About ENCE

What is ENCE?

The National Survey for the Evaluation of Student Engagement (ENCE) is a national instrument that seeks to evaluate and improve the commitment of students from universities belonging to the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH).

Student engagement refers to a state and disposition of students to approach their studies and achieve learning. This concept includes, on the one hand, the time and effort that they dedicate to their studies and training activities. It also considers the ways in which institutions deploy their resources and organize curricula and other instances so that students participate in activities that are related to their learning.

The expansion of this initiative has been important. In 2014, NSSE applied to nearly half a million students at more than 700 universities and schools in the United States and Canada. Subsequently, the student engagement measurement questionnaires have been expanded to more than a dozen other countries, adapting and widely applied in recent years in countries such as Australia and New Zealand (AUSSE), South Africa (SASSE), China (CCSS), Ireland (ISSE), UK (UKES), among the most important. There are also developments of similar initiatives in Southeast Asia, South Korea and the Arab world.

Origen

The National Survey for the Evaluation of Student Engagement, ENCE, was developed from a preliminary draft corresponding to the 2013 version of the NSSE, translated and used by the University of Valparaíso in 2015. The translated document was submitted to a review by a committee of experts, made up of specialists in academic process management from that study house, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the University of Chile and the University of Valparaíso, where adjustments and scopes to the use of the concepts and terms of the original instrument were proposed.

In 2017, the three institutions carried out a pilot project of adjustment and cognitive and statistical validation of the questionnaire, to adequately collect the characteristics of the experience of undergraduate students in our local context.

In 2018, the three pioneering schools were joined by the University of Playa Ancha and the Catholic University of Temuco.

En el 2019 se incorporaron la Universidad de Aysén, la Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, la Universidad de Talca, la Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana y la Universidad de la Frontera, sumando 10 casas de estudios.

En 2020 la Universidades Arturo Prat y Los Andes también se integraron a esta iniciativa. Este proyecto cuenta con el patrocinio del Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas (CRUCH) desde el 2018. El propósito es que más instituciones se sumen a esta iniciativa y promover el intercambio de información y buenas prácticas entre éstas.

goals

El propósito de ENCE es reunir información acerca de la calidad de los estudios (fundamentalmente de pregrado) y las calificaciones obtenidas por los/as estudiantes, en un esfuerzo colaborativo de numerosas universidades norteamericanas.

Why ENCE?

The ENCE survey allows:

• The capture, analysis and generation of useful evidence for academic management.
• The exchange of good practices.
• Inter-institutional collaboration.
• Dissemination of public information about the experience of undergraduate students and learning outcomes.

The ENCE survey offers an overview of the diversity of the students of the institutions that participate in this initiative and how they experience their passage through higher education.

Through this instrument it is sought to record and monitor the transformations that are generated in the educational experience of the students. These findings are useful for planning the academic management agendas of universities and for initiatives that seek to improve the quality of higher education.

This gathering of evidence on what the students do and how they learn also allows the use of comparative information and inter-institutional collaboration, a situation that offers great opportunities to strengthen the work of the houses of study that are part of this project.

Universities are committed to contributing with actions that serve for the generation of public policies that contribute to the improvement of the quality of higher education in Chile. In this sense, ENCE can contribute to the generation of inputs that serve to design actions in this area.

ENCE en gráficos