2007 Faculty Survey of Student Engagement now online Faculty were invited to participate in the 2007 Faculty Survey of Student Engagement during the spring semester. A total of 163 faculty replied to the survey for a response rate of 43 percent. The results of the survey are now posted to the Web at http://www.und.nodak.edu/dept/datacol/reports/subFolder/FSSE2007/FSSE2007.htm. The FSSE focuses on faculty perceptions of how often students engage in different activities, the importance faculty place on various areas of learning and development, the type of interactions faculty have with students, and how faculty members organize class time. The respondents answer questions based on teaching a lower division course compared to an upper division course. This survey works in conjunction with the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in which similar questions are asked of first-year and senior students. The combination of the two reports is intended to give UND feedback from students and faculty concerning the learning environment. The only other time UND has administered the FSSE was during the pilot test in spring 2003. The FSSE is a national survey with comparative data from other four-year colleges and universities. For UND comparatives, the “Doctoral Research-High Activity” institutions were used. A couple of noteworthy findings from the survey are: • Faculty are asked to rate their importance on eight different areas of student enriching educational experience (areas such as volunteer work, practicum/internships, study abroad, capstone course). In 2007, both lower division and upper division UND faculty reported greater importance on all of the “enriching” experiences than faculty reported in 2003 with one exception (lower division faculty reported a lower importance on practicum/internships). However, UND faculty generally reported less importance on these experiences than faculty at Doctoral Research-High Activity institutions. One noticeable exception is UND faculty stating a greater importance on study abroad. • UND upper division faculty report much greater amount of time spent advising undergraduate students. • UND faculty report assigning slightly fewer textbook-length reading assignments to lower division students in 2007 than reported in 2003, with the same number of reading assignments being given to upper division assignments. • UND faculty report fewer long problem sets (those taking more than one hour) and more short problem sets (those taking less than one hour) than faculty at Doctoral Research-High Activity institutions. • UND upper division faculty report a greater percentage of time spent in teacher-led discussion and teacher-student shared responsibility activities than upper division faculty at Doctoral Research-High Activity institutions reported. The FSSE report also includes a section with comparisons to NSSE. When comparing the results from the two surveys, faculty and students have some surprisingly different opinions of what occurs at UND. For example, 85 percent of lower division faculty report giving prompt feedback, while only 47 percent of first-year students reported that they received prompt feedback. Similar differences are also reported in the upper division courses. Another example of differences between faculty and student perceptions was in working on a research project with a faculty member. Sixty percent of lower division faculty report that this is important/very important while only 2 percent of first-year students have done this, and 21 percent plan to. Forty-nine percent of upper division faculty believe this to be important/very important, while only 16 percent of the seniors have worked on a research project (13 percent still plan to and 54 percent do not plan on this activity). If you have questions about the study, or would like a CD of the full report, please contact either Sue Erickson, at 777-2265, or me at 777-2456. -- Carmen Williams, Director, Institutional Research, carmenwilliams@mail.und.nodak.edu, 701-777-4358