Anna Gindlesperger
Reporter
February 11, 2005
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Results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) revealed Milligan College students to be generally more satisfied with their educational experiences than the national average.
NSSE looks beyond the college rankings that one typically finds when
investigating the quality of a school’s education. The survey targets freshmen
and seniors, asking questions intended to measure students’ experiences during
their years of attendance at a given institution.
The items in the survey are designed to reflect performance of both students and
institutions that are considered to be the desired outcomes of a college
experience.
Milligan freshmen and seniors both ranked higher than the national average in
Active and Collaborative Learning, which covered questions as to how often a
student worked with their peers outside the classroom and how often assignments
incorporated ideas from different courses.
Milligan also ranked higher than the national average under the category of
Enriching Educational Experience, which focused on student engagement outside of
academics. Students were asked how often they attended theater productions,
performed community service and participated in worship.
Under Supportive Campus Environment, defined by the quality of relationships
students have with faculty members and the support students were given to help
them to succeed academically, Milligan freshmen and seniors both ranked 8-10
percentage points higher than the national score.
Likewise, Milligan ranked well for Student-Faculty Interaction, measured by
discussion about career plans, feedback on academic performance and the depth of
student-facutly relationships.
However, some areas of Milligan education are lagging behind.
Under Academic Challenge, freshmen ranked slightly above average while seniors
ranked below the national score.
Milligan scored well on the majority of sub-points covered under Academic Challenge, topics dealing with broad general education, thinking analytically and the extent that experience at the institution has helped students acquire job or work-related skills.
What brought down the school’s standing was the sub-point that addressed the
number of papers or reports students are required to write.
On a scale ranging from one to five, with one representing none and five
representing 20 or more, neither freshmen nor seniors reached a three for the
number of written reports fewer than five pages.
Using the same scale, Milligan students scored just over two for the number of
written reports consisting of 5-19 pages, and the number drops further for the
number of written reports that exceeded twenty pages: Both freshmen and seniors
scored just over one.
According to NSSE’s website, the survey “is designed to obtain… information from
scores of colleges and universities nationwide about student participation in
programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and
personal development.”
The goal is that results from this survey will give colleges an idea of what
benefits undergraduates gain from having attended college.
Full results of the survey can be found on Milligan’s web site under Academics.