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I. Introduction

Each year the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) collects information from undergraduates at four-year colleges and universities across the country to assess the extent to which undergraduate students engage in a variety of effective educational practices. In 2003, 437 institutions participated in NSSE with a total of 145,000 respondents. The adjusted institutional response rate reached an all-time high of 43%.

George Mason University participates in NSSE every three years. In spring 2003, 1,200 Mason students were selected to participate in the survey. Among them, 200 were from New Century College (NCC) and 1,000 were randomly selected from the freshman and senior classes. The response rate of general Mason students was 47%, 4% higher than the national average. Among the respondents, 198 were freshmen and 257 were seniors. These students were largely representative of Mason’s first-year and senior students in Spring 2003 in the aspects of gender and racial composition, age groups, and grades (see Appendix One – Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents). Part-time students and engineering students were slightly under-represented in the sample. This report focuses on the findings from general Mason students.

II. NSSE Benchmarks Overview

The NSSE survey measures a variety of areas in student academic life, such as course emphases, in and out of classroom activities, course assignments, student use of time, interaction/relationships with peers, faculty and administrators, campus environment, institutional contributions to student development, and student satisfaction. NSSE data provide us with evidence of the patterns of student engagement at Mason. In an effort to analyze different aspects of student engagement, NSSE created five clusters or benchmarks of effective educational practices using the items on the Survey:

Level of Academic Challenge: includes survey items on coursework emphasis (memorization, analysis, synthesis, making judgments, and application), the amount of reading and writing in coursework, the amount of time a student spends preparing for class, etc.

Active and Collaborative Learning: student participation in community-based projects, discussion of ideas inside and outside of class, and level of collaborative learning among students both during and outside of class, etc.

Student Interactions with Faculty: how often students discuss their coursework or career plans with faculty, how often students work with faculty on activities other than coursework, whether students receive prompt feedback from faculty, etc.

Enriching Educational Experiences: student participation in co-curricular activities, practica, internships, field experiences, co-op experiences, community service or volunteer work, study-abroad, foreign language coursework, independent study, culminating senior experience, student use of electronic technology, whether students interact with other students from diverse 4

Supportive Campus Environment: the quality of the campus environment and relationships among students, faculty and administration, etc.

Each year, NSSE calculates scores for each benchmark (on a 100-point scale) for every institution that participates in the NSSE survey. Then, NSSE compares each institution to the schools in the same Carnegie Classification. According to the 2000 Carnegie Classification of Institutions, George Mason University was classified as a doctoral-intensive institution. These are the institutions NSSE compared us against. However, Mason is closer to a doctoral-extensive institution in many areas and always uses doctoral-extensive institutions as our aspiration peers. Therefore, we are creating this special report in which we compared Mason’s performance to doctoral-extensive institutions.

From 2001-2003 there were 79 doctoral-extensive institutions participating in the NSSE survey. For a complete list of all participating institutions in 2003, see Appendix Two. Tables 1 and 2 present Mason’s benchmark scores in all five areas and compare these scores with the average scores of the doctoral-extensive institutions who participated in NSSE 2001-2003[1]. The columns of the tables show the mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum. The rows show the five benchmarks.

Overall, Mason is below the means of doctoral-extensive institutions in these areas:

· Active and collaborative learning (both first-year and senior)

· Student and faculty interaction (both first-year and senior)

· Enriching educational experiences (senior)

· Supportive campus environment (first-year)

Mason is at or above the means in:

· Level of academic challenge (both first-year and senior)

· Enriching educational experiences (first-year)

· Supportive campus environment (senior)

Table 1. Benchmark Score Comparisons of First-Year Students

Benchmark	Mason Score	Doctoral – Extensive Institutions
Benchmark	Mason Score	Count	Mean	SD	Min	Max
Level of Academic Challenge	52.8	79	52.3	3.4	47	62
Active and Collaborative Learning	37.7	79	38.1	2.9	33	47
Student-Faculty Interaction	30.9	79	34.0	2.9	29	44
Enriching Educational Experiences	59.8	79	57.6	4.7	48	71
Supportive Campus Environment	57.6	79	58.0	3.5	50	72

Table 2. Benchmark Score Comparisons of Senior Students

Benchmark	Mason Score	Doctoral – Extensive Institutions
Benchmark	Mason Score	Count	Mean	SD	Min	Max
Level of Academic Challenge	56.9	79	55.2	2.3	50	61
Active and Collaborative Learning	45.3	79	46.2	2.8	39	56
Student-Faculty Interaction	34.7	79	39.9	3.5	31	50
Enriching Educational Experiences	44.7	79	47.6	4.2	39	58
Supportive Campus Environment	53.7	79	53.4	3.9	45	69

III. NSSE Deciles

Another way to interpret the differences in Mason’s benchmark scores with the means of our peers is to examine decile tables. Deciles are percentile scores that divide the range of institutional benchmark scores into ten equal groups. A percentile is the point in a distribution at or below which a given percentage of institutional benchmark scores fall. Tables 3 and 4 present the range of institutional benchmark scores by decile for doctoral-extensive institutions at both first-year and senior levels.

The shaded areas in the tables represent the range of Mason’s benchmark scores by decile. For example, since Mason’s benchmark score on “Level of Academic Challenge” for first-year students is 52.8, Mason falls between the 60^th and 70^th percentile on the Doctoral-Extensive table. It means that about 60% of the doctoral-extensive institutions have lower benchmark scores than George Mason University. Similarly, Mason’s benchmark score on “Active and Collaborative Learning” for first-year students is 37.7 and Table 3 shows that the score for the 50^th percentile is 37.6. Therefore, 50% of the doctoral-extensive institutions are lower than Mason on this benchmark.

Benchmark	Mason Scores	Doctoral – Extensive Decile Table
Benchmark	Mason Scores	0%	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%
Level of Academic Challenge	52.8	47.0	48.5	49.5	50.0	50.6	51.4	52.5	53.6	55.2	57.1	62.1
Active and Collaborative Learning	37.7	33.1	34.7	35.3	36.1	37.1	37.6	38.1	39.7	40.5	41.8	47.1
Student-Faculty Interaction	30.9	28.7	30.5	31.9	32.4	32.9	33.5	34.0	35.2	36.0	37.8	44.2
Enriching Educational Experiences	59.8	47.9	51.7	53.2	54.6	56.3	57.6	58.9	59.6	60.8	63.6	71.0
Supportive Campus Environment	57.6	50.0	53.8	55.0	56.5	57.5	58.2	58.7	59.5	60.4	61.1	72.3

Table 3. Decile Tables of First-year Students

Table 4. Decile Tables of Senior Students

Benchmark	Mason Scores	Doctoral – Extensive Decile Table
Benchmark	Mason Scores	0%	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%
Level of Academic Challenge	56.9	50.5	52.4	53.2	53.8	54.8	54.9	55.3	56.6	57.0	59.0	61.5
Active and Collaborative Learning	45.3	39.3	42.8	43.7	44.8	45.5	46.2	46.7	47.4	48.3	49.5	55.7
Student-Faculty Interaction	34.7	30.8	36.2	37.1	37.9	38.5	39.0	40.6	41.7	43.4	44.4	49.7
Enriching Educational Experiences	44.7	39.0	42.6	44.4	45.2	46.0	46.7