WU opens student survey

Ryan Thompson

Washburn University opened the National Survey of Student Engagement to freshmen and seniors Feb. 7.

More than 500 universities use the National Survey of Student Engagement to assess how much time and effort students put into their education and how the institutions are utilizing their resources to promote student learning. Washburn University conducts this survey every three years.

“The purpose of it is to measure among first year students, freshmen, and seniors their level of student engagement on four different themes,” said Kayla Carter, academic effectiveness analyst. “Institutions all over the nation use this, so we can then say we did better than the national average or we were equal to the national average or we were below in certain areas.”

The four themes of student engagement are academic challenge, experiences with faculty, the quality and support found in the campus environment and peer learning, such as collaborative work and class discussions.

“The result report will be sent out by NSSE and we’ll get it by the summer,” Carter said. “Lots of academic and administrative departments use this data. They request it to find out how certain things were rated, [such as] teacher-faculty actions or services provided in administrative offices. One of the modules that we added this year was academic advising, so it’ll give students a chance to really give some feedback about advising. Do they meet often enough? Are they getting the right kind of information?”

Freshmen and seniors can access the survey from an email sent from the university. Reminder emails will be sent before the survey closes March 17.

The previous survey in 2014 got a response rate of 32 percent from freshmen and 39 percent from seniors. The university is hoping to improve those numbers for the 2017 survey.

“The main reason we’re trying to promote it as much as possible is the more respondents we get the, the more data we’re able to collect, the better information we have to guide improvement,” Carter said.

The university will enter every student who completes the survey into a drawing for a $200 Best Buy gift card as an incentive. Other prizes include four $25 gift cards for various restaurants in Topeka. There will be two drawing pools, one for freshmen and one for seniors, with equal prizes for a total of 10 winners.

Shelby Castor, freshman music education major, and Jordan Carley, sophomore forensic anthropology major, suggest time commitment may be a leading cause for the low response rate and the prizes may not be enough for many students.

“[The drawing is] a little bit gimmicky,” Carley said. “If you don’t have the time or necessarily care that much it’s not going to be something that’s really interesting to you.”

A better tactic may be to cut down on the time commitment.

“I thought some of the question essentially meant the same thing, but they’d just ask them again in separate sections,” Castor said. “I found myself just clicking the button.”

She also offers using class time in courses with high freshmen enrollment as a way to boost participation.

“Definitely do it during WU 101,” Castor said. “That would be a really good place to do it.”

Ultimately, the goal is to help the university better serve its student body, regardless of any other incentives.

“Freshmen and seniors can access the survey from an email sent from the university. Reminder emails will be sent before the survey closes March 17.

The previous survey in 2014 got a response rate of 32 percent from freshmen and 39 percent from seniors. The university is hoping to improve those numbers for the 2017 survey.

“The main reason we’re trying to promote it as much as possible is the more respondents we get the, the more data we’re able to collect, the better information we have to guide improvement,” Carter said.

The university will enter every student who completes the survey into a drawing for a $200 Best Buy gift card as an incentive. Other prizes include four $25 gift cards for various restaurants in Topeka. There will be two drawing pools, one for freshmen and one for seniors, with equal prizes for a total of 10 winners.

“The main reason to do this is to improve Washburn and improve all of the academic and administrative areas especially based on student responses and their feedback,” Carter said.