High-Impact Practices

What are HIPs?

High-impact practices are educational experiences that are associated with a number of positive benefits for students including deep learning and personal development (Finley & McNair, 2013), increased retention (Brownell & Swaner, 2010; Provencher & Kassel, 2017), and higher persistence and graduation rates (McDaniel and Van Jura, 2022). When students participate in multiple HIPs, they are likely to experience more positive outcomes (Finley & McNair, 2013).

While all students benefit from participating in HIPs, participation may be especially beneficial for students from underserved backgrounds and may help to reduce achievement gaps, (Brownell & Swaner, 2010; Finley & McNair, 2013; Kuh, 2008). However, students from underserved backgrounds may face barriers in accessing HIPs, such as time and financial constraints, that can lead to inequitable participation in HIPs.

HIP Planning Document (Word) UWSP HIPs Rubric (PDF)

What makes an experience High-Impact?

While AAC&U has identified eleven categories of high-impact practices including undergraduate research, first-year seminars, internships, and service learning, it is the quality of the experience, not the label we give it, that determines whether an experience is truly high-impact. Research into what makes HIPs effective has found eight quality markers that typify high-impact practices.

Performance levels are set at appropriately high levels.
Significant investment of time and effort by students over an extended period of time.
Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters.
Experiences with diversity, wherein students are exposed to and must contend with people and circumstances that differ from those with which the student is familiar.
Frequent, timely, and constructive feedback.
Periodic, structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning.
Opportunities to discover relevance of learning through real-world applications.
Public demonstration of competence.

While these quality markers provide a framework for designing high-impact experiences, integrating all eight may not be feasible, and in some cases, may not make sense for the practice undertaken. For example, while experiences with diversity may be inherent in study abroad, it may not be in undergraduate research, particularly in STEM fields. Research shows that in practice, most HIPs meet between 4 and 6 of the quality markers. (NSSE, 2020)