Abstract
Faculty and administrators are more likely to take responsibility for student learning and development if they believe that assessment data represent their students and identify specific actions for improvement. An earlier study found that NSSE scalelets provide dependable metrics for assessing student engagement at the university, college, and department levels. Building on the earlier study, the findings of the current research indicate that the NSSE scalelets have greater explanatory power and provide richer detail than the NSSE benchmarks.
Highlights
The term scalelet is derived from the concept of testlets proposed by Wainer and Kiely (1987, p. 190): “A testlet is a group of items related to a single content area that is devel oped as a unit and contains a fixed number of predetermined paths that an examinee may follow [in a computerized adaptive test].” The use of testlets allows developers to construct test units that contain more than one item and reduces problems associated with context and order effects (Wainer et al, 1990)
Two questions, corresponding to the concepts of convergence and discrimination, formed the basis for the current research: 1. Are National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) scalelet scores significantly related to institutional measures of student learning and development after accounting for institutional characteristics?
Most of the independent variables included in the regres sion analyses were significantly correlated with general education gains, and many of the independent variables were significantly correlated with gains in practical skills
Summary
The term scalelet is derived from the concept of testlets proposed by Wainer and Kiely (1987, p. 190): “A testlet is a group of items related to a single content area that is devel oped as a unit and contains a fixed number of predetermined paths that an examinee may follow [in a computerized adaptive test].” The use of testlets allows developers to construct test units that contain more than one item and reduces problems associated with context and order effects (Wainer et al, 1990). 190): “A testlet is a group of items related to a single content area that is devel oped as a unit and contains a fixed number of predetermined paths that an examinee may follow [in a computerized adaptive test].”. A scalelet consists of a set of survey questions related to a specific aspect of the educational experiences of a group of students. Three elements of this definition require elaboration. It is not possible to make generalizations about a construct, such as involvement in cocurricular activities, based on a single survey question (e.g., the number of organizations to which a student belongs). General izations should be made about the number of organizations to which the student belongs
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