Approximately 15,000 Concordia students have been invited to participate in the 2012 National Survey of Student Engagement.
The NSSE is a questionnaire given to first- and final-year students that looks at how students evaluate their university experience and the change from first to last year.
The survey was conducted at 750 universities across the continent in 2011 and includes 71 questions and five different benchmarks.
Bradley Tucker, the director of institutional planning and analysis at Concordia, said there is a lot of merit in the results of the NSSE.
“We get a very clear picture of what our students are telling us. We can count on the fact that what we’re seeing is true,” he said.
The questions focus on a variety of topics ranging from how much a student discusses grades with instructors, to how many community events a student attends, and how well he or she interacts with other students and faculty members.
“It’s not just numbers, we get comments as well,” he explained. “Our students have something to say and we’re listening.”
Concordia Provost David Graham stated that last year, the response rate of students was 25 per cent.
“That’s pretty extraordinary for a survey,” he said. “We want to increase the number of students participating. We want to increase the accuracy.”
Graham went on to say that students who complete the NSSE before March 1 could win a Chapters-Indigo gift card and all students who complete it by March 31 will be entered to win an Apple iPad 2.
The survey was done in 2006, 2008 and 2011 and will now be conducted on an annual basis.
