The portrait of the American college senior is a mix of economic pressures and shifting choices. Understanding that the senior year represents another critical transition point for college students, many U.S. colleges and universities are taking intentional steps to help students bring closure to their collegiate experience and accomplish the…

Higher education institutions embarking on an assessment program are encouraged to identify current assessment activities on campus. One method of doing so uses a simple survey to help educate the campus about outcomes assessment while identifying assessment activities in progress. Methodology and results of one application of this method are…

Conceptual and methodological recommendations for enhancing research on the influences of college on students are offered, including isolating net college effects, studying the timing of change, estimating college effect sizes, examining direct and conditional effects, and the potential benefits of qualitative approaches. Areas for future inquiry…

A "formal information inventory" survey method was used to help educate a university campus about outcomes assessment while identifying assessment activities already being undertaken. The survey was sent to 102 individuals identified as being responsible for, or having knowledge of, any assessment activities within a department or area,…

Findings and methodologies from recent research on college faculty workload are reviewed and implications for higher education policy are suggested. It is noted that although such studies have not resulted in demonstrable change in allocation of faculty work, they have focused attention on enhanced learning, and that the research has yet to…

A strategy is proposed for using student assessment to support the role of colleges and universities as learning-centered communities. It reframes the practice of formal, internal academic program review to focus on student learning and provides examples of data needed to support this process, some generated by the institutional researcher and…

Results of two empirical studies of factors affecting academic quality give insight into ways in which educational costs, quality factors, and institutional structure increase or restrict productivity. It is found that evaluation of academic productivity is complex because of difficulties in determining inputs and outputs. Useful improvement…

Five categories of student outcomes in graduate and professional education are identified: timely degree completion; knowledge of the discipline; preparedness for professional practice; preparation for research and inquiry; preparation for teaching. A framework for assessing each is offered and various methods for collecting data on student…

A nine-step method for defining and pursuing key performance indicators (KPIs), derived from a strategic planning process, is outlined, and its applications at the University of Northern Colorado and Illinois Benedictine College are described and tabulated. A chart summarizes current and projected KPIs for Illinois Benedictine College for each…

This resource document presents four papers that were prepared by members of the Task Force on Institutional Effectiveness of the Council on Postsecondary Accreditation concerning issues related to assessments of institutional effectiveness and the use of assessment in the process of institutional accreditation. The first paper, "Outcomes…

There is a need for cross-disciplinary or cross-institutional research on student learning outcomes in graduate and professional education. Challenges in this endeavor include determining the purposes of assessment and who conducts it, identifying and defining outcomes, and managing the use of results. (MSE)

A theory of program quality based on a new definition of quality is offered. Constructed on the basis of interviews with nearly 800 stakeholders in master's-level education, the engagement theory" advances a conceptual framework and a set of criteria, with indicators, for assessing graduate and professional program quality. (Author/MSE)

A study compared three methods for measuring college student growth and development in the course of a college education: (1) gain scores; (2) residual scores; and (3) repeated measures. Analyses indicated that all three are seriously flawed, although repeated measures offer the greatest potential for adequately representing student change.…

Describes the Los Rios Community College District's district-coordinated institutional research model. Considers the coordination of centralized and campus-based research, types of research conducted, quality control, the district research council, setting research agendas, program implementation and monitoring, information dissemination, and the…

Addressed to institutional researchers, this report from California's Chabot College presents information on National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data sets. Included is a discussion on how these data sets can be used to create peer groups of U.S. colleges, and to produce statistics on major student variables for each of these groups.…