Challenging intellectual and creative work is central to student learning and collegiate quality. Colleges and universities promote high levels of student achievement by emphasizing the importance of academic effort and setting high expectations for student performance.

 

Peace College students have consistently reported that faculty members challenge them to be the best they can be. This spirit of academic challenge in the classroom produces results for the students: high job placement rates, a graduate school acceptance rate above the national average, regional and national awards for students in research and creative competitions, and a pride in the College that lasts a lifetime.

 

 

 

 

Level of Academic Challenge: Comparisons

 

The National Survey of Student Engagement reports mean scores (average scores for all students participating in the survey) for each institution and also compares each institution to various other groupings. Peace College is compared to other women's colleges, other institutions within Peace's classification as defined by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (labeled "Peers"), and all other institutions participating in the survey (labeled "NSSE 2008"). The mean scores can be compared to each other for a relative rating.

 

Level of Academic Challenge: Survey Items

To determine the level of academic challenge experienced by first-year and senior students, NSSE asked students questions in these areas:

• Preparing for class (studying, reading, writing, rehearsing, etc. related to academic program)
• Number of assigned textbooks, books, or book-length packs of course readings
• Number of written papers or reports of 20 pages or more; number of written papers of reports of 5 and 19 pages; and number of written papers or reports of fewer than 5 pages
• Coursework emphasizing analysis of the basic elements of an idea, experience or theory
• Coursework emphasizing synthesis and organizing of ideas, information, or experiences into new, more complex interpretations and relationships
• Coursework emphasizing the making of judgments about the value of information, arguments, or methods
• Coursework emphasizing the application of theories or concepts to practical problems or in new situations
• Working harder than you thought you could to meet an instructor's standards or expectations
• Campus environment emphasizing time studying and on academic work

A guide to the charts
The 2008 NSSE surveyed 478,079 students at 769 four-year colleges and universities around the country.

 

The NSSE project does not rank institutions. Each school has only their students' scores on the five "benchmarks of effective educational practice" and some comparative information for similar types of colleges (in Peace's case, other women's colleges and liberal arts colleges) as well as national averages established by results from all the institutions that participated in the survey, identified in the charts as "NSSE 2008."

 

The charts display the mean, which is the weighted arithmetic average of students' responses, in each of the five benchmark categories: (1) Level of academic challenge, (2) Active and collaborative learning, (3) Student-faculty interaction, (4) Enriching educational experiences, and (5) Supportive campus environment.

 

The charts are best used by scanning across the bars to see how Peace students' evaluations compare to the scores from students at schools in the comparison groups.