than 620,000 students at 850 four-year colleges and universities

FINDINGS

Time on Task

1. Time devoted to preparing for class, cocurricular activities, and on-campus work are all positively related with self-reported educational and personal growth.
2. Only about 11 percent of full-time students spend more than twenty-five hours a week preparing for class, the approximate number that faculty members say is needed to do well in college. Forty-four percent spend ten or fewer hours a week preparing for class.
3. A quarter of all students spend sixteen or more hours a week relaxing and socializing, and nearly one out of ten (8 percent) spends more than twenty-four hours.
4. More than half of all part-time students (51 percent of first-year students, 61 percent of seniors) work off-campus more than twenty hours per week.
   

Student Activities

1. Seventy-five percent of first-year students and 87 percent of seniors have worked "often" or "very often" on a paper or project that required integrating ideas or information from various sources.
2. About six out of ten students report that diverse perspectives "often" or "very often" are represented in class discussions or writing assignments.
3. More than a quarter of all students have "never" attended an art exhibit, gallery, play, dance, or other theater performance during the current school year.
4. Two-fifths of first-year students and a quarter of seniors "never" discuss ideas from their classes or readings with a faculty member.
5. About four-fifths of first-year students and half of seniors say they never have written a paper or report of twenty pages or more for college.
   

The 2004 report of the National Survey of Student Engagement, Student Engagement: Pathways to Collegiate Success, is available online.

The Fall 2004 issue of Liberal Education features an article about the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, a new component of this year's NSSE report.

DID YOU KNOW?

• About nine out of ten students rate their college experience as "good" or "excellent."
• At institutions where faculty members have higher-than-average expectations for student engagement, students report being involved at higher levels in effective educational practices and report greater gains from their collegiate experience.
• More than four-fifths of students believe that their college education has given them a broad general education and has substantially improved their ability to think critically and analytically.
• About half of students think that their education has made a substantial difference in terms of preparing them to solve real-world problems and helping them understand people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.