Student Achievement at Mississippi State University

Praxis II Success Rates: The College of Education uses Praxis II success rates as a measure of student achievement. Students at all locations and in all modalities are included in these results. The College’s accrediting body, CAEP formerly NCATE, requires that member institutions maintain a pass rate of 80% or better, which is the minimum threshold for achievement. MSU’s target is to stay at or above the statewide pass rates.

Architecture Licensure Exam Results: The School of Architecture performs strongly in this licensure exam. This department focuses on seven areas within the licensure exam, which are closely related to specific courses in the Architecture program. All results are shared with the Architecture faculty in general, and course modifications seek to improve any low scores. MSU wants the majority of students to pass all areas of the exam; therefore, 50% is the minimum threshold of achievement. The school’s target is at or above the national average.

Board of Registered Foresters Exam: Forestry graduates of the College of Forest Resources (CFR) who want to practice forestry in the state of Mississippi must pass the Mississippi Board of Registered Foresters' Exam. The department has set a minimum threshold for achievement at 70% passing with a target of 75%. The program faculty have identified the students’ strengths and weaknesses and have steadily revised the curriculum to improve mastery in these areas.

Veterinary Licensing Examination: The Doctor of Veterinary Medicine uses the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination at the time of graduation as one measure of success. MSU strives to meet or exceed the average pass rate of a criterion group of peer institutions, which is its target of 98%. The lowest pass rate it has ever had was in 2009 at 89.4%; therefore, it has set 90% as its minimum threshold of achievement.

The institution has variable thresholds and targets for its colleges’ career data rates. For colleges focused on professions, the institution has set 75% for the minimum threshold of achievement and 85% as the target. These fields generally have high expectations for placement rates within six months after graduation. Generally, graduates from the College of Forest Resources have similar rates and are likely to obtain employment with federal agencies. At the time of this survey, many federal agencies were in hiring freezes, which affected the data for the 2017-18 year. The College of Arts & Sciences has different expectations for six months after graduation versus one year after graduation. Frequently, these graduates enroll in graduate programs to continue their education, but because many begin graduate school on a traditional academic calendar, these decisions have not always been made at the time of the survey. Finally, the College of Veterinary Medicine includes the only first-professional school at MSU. The Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) is one of only a few programs within the U.S. that, like most colleges of human medicine, requires two full years of mentored clinical education. DVM graduates are highly sought after; therefore, the College of Veterinary Medicine has a much higher expectation for employment than the primarily undergraduate programs. For this reason, its minimum threshold is 95% and its target is 100%.

Note: Knowledge of career status for 78% of graduates. Percent employed or continuing education includes serving in the U.S. military, participating in service or volunteer program, and planning to continue education but not yet enrolled. Students who indicated they were not seeking employment or continuing education were removed from the above percentage calculations.

*percent employed or continuing education includes responses of employed full-time, employed part-time, enrolled in a program of continuing education, participating in a volunteer or service program, serving in the US military, and planning to continue education but not yet enrolled.

**percent seeking employment includes only those students who indicated they were still seeking employment 3 months after graduation

***lacking reliable information includes the number of students for which no information was available as well as responses of planning to continue education but not yet enrolled and seeking employment that could not be verified as accurate 3 months after graduation

The Career Center has noticed stronger outcomes for students who participate in experiential learning programs; therefore, it has made a concerted effort to expand its co-operative education and internship offerings. During 2020-21, the Career Center had a total of 730 students in a formal co-op or internship for seven out of eight colleges (Note: The College of Veterinary Medicine offers clinical rotations instead of co-ops and internships). Not all academic programs connect their internships or field experiences with the Career Center, so the institution uses the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to determine what proportion of the seniors have “Done or in progress” or “Plan to do” an internship before they graduate. The university compares its data to those of its Carnegie R1 and R2 peers that complete the survey. Our historic low is the minimum threshold for achievement, and the Carnegie peer scores serve as the target.

Writing has been an area of focus for the university. Starting in 2014-15, MSU took on writing as its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). The university has seen some improvement toward this outcome based on its own faculty-developed rubric, which is described in more detail in the Impact Report. However, the university measures its overall success with student writing using the ETS Proficiency Profile exam, which is a standardized test administered to first-year and senior students each spring. The writing section of the exam measures the students’ knowledge of grammar, language organization, and figurative language. Exam results indicate what percentage of students score at proficient, marginally proficient, and not proficient within three levels of understanding:

• Level 1: recognize grammar and word usage
• Level 2: build upon simple components of writing and incorporate those simple components into more complex sentence structures
• Level 3: recognize how complex sentences work together for parallelism, idiomatic language, correct constructions, and reduction in redundancy.

The results of this exam are benchmarked against our Carnegie R1 and R2 peers. During 2009-2013, the institution performed lower than our peers, and the peer scores at the time become the target. After the implementation of the QEP, MSU’s writing scores are now higher than our Carnegie peers. The 2017 peer average is now the threshold of minimum achievement.  

The university compares its data to those of its Carnegie R1 and R2 peers that complete these instruments. Our historic low is the minimum threshold for achievement, and the Carnegie peer scores serve as the target.

Questions related to graduate students' participation in peer-refereed activity used to be collected only at the unit level, but they were added to the Graduate Exit Survey for the 2017-18 year. The first year serves as the baseline and is the minimum threshold for achievement as the institution hopes to continue tracking this measure and increasing its results. The target was established as 10% increase over the baseline year.

Additionally, the NSSE asks senior students to respond to whether they have worked with faculty members on a research project or have engaged in a culminating senior experience, such as a capstone course, senior project or thesis, comprehensive exam, or portfolio. MSU tracks the percentage of students who responded "Done or in progress" or "Plan to do" to these questions. Our historic low is the minimum threshold for achievement, and the Carnegie peer scores serve as the target.

The NSSE considers service-learning and community-based projects as a high-impact practice. MSU consistently scores higher than our Carnegie peers in this metric, and their average score serves as our minimum threshold of achievement. Our target is a 10% increase over our highest score.

The university uses both the ETS Proficiency Profile exam and the NSSE survey to measure progress on this outcome. Our historic low is the minimum threshold for achievement, and the Carnegie peer scores serve as the target.

Other metrics are informed by the percentage of students who responded "Done or in progress" for these NSSE High-Impact Practices results.

The results of the NSSE survey address the university-wide measures for Collaboration. MSU performs well in comparison to our peers, and for these cases, the Carnegie peers are the minimum threshold of achievement while our target is 1% higher than our highest score.

The university is committed to its mission “to provide access and opportunity to…diverse populations.” Based on its ratio of Pell Grant students within the student body, the U.S. News and World Reports Best Colleges ranking system estimates that MSU’s graduation rate could be as high as 62%. This is the institution’s target for graduation rate. The university’s highest historic retention rate is 83.1%, which is the institutions’ retention target. MSU's retention and graduation rates have consistently been the highest or second highest in the State of Mississippi for public Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL). The system averages for retention and graduation are the minimum threshold of achievement.

Student Success

MSU has a goal to enhance the institutional culture and environment represents a commitment to provide all members of the Mississippi State University community with the resources to achieve their professional and personal goals in an environment that reflects the university's values. A prominent goal for our students is to persist through their education and ultimately obtain the credential they seek. The Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness at MSU calculates retention and graduation rates, and these rates are reported annually on a volunteer basis to The Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange (CSRDE) through the University of Oklahoma. Additionally, MSU participates in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) through National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). MSU's retention and graduation rates have consistently been the highest or second highest in the State of Mississippi for public Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL). The system averages for retention and graduation are the minimum threshold of achievement.