Clark's 2007 BCSSE Results

BCSSE - a Tool for Understanding the Institutional Learning Environment

"The Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement collects data about entering college students' high school academic and co-curricular experiences, as well as their expectations for participating in educationally purposeful activities during the first college year. BCSSE administration usually takes place prior to start of fall classes and is designed to be paired with a NSSE administration at the end of the first college year, providing an in-depth understanding of first-year student engagement on your campus."

• 122 colleges and universities in 34 states and 4 Canadian institutions participated in the first (2007) administration. For a list of participating institutions see BCSSE07 Institutions.
• Entering first-year class size at these institutions ranged from 120 to over 7000
• Approximately one third of participating US BCSSE institutions are private.
• A large majority of BCSSE schools are either baccalaureate (35%) or master's (44%).
• BCSSE results are intended to be paired with NSSE, administered at the end of the first year. We will receive a report in August that compares our BCSSE and NSSE results.
• Clark administered BCSSE in paper version during orientation for the first time in fall 2007 to first year students. Because the survey was administered by PAs to their orientation groups, our response rate was over 90%.

BCSSE Results from 2007

BCSSE provides the data in several forms. For a first look, we recommend the Scale Descriptions to help understand the Scale Means Report.  Next, the Item Frequencies Report breaks down how many respondents selected which answers to each question, and breaks these down by gender and whether they are first generation to attend college.  These results can then be compared with results from all other participating institutions in the Institutional Report and to other Private Baccalaureate Institutions  or Private Doctoral Institutions.