The implications of the new environmental realities of postsecondary education governance/management and telematics for institutional research as a practice and profession challenge the Association for Institutional Research to take a more proactive leadership strategy. (Author/MLW)

Summarizes several significant research studies conducted since 1978 that have focused on community colleges. Offers an agenda for future research, covering student objectives and outcomes, administrative decision making, and faculty administrator relationships. Identifies several research issues as fundamental to repositioning community colleges…

Research indicates that colleges and universities that encourage hiring of diverse faculty and staff, promote diversity as an educational excellence issue, and reward faculty and staff for their efforts to foster diversity are institutions that have integrated diversity and quality issues. A comprehensive institutional approach to diversity is…

Five criteria for judging college or university performance indicators (PIs) used to guide strategic decision making are outlined. The criteria address: purpose; alignment of PIs throughout the organization or system; alignment of PIs across inputs, processes, and outcomes; capacity to accommodate a variety of evaluation methods; and utility in…

Ensuring the integrity of the intercollegiate athletics program is a fundamental responsibility of the college president. The institutional research professional should lead in designing, coordinating, and maintaining an athletics information support system, and support staff should conduct analyses and prepare special reports as needed to shape…

By identifying and weighing the effects of an act on each constituency, a matrix based on John Stuart Mill's theories of utilitarianism illuminates and helps resolve complex ethical dilemmas. Application of the approach is illustrated with a simulated case study concerning the issue of reputation in a small private college. (Author/MSE)

Assessments of campus climates can be difficult and be accomplished by several methods, according to purpose. However, a well-designed survey can yield comprehensive and substantive data about the characteristics of people in the institution, workings of programs and policies, and interaction of these elements to inform institutional decision…

Twenty-seven key resources for understanding, researching, and managing organizational climates and cultures are cited and described. The articles, books, and monographs reflect a relatively recent wave of interest in culture as a tool for understanding organizational settings. (Author/MSE)

An analysis of student decisions to withdraw from specific courses before assignment of grades but after the "add-drop" period at the University of Minnesota is presented. In a probit model, withdrawals appear to occur randomly, with notable exceptions. Student, class, and teacher characteristics are considered as variables related to…

This paper documents how the University of Oklahoma developed discipline cost indices which it then used in its budget allocation process. In order to overcome the interinstitutional comparison problems between universities which use different reporting and accounting methods, discipline cost indices were derived using data collected through the…

One promising avenue for increasing the utilization of institutional research data is the informal action research model. While formal action research stresses the involvement of researchers throughout the decision-making process, the informal model stresses participation in the later stages of decision making. Informal action research requires…

Principles that institutional researchers should follow are discussed. The most important dictate is to present decision-makers the bare minimum of information necessary for the task; the material should be simple, short, and succinct. A report to assist decision-makers should not include extensive supporting documentation. The first step is to…

A group of consultants conducted a program review to evaluate the quality of social science programs in the state university system of Florida and made recommendations for improvements within the existing resource base and about program needs should new resources become available. An overview of social sciences in the system is followed by…

Institutional research, as an established profession, has not developed a professional code of ethics. Reasons for the lack of such a code are discussed, and an outline is presented of the three major areas of institutional research ethics: treatment of research participants, research practices, and socio-political dimensions. A simple procedure…

Perceptions of college institutional research directors concerning the quality of executive decision making at their institutions were studied. Perceptions were assessed using a theoretical model of Groupthink developed by Janis, who postulates that a high amount of environmental stress should lead to a greater degree of…