The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) is administered nationally by the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research and provides faculty insight on student academic experiences such as research, internships, and study abroad programs. In addition, the FSSE provides information about faculty roles such as teaching and mentoring. This is the first year WFU participated in the FSSE, joining 90 US institutions in 2022.
The FSSE was administered electronically by the Office of Institutional Research in April 2022 to all Reynolda Campus faculty at Wake Forest University (N = 1,020). A total of 279 responses were submitted, representing a 27% response rate (estimated margin of error \(\pm\) 8.4%). The respondents were not representative of the faculty when comparing distributions across school (e.g. Business School). For example, the responses submitted overrepresented the College faculty population at Wake Forest. To address some concerns around nonresponse bias, all analyses were performed with post-stratification weights by school. The majority of respondents were College (82%), Graduate (6%), and Business (5%) faculty. Other respondents were Law (4%), Library (3%), and Divinity (0.4%) faculty.
Faculty at Wake placed high emphasis on several FSSE scales including Effective Teaching Practices, Reflective & Integrative Learning, and Higher-Order Learning. Faculty indicated it is most important for undergraduates to participate in the High-Impact Practices of having a field experience such as an internship, a culminating senior experience such as a capstone course, and a study abroad program. Roughly four in five respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they feel comfortable “being myself” at Wake, feel like they are part of the Wake community, and feel valued by Wake.
For each item below, a statistical test for the difference between groups (e.g. gender) is performed. If the difference between groups is found to be statistically significant, this analysis reports effect sizes in order to allow one to compare the magnitude of the difference. Each item that is found to have a difference between groups and indicates at least a small effect size is highlighted in the following colors. This report provides a summary of each section (e.g. FSSE Scales Comparison) followed by the comparison within WFU faculty by gender, race/ethnicity, tenure track (excluding adjunct faculty), and adjunct status. Please note all the preceding variables were self-reported in the survey and not confirmed using internal WFU data since individual WFU IDs were not collected. (See here for more on survey analysis methodology.)
| Size | Criteria |
|---|---|
| Large Effect | >= 0.80 |
| Medium Effect | >= 0.50 |
| Small Effect | >= 0.20 |
Complementing the Engagement Indicators developed for the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), the FSSE groups information from a subset of items into ten scales to provide a more reliable, cumulative measure of areas of notable interest. Each FSSE scale is expressed on a 0 to 60 metric. Component items are converted to a 60-point metric (e.g., Not important=0, Somewhat important=20, Important=40, Very Important=60), then averaged together to compute faculty-level scores.
Wake Forest University faculty scored highest on Effective Teaching Practices (46.8), Reflective & Integrative Learning (42.2), and Higher-Order Learning (41.0). Faculty scored lowest on Discussions with Diverse Others (23.0).
Faculty at WFU in 2022 scored differently by gender with a small effect in the following categories:
White faculty and Under-Represented Minority (URM) faculty scored equally on almost all scales, except for one (medium effect size):
Faculty scored differently by tenure status with a small effect in the following categories:
Faculty scored differently by adjunct status with a medium effect in the following categories:
For the full lists of the scale score comparisons please see the section FSSE Scales Comparison.
Corresponding to the High-Impact Practices (HIPs) developed in the NSSE, faculty are asked about particular student academic experiences and how well their institution incorporates them. HIPs, which have been found to positively correlate with student learning and retention, “demand considerable time and effort, facilitate learning outside of the classroom, require meaningful interactions with faculty and students, encourage collaboration with diverse others, and provide frequent and substantive feedback.” Faculty at WFU indicated the most importance in undergraduate participation of a field experience such as an internship (74%), a culminating senior experience such as a capstone course (73%), as well as a study abroad program (61%) prior to graduating.
Faculty at WFU scored fairly equally by gender and race across all High-Impact Practices. Faculty scored differently by tenure status with at least a small effect in the following:
Faculty scored differently by adjunct status with a small effect in the following:
Although often less statistically reliable than scales, which are derived from multiple items, individual questions may provide a closer look at specific issues and notable differences across groups. FSSE consists of two types of items. First, the respondent profile presented faculty with items about their backgrounds and goals. Then, the frequency comparison questions asked about the regularity with which faculty engaged in certain activities during the 2021-2022 school year at WFU.
Among all WFU respondents,
Some overall highlights from these individual items include:
Faculty differed in response to a few items by gender. For example, women indicated spending a higher percentage of class time on small-group activities than men (26% vs 16%). In contrast, men indicated spending a higher percentage of class time lecturing than women (41% vs 31%).
White and URM faculty differed in response to several items. For example, URM faculty indicated spending nearly twice as many hours each week on improving their teaching than White faculty (4.1 vs 2.4). On the other hand, White faculty estimated teaching a higher average of undergraduate students than URM faculty during the 2021-22 school year (53 vs 33).
Tenure track and non-tenure track faculty have differences–and frequently large effect sizes–mostly in areas that are expected given their differing job expectations in research and teaching loads. Both largely spend the same amount of class time on different in-class activities (lectures, discussions, student presentations, etc.). However, faculty who are not on a tenure track are slightly more likely to “use a variety of teaching techniques to accommodate diversity in student approaches to learning” (90% vs 74%) and also report more hours per week working to improve teaching (3.3 vs 2.4). Faculty who are not on a tenure track are also more likely to have course goals emphasizing “acquiring job- or work-related knowledge and skills” (54% vs 25%).
Adjunct faculty and non-adjunct faculty report largely similar time spent on various teaching preparation activities and different kinds of in-class activities. Non-adjunct faculty reported more often than adjunct faculty discussing their undergraduate students’ academic performance (65% vs 37%) and discussing course topics, ideas, or concepts with the undergraduate students they teach or advise outside of class (57% vs 29%).
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Inclusiveness and Engagement with Cultural Diversity
Transferable Skills, Career, and Workforce Development
Inclusiveness and Engagement with Cultural Diversity
Transferable Skills, Career, and Workforce Development
Inclusiveness and Engagement with Cultural Diversity
Transferable Skills, Career, and Workforce Development
Inclusiveness and Engagement with Cultural Diversity
Transferable Skills, Career, and Workforce Development
Inclusiveness and Engagement with Cultural Diversity
Transferable Skills, Career, and Workforce Development