NSU's Quality Enhancement Plan April 2017

4 | NSU QEP Development Process • National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) —NSU participates regularly in the NSSE initiative. The instrument has specific items that can gauge undergraduate participation and engagement in a number of areas, including leadership, civic engagement, diversity, writing, and numeracy. NSSE mean scores (Likert range 1–4, 4 being best) for writing-related prompts appear in Table 1 below. As indicated in the table, NSSE scores from the writing-related survey questions indicate that NSU’s undergraduate students have more favorable perceptions of writing preparedness than the national average. However, these data run contrary to anecdotal faculty member reports heard in multiple focus group sessions that academic writing tends to be a hurdle for students. Although no formal assessment is currently taking place, it is believed that this discrepancy could be due in part to the fact that the writing support units currently provided by NSU are not adequate in terms of the depth needed to change the student’s quality of writing. Writing support at NSU is currently only available to a limited number of students. Table 1 NSSE Mean Scores for Writing Related Prompts, 2004–2014 Survey Questions 2014 2011 2010 2009 2007 2004 NSU NSSE NSU NSSE NSU NSSE NSU NSSE NSU NSSE NSU NSSE Prepared two or more drafts of a paper or assignment before turning it in 2.80 2.50 3.07 2.69 2.89 2.70 3.03 2.69 3.01 2.64 3.29 2.70 Provided feedback on a draft or work in progress 3.20 2.90 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Providing support to help students succeed academically 3.30 3.10 3.20 3.12 3.02 3.11 3.13 3.08 3.18 3.02 3.15 3.10 Using learning support services (tutoring services, writing center, etc.) 3.20 3.10 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Writing clearly and effectively 3.10 2.90 3.20 3.03 3.18 3.05 3.29 3.02 3.26 2.95 3.21 2.97 • Course Evaluation Instruments —Course surveys are existing instruments that measure items related to student learning. Though there were no university standards establishing common items in the 2013 and 2014 evaluation forms that were reviewed, a number of items regarding productive use of technology were common to many forms. Also commonly noted was students’ perception that writing is critical to success. Additionally, students reported that some faculty members did not provide sufficient or specific feedback for performance improvement.