Institutional Effectiveness

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) instrument is a national survey of undergraduate quality that is administered to representative samples of students at American colleges and universities. NSSE collects information annually about first-year and senior students' participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development. The results provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college. The University of Houston (UH) central campus has been participating in the NSSE survey since 2009 but starting in 2022, will only participate in odd years; hence, the data for 2022 are not available in the dashboards.

Challenging intellectual and creative work is central to student learning and collegiate quality. This Engagement Indicator captures how much students' coursework emphasizes challenging cognitive tasks such as application, analysis, judgment, and synthesis.  

Interactions with faculty can positively influence the cognitive growth, development, and persistence of college students. Through their formal and informal roles as teachers, advisors, and mentors, faculty members model intellectual work, promote mastery of knowledge and skills, and help students make connections between their studies and their future plans.

Collaborating with peers in solving problems or mastering difficult material deepens understanding and prepares students to deal with the messy, unscripted problems they encounter during and after college. Working on group projects, asking others for help with difficult material or explaining it to others, and working through course material in preparation for exams all represent collaborative learning activities.

College environments characterized by positive interpersonal relations promote student learning and success. Students who enjoy supportive relationships with peers, advisors, faculty, and staff are better able to find assistance when needed, and to learn from and with those around them.

In 2020 three questions were added to the NSSE survey regarding student sense of belonging to find out if students feel like they can relate to others in the campus community.

Institution contribution focuses on how the institution contributed to the development of the student related to marketable skills, critical thinking, work-related knowledge and skills, collaboration with others, solving real-world problems, and becoming informed and active citizens.

This group of questions covers student engagement and interaction in the learning process, including class presentations, asking questions, participation in discussions, class preparation, drafting writing assignments, facing course challenges, and participating in art activities.

This topic covers students’ use of time for reading and other activities, such as commuting, preparation for coursework, time spent working off-campus, participating in co-curricular activities, community service, and providing care for dependents.

Certain undergraduate opportunities are designated "high-impact" because they positively associated with student success.  High-Impact Practices (HIPs) demand considerable time and effort, facilitate learning outside of the classroom, require meaningful interactions with faculty and students, encourage collaboration with diverse students, and provide frequent and substantive feedback.

This module measures instructional aspects that experts consider to be ideal for online courses. The set also assesses how students engage in both online and hybrid courses, their degree of comfort with online learning and experience of support, and ideas about how the learning experience can be improved. UH participated in this module in 2023.

This module examines student experiences with academic advising, including frequency of interaction with advisors and advising practices that reflect NACADA core values. It also asks students to identify who has been most helpful.

The NSSE Honors Education Consortium began as a partnership with the National Collegiate Honors Council. Items address motivation, academic exploration and risk-taking, tolerance of ambiguity, curiosity, personal and career goals, and physical and mental well-being, with the intention of making comparisons between honors and non-honors students at participating institutions.

This module examines activities that develop useful and transferable skills for the workplace and beyond (such as verbal and written fluency, critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving, project management, and time management).

Developed in partnership with EDUCAUSE, these questions examine the role of technology in student learning, focusing on usage, contribution to learning, and perceptions of institutional support.