National Survey of Student Engagement at Cal Poly (2025)
What is NSSE?
NSSE ("Nessie") stands for the National Survey of Student Engagement. Student engagement describes students' participation in programs and activities provided by Cal Poly for their learning and personal development. The results provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college. Results allow comparison with student experiences at other institutions.
Why participate in NSSE?
NSSE results provide an estimate of student participation in programs and activities for their learning and personal development, such as:
- What types of curricular and co-curricular learning experiences are students participating in?
- How many students are participating in these programs and activities?
- How much time are students spending in curricular and co-curricular learning experiences?
- Which students are participating?
NSSE results also help us to identify strengths in student engagement that we can build on and to identify areas of improvement in student engagement and address them.
NSSE also contains modules on writing and DEI.
- Results from these modules will be important for core competency and GE assessment work: Where are writing and DEI instruction succeeding? Where are the areas for improvement?
- The DEI module will also help Cal Poly assess its campus climate. This module examines students' exposure to inclusive teaching practices and intercultural learning; perceptions of institutional values and commitment regarding diversity; and participation in diversity-related programming and coursework.
Students who complete the 2025 NSSE survey will be entered into a raffle for one of 19 campus bookstore gift cards ranging from $25 – $100!
Goals and impact of NSSE
Academic Programs and Planning (APP) will:
- Share results with colleges and departments to help identify impactful instruction practices.
- Share college-specific data with colleges to identify strengths and areas for improvement in student learning experiences.
- Share disaggregated data with partners such as OUDI to identify and address gaps in participation in student engagement activities from students of different backgrounds and identities.
- Help colleges and departments share data with partners such as alumni, advisory boards, and donors to develop new student learning opportunities (e.g., internships).
- Work to support continuous improvement in student learning experiences over several cycles of NSSE.
For a printable version of the flyer, click on the icon below:
Contact
For more information about NSSE, please contact acadprog@calpoly.edu .
Last updated: 3/20/2025