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University representatives from the Council of Rectors who participated in the ENCE 2020 Survey addressed the results of the application of the survey, marked by the pandemic.
In the last measurement, 11 universities of the Council participated and included 109 items, which addressed 8 dimensions of student life.
This Monday, within the framework of the "Special Track Program: Information for the management of training processes in higher education", of the Congress of the Americas on International Education (CAEI) 2021, the participants were able to learn about the experience of the National Survey Student Engagement (ENCE).
ENCE is an initiative in which institutions of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH) participate, which have gradually joined this experience, and which seeks to evaluate and improve the commitment of students.
In this framework, the round table "National Survey of Student Engagement (ENCE), placing the student experience at the center of university education" -moderated by the researcher from the University of Valparaíso and promoter of the instrument, José Miguel Salazar-, addressed the results of the measurement during 2020, in which 11 houses of study participated.
ENCE measures student engagement (student engagement), which refers to a state and disposition of the 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.
Gonzalo Zapata, director of the ENCE-CRUCH project, stated that this instrument collects “valuable information on the educational experience of students, particularly on what they do in their university life. It is an initiative that tries to contribute with an academic management agenda to the universities and their growing concern for quality assurance ”.
Information for decision making
Representatives of institutions participating in the survey participated in the round table. Carla Förster, Director of Undergraduate Evaluation and Quality at the U. de Talca, assured that “this experience has not only served to collect information on the student experience, but it has also been a super rich space for collaboration and inter-institutional exchange (… ) which has made it possible to share policies and practices to improve management ”.
Angélica Bustos, director of the Center for Support to Academic Achievement and Vocational Exploration of the Pontificia U. Católica de Chile (CARA-UC), addressed the effects of the pandemic on academic activity as evidenced by ENCE. In this context, the students reported "increased workload, difficulties in balancing personal and academic life, distractions from home, difficulties in interacting with fellow students."
For her part, Leonor Armanet, Undergraduate Director of the University of Chile, said that "our universities take this information to generate changes and adjustments." He added that "I think there is a giant challenge in how we get to the classroom, in the interaction between teachers and students", so that in this scenario "timely information is required, when it is used to analyze problems that exist in the contingency or in the projection of the long term and, therefore, it helps in its own management ”.
Meanwhile, José Miguel Salazar closed the panel stating that “the old normality no longer exists. The question is how we polish a different scenario, taking charge of this trajectory and for that, gathering information, trying to start new conversations, giving new information to decision makers, becomes something key ”.
ENCE 2020 survey
The U. of Chile participated in the ENCE 2020 Survey; Pontificia U. Católica de Chile; U. of Talca; U. de La Frontera; U. of Valparaíso; U. de Playa Ancha of Education Sciences; U. Católica de Temuco; U. Católica de la Santísima Concepción; U. Arturo Prat; U. de Aysén; and U. Tecnológica Metropolitana.
In 2020 the evaluation included 109 items, which were organized in 8 dimensions: Higher Order Learning, Student-Teacher Interaction, Effective Teaching Practices, Learning Strategies, Quality of Interactions, Interactions in a Diversity Framework, Institutional Support, and Effort Academic (the latter at the pilot level).
More about ENCE 2020 survey
More about previous versions of the ENCE Survey