This year the survey sheds light on a question on the minds of many. The headline to some of its latest findings: “Rebounding Engagement: Has Higher Education Returned to ‘Normal’?”
The answer provided by the latest data: sort of.
A higher percentage of students surveyed in 2022 (NSSE focuses on first-year students and seniors) reported participating in collaborative activities, like studying in groups, joining campus clubs, and having more interactions with faculty than those surveyed in 2021. But those figures are still below pre-pandemic levels. When asked, for example, whether they had prepared for exams by discussing or working through course material with other students, 40 percent of first-year students in 2022 said they had, compared to 31 percent in 2021 and 50 percent in 2019.
A greater percentage of students also reported that their college emphasized and supported social events, learning-support services, and counseling than those surveyed in 2021. Yet those figures, too, remain lower than before the pandemic hit. When asked if their college had supported opportunities to be involved socially, 67 percent of first-year students said yes, compared to 57 percent in 2021 and 71 percent in 2019.
I spoke to Jillian Kinzie, interim co-director of NSSE, to find out how she interpreted this data. It’s no surprise that engagement is still depressed, she said, given that everyone has been out of practice for a few years. As she put it: We are all trying to recall what is it that we used to do and how do we do it.
Staffing shortages have also created problems. If a campus doesn’t have enough advisers, or the study-abroad office is understaffed, that makes it more difficult to get the word out about existing programs or to offer as many options as before. “Things are going to move to the back burner or just not going to get done,” said Kinzie, who also works in the Center for Postsecondary Research at the Indiana University School of Education, which houses the NSSE.
Undergraduates also reported spending more time studying and working longer hours than students did prior to the pandemic, she noted. Increased mental-health needs and additional learning supports, she added, are also absorbing more of faculty and student time. On the plus side, said Kinzie, students seem more tuned into the value of academic help. She’s been surprised at the comments students wrote in their survey responses: I’m so glad we have tutoring here. It’s so important that my instructor afforded us an extra study session.
“Those are not typical open-ended comments,” she said. “It seems like students are really more keyed into the academic- and learning-support services that they’re needing right now.”
We also talked about another barrier to engaged learning: an increased aversion to taking risks.
That came up in my recent story about immersive learning, “Teaching in an age of ‘Militant Apathy’.” Several professors I spoke to talked about the lack of confidence they saw in some students to tackle more open-ended and self-directed courses, where you might need to work collaboratively with others, engage with groups outside of campus, and scrap ideas that don’t seem to be working and start again.
Kinzie encouraged professors to think of how they can help students regain their confidence and some of the skills they may have lost during the isolation of the pandemic. They can do that by encouraging students to talk about their concerns, scaffolding activities into class so that students slowly work their way up to a big project, and lean into relationship building throughout the semester. These are all, of course, things that instructors have been encouraged to do for years, but they have become more important since the pandemic hit.
Kinzie elaborated on these ideas in a recent open-access article: “Tracking Student (Dis)Engagement Through the Pandemic: What Colleges & Universities Can Do to Foster an Engagement Reset.”
Finally, Kinzie said, she was struck during a recent meeting with a large group of faculty members by how people want to start reframing the conversation around disengagement.
“They’re starting to get concerned about labeling this generation or this group of students as disengaged. And I feel that. I want to replace that with something that’s more about re-engaging students in the habits of learning,” she said. Students learned a lot, after all, about their capacity to be self-directed learners and to manage under trying circumstances.
“Let’s try and work with them to make sure that they are getting the academic support and the confidence in their skills that they need to be successful,” she said, “so that it doesn’t hold them back in any way. And they don’t feel like they’re not ready to take on an undergraduate research experience or that they’re not ready to take on the study away or internship.”
Want to dig into the issue of engagement a bit more? Beckie will be hosting a virtual forum, “Lessons Learned from Re-Engaging Students,” on March 14 at 2 p.m. Eastern. Sign up here to participate live and ask questions, or watch later on demand.
Using ChatGPT in class
In response to a query I put out about ChatGPT recently, Alexandra Taraboletti, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of the District of Columbia, wrote in and told me how she is using it in her class to teach her students how to use such tools responsibly.
“In my organic-chemistry lab class,” she wrote, “I have students use chatGPT and other AI to construct lab reports. I go through with the students how to ask appropriate research questions and how to do base research that they then can feed into chatGPT. I also show them examples of information generated by the AI that can be false, and how to proof the report (a valuable lesson in editing and proofing).
“Though it is just the beginning of the semester, I have already had comparison lab reports turned in from students, one that was written on their own with no help of AI, and one that was written with the help of the AI. Generally, the papers written with AI are better but the overall report and grade still tracks to the students’ abilities and understanding of the material. Meaning students still perform similarly with and without the AI (proof of it as a tool that still needs to be wielded appropriately).”
Let’s Chat About ChatGPT
Do you have questions about what ChatGPT and other AI tools mean for the future of teaching and learning? Then join me and an expert panel for a lively discussion on Tuesday, March 8, at 2 p.m. Eastern. We will also talk about how these tools can be used by faculty members in their own work. Have questions you want to send me in advance? Write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com. If you can’t make it, you can still register and watch the video on demand later. I hope to see you there!
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.
— Beth
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