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Findings from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) offer colleges and universities a number of important insights. One of these findings, that parental involvement in their children's college lives is probably more helpful than detrimental, contradicts what many colleges and universities do in their attempt to deal with what has been dubbed "helicopter" parents, that is, parents who hover over their adult children.
While many colleges try to discourage parental involvement, the latest NSSE annual report for 2007, the eighth issued, found that students whose parents frequently guide them and even intervene on their behalf (38 percent of first-year students and 29 percent of seniors) are more active in college and more satisfied with their college experience.
The NSSE Report, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, is entitled, Experiences that Matter: Enhancing Student Learning and Success. Its conclusions are based on data from about 313,000 randomly selected freshmen and seniors at 610 four-year colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
Essentially, the NSSE findings give colleges and universities a picture of how well their students are learning, what students do while they are in college and how they experience their college education.
Lee S. Shulman, retiring president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, said, "NSSE is an institution's most trustworthy lens for seeing deeply into the quality of students' experiences because its results can translate directly into plans for action and reform and transformation strategies."
Indeed, colleges and universities have been using NSSE results to guide their educational practices over many years. James H. Breece, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, University of Maine system, explained it this way:
"NSSE provides invaluable information to our administrators, faculty and staff that they need to make changes to improve the student experience."
To put NSSE into historic perspective, the National Survey was conceptualized in early 1998 at a meeting of education leaders at the Pew Charitable Trusts and then supported by a very generous Pew grant. A successful pilot program in 1999 involved more than 75 selected colleges and universities. Approximately 275 colleges and universities participated in the original survey in spring of 2000.
Administered by the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and financed...