Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)

Frequently Asked Questions

Overview of the AUSSE

What is the Postgraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (PSEQ)?

The Postgraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (PSEQ) is the questionnaire used in the Postgraduate Survey of Student Engagement (POSSE). This survey instrument was trialled with a handful of Australasian universities in 2009 and is an adaption of the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) that has been designed to be used with postgraduate coursework students. The PSEQ is designed to be administered online only, and takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.

What is the Postgraduate Survey of Student Engagement (POSSE)?

The Postgraduate Survey of Student Engagement (POSSE) was developed and trialled with a handful of Australasian universities in 2009. The POSSE uses the Postgraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (PSEQ), which is an adaptation of the undergraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) to measure student engagement among postgraduate coursework students. The POSSE will be offered as an additional survey option for higher education institutions to participate in from 2010.

What is the Staff Student Engagement Questionnaire (SSEQ)?

The Staff Student Engagement Questionnaire (SSEQ) is the survey instrument for the Staff Student Engagement Survey (SSES) which is a survey that complements the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) and the Postgraduate Survey of Student Engagement (POSSE). The SSES is a survey of academic staff about their students and measures academics’ expectations for student engagement in educational practices that have been linked empirically with high quality learning and development.

The SSEQ focuses on academics’ perceptions of how often their students engage in different activities; the importance they place on various aspects of learning and development; the nature and frequency of staff-student interactions; and how they organise their time, both in and out of the classroom. The SSEQ also collects information on staff demographics and nature of their employment.

How can we find out more about AUSSE?

Further information on the AUSSE can be found on this website, and if you have any queries please contact ACER at ausse@acer.edu.au or call Ms Ali Radloff on +61 (0)3 9277 5742 or through the contact us page of this website.

What are other institutions doing to enhance student engagement?

Student engagement is increasingly seen as an important focus for higher education institutions, and as a result many institutions are implementing programmes and coming up with ideas intended to enhance student engagement. The Student Engagement Enhancement Database (SEED) is a dynamic database of examples of what higher education institutions are doing to enhance students' engagement in effective educational practices. ACER is always seeking more examples of good practice and to find out more about what higher education institutions are doing to enhance student engagement. If you have, or are planning to implement a programme designed to enhance students' engagement, please let us know about it, and we will include it in the Student Engagement Enhancement Database (SEED).

Other examples of good practice are included in the student engagement enhancement guides prepared by university staff in conjunction with ACER.

What is the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE)?

The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) is a survey that has been run by Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research since 2004. The FSSE was designed to complement the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The FSSE measures the perceptions of staff members about how often students engage in particular activities, the importance staff place on different areas of teaching, learning and student development, the nature and frequency of faculty-student interactions and how faculty members organise their time in, and out of the classroom. To date, around 100,000 academics from more than 485 universities have taken part in the FSSE.

What is the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)?

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is a survey that was developed in the mid-1990s in the USA to collect data on undergraduate student engagement and student participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for students' learning and personal development. The NSSE is run throughout US and Canada each year with hundreds of colleges and universities. Over 1,400 US and Canadian higher education institutions have participated in the NSSE since it was first administered in 2000.

As the AUSSE has formative links with the NSSE, institutions that participate in the AUSSE can benchmark their results with US and Canadian institutions to gain an international perspective on student engagement.

What is the Staff Student Engagement Survey (SSES)?

The Staff Student Engagement Survey (SSES) complements the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) and the Postgraduate Survey of Student Engagement (POSSE). The SSES is a survey of academic staff about their students and measures academics’ expectations for student engagement in educational practices that have been linked empirically with high quality learning and development.

The SSES survey instrument is the Staff Student Engagement Questionnnaire (SSEQ). The SSEQ focuses on academics’ perceptions of how often their students engage in different activities; the importance they place on various aspects of learning and development; the nature and frequency of staff-student interactions; and how they organise their time, both in and out of the classroom. The SSEQ also collects information on staff demographics and nature of their employment.

What is the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ)?

The Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) is a survey designed to be administered to first- and third-year undergraduate students who are studying onshore and who have not participated in higher education previously. The survey is administered both in an online and paper format and it takes students approximately 15 minutes to complete the 41 questions on the SEQ.

The SEQ measures six different aspects of student engagement:

• Academic Challenge - the extent to which expectations and assessments challenge students to learn
• Active Learning - students' efforts to actively construct their knowledge
• Student and Staff Interactions - the level and nature of students' contact with teaching staff
• Enriching Educational Experiences - participation in broadening educational activities
• Supportive Learning Environment - feelings of legitimation within the university community
• Work Integrated Learning - integration of employment-focused work experiences into study

The SEQ also collects information that form seven student outcomes scales:

• Higher Order Thinking - students' participation in higher-order forms of thinking
• General Learning Outcomes - development of general competencies
• General Development Outcomes - development of general forms of individual and social development
• Average Overall Grade - average overall grade so far in course
• Departure Intention - non-graduating students' intentions on not returning to study in the following year
• Overall Satisfaction - students' overall satisfaction with their educational experience
• Career Readiness - preparation for participation in the professional workforce

The SEQ also collects a range of information on individual demographics and educational contexts from students.

What is the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)?

ACER is an independent and not-for-profit national agency undertaking educational research and development across the school, higher education and VET sectors. More information about ACER and the other projects they are involved in, can be found at: www.acer.edu.au/about

What does AUSSE stand for?

AUSSE stands for the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement. The AUSSE is developed and managed by the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) to stimulate evidence-focused conversations about students’ engagement in university study. The surveys used to collect AUSSE data include: the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ), which measures undergraduate student engagement, the Postgraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (PSEQ), which measures postgraduate coursework student engagement, and the Staff Student Engagement Questionnaire (SSEQ) which measures academic staff's views of student engagement.

How much does it cost to collect this data?

Costing is based on an institution’s undergraduate student population, as well as which surveys (the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE), Postgraduate Survey of Student Engagement (POSSE), and Staff Student Engagement Survey (SSES)) an institution wishes to participate in. Other options, such as oversampling, removing items from the survey, including additional institution-specific items on the form, or requesting additional copies of the institution report or particular specialised analyses, may each incur a small additional cost.

The different cost options for participation can be found in the AUSSE 2010 Institution Participation Form. Please note that the costs and options listed in this form may vary for future administrations of the AUSSE.

How are the survey materials distributed, collected and processed?

Institutions are asked to compile a de-identified list of undergraduate students (and postgraduate coursework students and/or academic staff, depending on the surveys which the institution is participating in) that meet the requirements of that particular survey's target population (e.g. only first- and third-year, onshore students are included in the AUSSE list). ACER then systematically draws a stratified sample of students (or staff) from that list, marks in the population list which students (or staff) have been sampled and returns this updated list to the institution. Institutions then merge student (or staff) contact details back into this list so that they will be ready to distribute the online and paper survey forms to the sampled students (or staff).

Once respondents have completed the online or paper version of the survey, these surveys are returned directly to ACER. ACER then enters the data, prepares the analysis files and weights the responses. The final data is then provided to each institution in the form of an AUSSE Institution Report and SPSS data file.

More detailed information on the distribution, collection and analysis of survey materials, and a thorough description of what participating institutions need to do to administer the AUSSE, POSSE and SSES surveys is contained in the 2010 AUSSE Administration Manual.

If we participate in the AUSSE, should we still run other institutional surveys?

The AUSSE collects data on student engagement, and the AUSSE has been designed to complement existing data collections and survey activities currently in place at institutions. The Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ) gathers information directly from undergraduate students regarding their engagement at their institution and the Postgraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (PSEQ) does the same with postgraduate coursework students and the Staff Student Engagement Questionnaire (SSEQ) collects data from academic staff on their perception of student engagement at the institution. All the information gathered as part of the AUSSE is designed to complement other institutional data collected by higher education institutions.

Collecting data on student engagement allows institutions to better understand one part of the student experience. Other data on aspects of the student experience, such as student evaluations of teaching, measures of student support, administrative factors and assessment data could also be collected and used to form a more comprehensive view of the student experience.

What is the intended frequency of the surveys?

The AUSSE survey instruments, including the Student Engagement Questionnaire (SEQ), the Postgraduate Student Engagement Questionnaire (PSEQ) and the Staff Student Engagement Questionnaire (SSEQ), are intended to be administered once a year during July and August.

What does participation in the AUSSE involve?

Participation in the AUSSE involves the administration of online and paper surveys to a sample of students at your institution during July and August.

How are the AUSSE survey instruments developed and validated?

The AUSSE has formative links with the North American National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), a collection developed in the mid-1990s and run in over 1,200 US and Canadian higher education institutions since then. The AUSSE questionnaire (SEQ) and its items have been designed, developed and validated by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) through a process involving focus groups, cognitive interviews, pilot testing, psychometric analysis and review by educational and technical experts. Ongoing validation of the SEQ is also taking place and involves focus groups, consultations, cognitive interviews, pilot testing, expert reviews and psychometric analyses.

To whom is data on student engagement relevant?

Data on student engagement is relevant to a number of different groups in an institution. The key audience includes individual academic and general or professional staff at the institution, various faculties and schools, current students and future students.

What is the contextual background to the AUSSE?

The AUSSE survey has been designed to stimulate evidence-focused conversations about students’ engagement in university study. The AUSSE was developed to bring together existing work in student engagement and leverage benefits from a collaborative, multi-institutional approach.

How is collecting data on student engagement going to be useful to us?

The AUSSE provides data on phenomena that while central to student learning and educational provision, have not hitherto been the focus of wide scale measurement in Australasia. Data on student engagement can be used by institutions to come up with better ways of attracting, engaging and retaining students as well as to understand and improve the quality of students’ learning experiences and outcomes. The AUSSE provides data that complement and extend current data collections that focus on satisfaction with the quality of teaching and the learning environment.

How does data on student engagement relate to our current data collections?

The AUSSE provides institutions with data that complement and extend current collections that focus on satisfaction with the quality of teaching and the learning environment. The AUSSE thereby makes available a new means for measuring and monitoring the effectiveness of learning and teaching, as well as a means of understanding the overall university experience, above and beyond the classroom experience.

Depending on the way in which the AUSSE is administered at an institution, it may be possible for institutions to link students' responses on the AUSSE directly with other institutional data sources.

Why collect feedback from students?

Collecting feedback from students can prove very beneficial as it gives key insights into students' actual behaviours, thoughts and feelings relating to their overall university experience. The data collected from students through the AUSSE provides institutions with valuable information on their students that is different from information collected through evaluations of teaching or satisfaction surveys. Data on student engagement, such as the data collected through the AUSSE, can be used by individual institutions to enhance the quality of education, and importantly, can help inform ways to attract, engage and retain students.

What are the benefits of participating in the AUSSE?

There are numerous benefits that institutions gain by participating in the AUSSE. Among many other benefits, participating in the AUSSE can be valuable for institutions as it:

• provides real-time information on learning processes
• offers the most reliable proxy measure of learning outcomes
• provides excellent diagnostic measures for enhancement activities
• assists with identifying ways to attract and retain students
• highlights the value of a university experience; and
• helps manage resources, and monitor programs and services.

As a great number of higher education institutions across Australia and New Zealand participate in the AUSSE, along with many thousands of institutions in North America, and now in many other countries, including South Africa, participating in the AUSSE also allows your institution to benchmark against national, international and institutional points of reference.