DAPS - Experiences

Diversity Assessment at Portland State (DAPS)

Key Indicator A2. Campus experiences related to diversity.

This Key Indicator relates to the experiences people have on Portland State campus. With regard to diversity assessment, our question is whether people from different social groups have different experiences on our campus. Regarding staff and faculty experience, we have found no relevant information to date.

With regard to student experience, we turned to selected questions from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). PSU administers the NSSE every two years to first-year students and seniors. This permits measurement of student self-reported data within the context of a national, standard set of questions; PSU's Office of Institutional Research and Planning (OIRP), however, does not recommend comparing our NSSE data with data from other institutions, citing differences in sampling and administration methods.

NSSE data allow us to disaggregate by gender, race, and class standing (first-year students compared to seniors). To date, we have found no data on perception of climate that would allow us to disaggregate by other diversity variables, such as ability/disability, gender expression and identity, religion, sexual preference, or Veteran's status (NSSE does include a question on Veteran's status, but the numbers in our 2007 sample are too small to allow analysis).

The questions we have used as data for student reports of campus experience are listed below, with a link to a page of data tables for each (if you find the tables hard to interpret, here's help).

• "In your experience at your institution during the current school year, how often did you include diverse perspectives (different races, religions, genders, political beliefs, etc.) in class discussions or writing assignments?" (NSSE Question 1e)

• "In your experience at your institution during the current school year, how often have you had serious conversations with students of a different race or ethnicity than your own?" (NSSE Question 1u)

• "In your experience at your institution during the current school year, how often have you had serious conversations with students who are very different from you in terms of their religious beliefs, political opinions, or personal values?" (NSSE Question 1v)

• "During the current school year, how often have you examined the strengths and weaknesses of your own views on a topic or issue?" (NSSE Question 6d)

• "During the current school year, how often have you tried to better understand someone else's views by imaging how an issue looks from his or her perspective?" (NSSE Question 6e)

• "What expression best represents the quality of your relationships with other students; with faculty members; with administrative offices and personnel?" (NSSE Question 8a/b/c)

NSSE data provided by Juliette Stoering, OIRP. See http://nsse.iub.edu/html/quick_facts.cfm for more information about the NSSE. This text by Martha Balshem. Please e-mail comments to diversity@pdx.edu.