By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: Feb. 17, 2012
Quest University was placed first in Canada in undergraduate educational quality by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in 2011.
Quest ranked top in all five of the survey’s benchmark categories.
These five categories include level of academic challenge, inclusion of enriching educational experiences, intensity of Student-Faculty Interaction, use of active and collaborative learning, and existence of a supportive campus environment.
More than 280,000 students at 673 US institutions and 67 Canadian universities participated in the 2011 survey.
“We are delighted to see that we have, by a considerable margin, the highest ranking in Canada,” says Dr. David Helfand, President of Quest University.
“It confirms the leading position we have gained in less than five short years as we’ve set out to create a new model for undergraduate education in North America.”
Highlights of Quest’s results include:
84 per cent of Quest seniors report they “very often” ask a question in class or contribute to class discussion versus an average of 26 per cent of seniors at other Canadian universities.
91 percent of Quest first-year students gave in-class presentations “very often” and “often, versus 17 per cent at other Canadian universities.
62 per cent of Quest seniors reported receiving “prompt written or oral feedback from faculty on assignments” versus 11 per cent at other Canadian universities.
41 per cent of Quest seniors “discussed ideas from [their] readings and classes with faculty members outside of class” compared with just 6 per cent who did so at other Canadian universities.
53 per cent of Quest seniors had already studied abroad whereas only 11 per cent of seniors at other Canadian universities have done so.
