National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)

Jointly funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) was developed to assess institutional resources that contribute to a learning environment that engages students rather than the tangible characteristics traditionally used in popular rating systems.  NSSE achieves this by evaluating schools in relation to five "Benchmarks of Effective Educational Practice." These benchmarks are: level of academic challenge, student interactions with faculty members, supportive campus environment, active and collaborative learning and enriching educational experiences.

The benchmarks are based on 42 key questions from the NSSE survey that reflect the most common facets of the student experience. The questions range from those concerned with kinds of interactions with instructors, to those focused on, for example, the prevalence and frequency of service learning opportunities on a given campus.

From 557 institutions in the United States and Canada, 331,601 first-year and senior students participated in the 2006 NSSE. By taking survey questions directly to the students, NSSE attempts to measure the presence and impact of a number of academic and environmental features that are directly linked to learning, personal development, academic persistence and graduation.

The NSSE report provides each participating institution with comparison groups against which scores can be measured and evaluated. Institutions' scores are compared with the scores for all NSSE participants, in addition to the scores of peer-based subgroups so that scores can be measured more specifically between schools having similar characteristics.

For 2006, LaGrange College's peer-based comparison groups were its Carnegie Peers. Carnegie Peers schools are grouped based on criteria generated by the Carnegie Foundation. LaGrange College and its Carnegie peer schools are classified as "Baccalaureate Colleges – Diverse Fields."

See how LaGrange College ranks >>