Widespread use of the Web and other Internet technologies in postsecondary education has exploded in the last 10 years. Although a significant amount of literature exists on student engagement in traditional face-to-face environments, there is relatively little research into student engagement in the online learning environment. In 2008, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) developed a set of experimental questions to investigate the nature of student engagement in the online environment. Approximately 17,000 randomly selected firstyear and senior college students at 45 baccalaureate degree-granting institutions responded to this set of questions. The researchers discuss the definition of student engagement for the online learning environment, the development of the NSSE online learning questions, findings, and implications for postsecondary education.

The Internet and other digital technologies have become thoroughly integrated in the lives of today’s college student. A recent study by EDUCAUSE (2007) suggests that the vast majority of students at baccalaureate degree-granting institutions own and use their own computers. Online course management systems such as Blackboard, D2L, or Sakai are nearly ubiquitous on American colleges and universities and wireless Internet access permeates most college classrooms (Green, 2007). Outside the classroom, Internet connections are available in virtually all on-campus residence halls and online social networking websites like Facebook. com and MySpace. com are used by an estimated 79-95% of all American college students (Ellison, 2007).