About ENCE

The National Survey of Student Engagement Assessment (ENCE) is the result of a collaborative project by universities belonging to the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), designed to gather evidence on the characteristics of the undergraduate student experience and seeks to evaluate and improve their commitment to learning and training. .

Student engagement refers to the state and disposition of students to approach their studies and achieve learning. This concept includes, on the one hand, the time and effort they dedicate to their studies and educational activities. It also considers how institutions deploy their resources and organize the curriculum and other opportunities for students to participate in activities related to their learning.

International experience in developing these types of instruments has been significant. The first questionnaire measuring student engagement was conceived in 1998 and implemented by Indiana University starting in 2000. Nearly 1,700 colleges and universities have participated in the NSSE, and it has been answered by approximately 6.5 million students in the United States and Canada. This type of initiative has expanded to more than a dozen other countries, being adapted and widely applied in recent years in countries such as Australia and New Zealand (AUSSE), South Africa (SASSE), China (CCSS), Ireland (ISSE), and the UK (UKES), among others. Similar initiatives are also underway in Southeast Asia, South Korea, and the Arab world.

The National Survey of Student Engagement Assessment, ENCE, was developed from a preliminary draft corresponding to the 2013 version of NSSE, translated and used by the University of Valparaíso in 2015. The questionnaire was submitted to a review by a committee of experts, composed of specialists in academic process management from that institution, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile, 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, generating the first version of the ENCE in the country.

Since then, the ENCE has been administered annually, during the second semester of each year, to a total of more than 55,000 students. Currently, 20 institutions belonging to the CRUCH participate: Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Alberto Hurtado University, Arturo Prat University, Catholic University of the Holy Conception, Catholic University of Temuco, Catholic University of Maule, University of Atacama, University of Aysén, University of Chile, University of La Frontera, University of La Serena, University of the Andes, University of Los Lagos, University of Magallanes, University of Playa Ancha, University of Santiago, University of Talca, University of Valparaíso, Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences, and Metropolitan Technological University.

This project is sponsored by the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH). The aim is to encourage more institutions to join this initiative and to promote the exchange of information and best practices among them.

General objective

To evaluate student engagement in institutions belonging to the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities, generating information on various dimensions of the student training experience, and to promote analysis and use for academic management, exchange of good practices, inter-institutional collaboration, studies on student experience, and dissemination of public information for the improvement of the quality of higher education.

Specific objectives

1. Evaluate student engagement based on the application of the National Student Engagement Survey, ENCE, and annually analyze its psychometric properties and adjustment of the measurement model in order to cover the various dimensions of the student experience and its relationship with learning in the context of the CRUCH Universities.
2. Analyze and report the information gathered by the ENCE to support academic and curricular management in CRUCH universities, through the articulation of the results gathered by the student commitment assessment instrument with other available sources of information (student characterization, curricular progression and educational and work trajectories, among other aspects) and develop a set of high-impact practices that contribute to improving the learning experience of students.
3. To create collaborative spaces among participating universities, for the exchange of information, transfer of high-impact practices, as well as to promote specific studies on student experience, and the use and dissemination of information to students and the general public.

• The ENCE survey allows: The capture, analysis and generation of evidence useful 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.

At the height of the pandemic, four distinct student groups emerged, categorized by their use of time. Large numbers of students experienced stressful and unbalanced situations.