NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
University of Houston-Downtown
About Your Multi-Year Report
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
About This Report
For institutions participating in multiple NSSE administrations since 2013, the year of the last survey update, this report presents year-to-year results for Engagement Indicators (EIs), High-Impact Practices (HIPs), and key academic challenge items to illustrate patterns of change or stability. It also provides details such as numbers of respondents, standard deviations, and standard errors so that statistical tests can be calculated.
For more information and recommendations for analyzing NSSE data over time, view our webinar entitled Recommendations for Using Multiple Years of NSSE Data: http://go.iu.edu/2R1r
This report contains three main parts: (a) a page that provides a quick reference to important information about each year’s administration, (b) multi-year figures, and (c) detailed statistics. Key terms and features are illustrated below.
Report sections
Administration Summaries (p. 3) A summary of respondent counts, response rates, sampling errors, and administration details for each participation year.
Engagement Results by Theme (pp. 4-7)
High-Impact Practices (pp. 8-9)
Detailed Statistics (pp. 10-13)
Interpreting year-to-year results
Results for ten EIs and selected individual survey items are displayed, organized under four broad themes. The Academic Challenge theme is represented by four EIs as well as several individual items. The three remaining engagement themes (Learning with Peers, Experiences with Faculty, and Campus Environment) are each represented by two EIs.
Results for six HIPs are displayed. First-year student results indicate students who participated in service-learning, a learning community, and research with faculty, and who planned to do an internship or field experience, study abroad, and a culminating senior experience. Senior results indicate students who participated in all six.
Displays detailed information for results including counts, standard errors, and confidence intervals (CIs) for each measure.
When examining year-to-year results, you may wonder whether observed differences signify meaningful change and whether a trend is indicated. Figures display CIs around each score showing the range of values that is estimated to contain the population score 95% of the time. Upper and lower CI bounds are also reported in the Detailed Statistics section.
For further investigation
The Report Builder, updated with current data in the fall, allows for multi-year analysis of Engagement Indicators and individual items (including HIPs). It also affords the analysis of results by subpopulation. The Report Builder can be accessed via the NSSE Institution Interface.
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Administration Summaries
University of Houston-Downtown
The precision of an institution's population estimates can vary between administrations. An important early step in conducting a multi-year analysis is to review data quality. The values in the tables below were drawn from your Administration Summary reports.
Seniors
Note: All of your institution's participation years since 2013 (the first year of the updated NSSE) are reported. Years in which your institution did not participate are blank.
a. Response rates (number of respondents divided by sample size) are adjusted for ineligibility, nondeliverable addresses, and students who were unavailable during the survey administration.
b. Sampling error gauges the precision of results based on a sample survey. It is an estimate (at the 95% confidence level) of how much results for your respondents could differ from those of the entire population of students at your institution. While data with larger sampling errors (such as +/-10%) need not be dismissed out of hand, such results should be interpreted more conservatively.
c. Count used to calculate response rates and sampling errors for each Administration Summary report. Includes all census-administered and randomly sampled students, regardless of "Report Sample" designation.
d. Starting in 2017, institutions had the option to flag a subset of students for exclusion from reports. Refer to your Administration Summary reports. When applied, results will be unweighted.
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Engagement Results by Theme University of Houston-Downtown
Engagement Indicators (EIs) represent the average student responses to a set of related survey questions. The Academic Challenge theme contains four EIs as well as several important individual items. See the end of this report for detailed statistics. For more information, including the items that make up each EI, refer to your Engagement Indicators report.
Academic Challenge: First-year students
Higher-Order Learning Reflective & Integrative Learning
Quantitative Reasoning
'13'14'15'16'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Academic Challenge (additional items): First-year students
Preparing for Class (hrs/wk)
a.
b. Extent to
c.
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Engagement Results by Theme University of Houston-Downtown
Engagement Indicators (EIs) represent the average student responses to a set of related survey questions. The Academic Challenge theme contains four EIs as well as several important individual items. See pages 10-12 for detailed statistics. For more information, including the items that make up each EI, refer to your Engagement Indicators report.
Academic Challenge: Seniors
Higher-Order Learning Reflective & Integrative Learning
Academic Challenge (additional items): Seniors
Preparing for Class (hrs/wk) Course Reading (hrs/wk) a Assigned Writing (pages)
a. Values for Course Reading and Assigned Writing are estimates calculated from two or more survey questions. The Course Reading item changed in 2014; comparability between 2013 and later years is limited.
b. Extent to which courses challenged students to do their best work (1 = "Not at all" to 7 = "Very much").
c. How much students said the institution emphasizes spending significant time studying and on academic work (1 = "Very little," 2 = "Some," 3 = "Quite a bit," and 4 = "Very much").
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Engagement Results by Theme University of Houston-Downtown
Engagement Indicators (EIs) represent the average student responses to a set of related survey questions. Each theme below is represented by two EIs. See pages 10-12 for detailed statistics. For more information, including the items that make up each EI, refer to your Engagement Indicators report.
Learning With Peers: First-year students
Collaborative Learning Discussions With Diverse Others
Experiences With Faculty: First-year students
Student-Faculty Interaction Effective Teaching Practices
Campus Environment: First-year students
Quality of Interactions Supportive Environment
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Engagement Results by Theme University of Houston-Downtown
Engagement Indicators (EIs) represent the average student responses to a set of related survey questions. Each theme below is represented by two EIs. See pages 10-12 for detailed statistics. For more information, including the items that make up each EI, refer to your Engagement Indicators report.
Learning With Peers: Seniors
Collaborative Learning Discussions With Diverse Others
Experiences With Faculty: Seniors
Student-Faculty Interaction Effective Teaching Practices
Campus Environment: Seniors
Quality of Interactions Supportive Environment
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
High-Impact Practices
University of Houston-Downtown
Due to their positive associations with student learning and retention, certain undergraduate opportunities are designated "high-impact." The figures below display first-year students' participation, or intent to participate, in High-Impact Practices (HIPs) by year. See page 13 for detailed statistics. For more information, refer to your High-Impact Practices report.
High-Impact Practices: First-year students
Service-Learning (Some, most, or all courses)
Learning Community (Done or in progress)
Research With Faculty (Done or in progress)
Internship/Field Experience (Plan to do)
Study Abroad (Plan to do)
Culminating Senior Experience (Plan to do)
Overall first-year HIP participation
The figure below displays the percentages of first-year students who participated in at least one high-impact practice. The figure is limited to participation in service-learning, a learning community, and research with faculty.
'13'14'15'16'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
NSSE founding director George Kuh recommends that institutions aspire for all students to participate in at least two HIPs over the course of their undergraduate experience— one during the first year and one in the context of their major.
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
High-Impact Practices
University of Houston-Downtown
Due to their positive associations with student learning and retention, certain undergraduate opportunities are designated "high-impact." Participation in High-Impact Practices (HIPs) by year is displayed in the figures below. See page 13 for detailed statistics. For more information, refer to your High-Impact Practices report.
High-Impact Practices:
Seniors
Service-Learning (Some, most, or all courses)
Learning Community (Done or in progress)
Research With Faculty (Done or in progress)
Internship/Field Experience
(Done or in progress)
Study Abroad (Done or in progress)
Culminating Senior Experience (Done or in progress)
Overall senior HIP participation
The figure below displays the percentages of seniors who participated in one, and two or more, high-impact practices. The figure includes all six HIPs.
Participated in two or more HIPs Participated in one HIP
NSSE founding director George Kuh recommends that institutions aspire for all students to participate in at least two HIPs over the course of their undergraduate experience— one during the first year and one in the context of their major.
Academic Challenge
Higher-Order Learning
Reflective & Integrative Learning Learning Strategies
Quantitative
Reasoning
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Detailed Statistics: Engagement Indicators and Additional Challenge Items
University of Houston-Downtown
First-year students Seniors
Academic Challenge (additional items)
Preparing for Class (hours/week)
Est. hrs per wk calculated from two items. Item wording changed in 2014; comparability with 2013 is limited.
Notes: n = Number of respondents; SD = Standard deviation; SE = Standard error of the mean; upper and lower bounds represent the 95% confidence interval (mean +/- 1.96 * SE).
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Detailed Statistics: Engagement Indicators and Additional Challenge Items
University of Houston-Downtown
First-year students
Academic Challenge (additional items, continued)
Assigned
Writing
Est. no. of pages calculated from three survey questions.
Seniors
Extent courses challenged students to do best work (1="Not at all" to 7="Very much").
Academic Emphasis
Perceived inst. emphasis on spending time studying and on acad. work (1 = "Very little" to 4 = "Very much").
Learning With Peers
Collaborative Learning
Discussions With Diverse Others Course Challenge
Notes: n = Number of respondents; SD = Standard deviation; SE = Standard error of the mean; upper and lower bounds represent the 95% confidence interval (mean +/- 1.96 * SE).
Experiences with Faculty
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Detailed Statistics: Engagement Indicators and Additional Challenge Items
University of Houston-Downtown
First-year students
Seniors
Effective Teaching Practices
Campus Environment
Quality of Interactions
Supportive Environment StudentFaculty Interaction
Notes: n = Number of respondents; SD = Standard deviation; SE = Standard error of the mean; upper and lower bounds represent the 95% confidence interval (mean +/- 1.96 * SE).
Service-Learninga
Learning
Communitya
Research With Facultya Internship or Field Experienceb (FY results: Plan to do)
Study Abroadb (FY results: Plan to do)
Culminating Senior Experienceb (FY results: Plan to do)
Participated in one HIP Participated in two or more HIPs
NSSE 2025 Multi-Year Report
Detailed Statistics: High-Impact Practices
University of Houston-Downtown
First-year students Seniors
a. Results are the percentage who had done the activity.
b. First-year results are the percentage who planned to do the activity; Senior results are the percentage who had done the activity.
c. First-year results are limited to participation in a Learning Community, Service-Learning, and Research with Faculty; senior results include all six HIPs.