My colleague in student affairs, Dr. Erin Thomas, and myself were invited to present about student engagement at the monthly RSO and student affairs executive leadership team. The presentation highlighted several findings from Redbird Life data and this year’s National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).
Two stories guided the conversation:
A few themes emerged from the conversation:
- ISU students are highly engaged in activities with faculty and staff, including practical learning experiences, mentoring and other collaborative activities.
- ISU students are highly involved and feel ISU emphasizes social involvement.
- However, sense of belonging is lower for first-year students. High involvement coupled lower belonging warrants further investigation. One explanation is differences by demographic group.
- ISU students spend less time on academic work and studying outside of class compared to students at peer institutions. ISU students also report ISU places less emphasis on academic work outside of class.
- Student success is subjective. We discussed the weak link between grades and labor market outcomes. ISU research shows B- students witness the most positive long term labor market outcomes in terms of wages and job stability.
ISU could build off high engagement in relationships, collaborations and involvement to enhance belonging.
While studying outside of class is important, I speculate this is not a significant problem. Students learn in multiple ways. They are clearly spending more time with faculty and other collaborative activities on campus than students at peer institutions.
Participants had an opportunity to provide feedback about the data on a handout. It was great to hear the stories of students and the expertise of student affairs executives.
The highlight of the evening for me was an enthusiastic sophomore data science major. She communicated to us that she had never seen data presented in the way we shared. The presentation clarified her decision to major in data science and storytelling.
I think there is a lot of value in collaborating with student affairs assessment. Dr. Thomas and myself plan on collaborating more in the future.
Click here for more information about storytelling with data.