CCSSE 2024 Survey Results: How NOVA Measures Up on Student Engagement

Student engagement fuels success and guides our institutional mission. NOVA participated in the Community College Student Survey of Engagement (CCSSE) in Spring 2004 to better understand how to support and improve student engagement at our college. NOVA’s participation in the CCSSE provides important data on where we are excelling and where we can grow in enhancing student engagement. Below are some highlights of NOVA’s performance compared to extra-large colleges, NOVA’s peer institutions and the full 2024 cohort of institutions that administered the CCSSE in Spring 2024. (Extra-large colleges are defined as those with at least 15,000 credit students, and NOVA’s peer institutions are listed in the third table below.)

Top Takeaways:

1. NOVA scored above extra-large colleges, our peer institutions and the full 2024 cohort of institutions across all five key benchmarks of student engagement. See here for information on how benchmark scores are calculated.

2. While NOVA student engagement was strong in all areas, the college lagged the top 10% of performers in the full 2024 cohort in a few areas.

3. Our biggest opportunities for growth (to enter the top 10%) can be found in increasing activities that boost student-faculty interaction for two reasons:

• First, the gap between NOVA and the top 10% of the cohort in this area was 11.1 points, which was the largest gap among all five benchmarks.
• Second, student-faculty interaction received the lowest standardized benchmark score (50.5) among the five. This means NOVA could improve how often students have conversations with instructors about careers, how often students discuss course materials outside of class with an instructor and/or how often students receive prompt feedback on assignments.

4. The benchmark for support for learners represents another opportunity for NOVA to enter the top 10% of the cohort, with a gap of 10.4 standardized score points. This metric measures how often students are directed to distinct types of support services, including advising, tutoring and financial aid.

What This Means for NOVA’s Future:
These results tell us a lot about the NOVA experience from the perspective of students who completed the survey. Students reported that, while they are benefiting from a collaborative and challenging learning environment, they could gain even more from more enhanced faculty and instructor connections, smoother handoffs to support services, greater guidance on career options within their chosen degree programs and improved direction to financial assistance.

Looking Ahead:
Overall, as we continue to meet goals outlined in NOVA’s strategic plan, Inspiring Excellence: A Bold Blueprint for Student Success, we cannot underestimate the continued value of focusing on student engagement and student voices.  

This article is just the beginning of our exploration of the survey results. Future articles will explore results from the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (CCFSSE).

Interested in Digging Deeper?
The CCSSE 2024 cohort is defined as a three-year (2022–2024) cohort of participating colleges. CCSSE utilizes this cohort in all its data analyses, including the computation of benchmark scores. The 2024 CCSSE cohort includes 456 institutions from 46 states, the District of Columbia, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. Of these, 250 are classified as small institutions (<4,500 credit students), 100 as medium (4,500–7,999), 74 as large (8,000–14,999) and 32 as extra-large (15,000+).

If you have questions, please contact Associate Vice President Sam Shi with the Office of Strategic Insights. You can also read more about the data collection on the website for the Community College Survey of Student Engagement.

Submitted by:
Sam Shi, AVP, Strategic Insights, XShi@nvcc.edu