While the Two or More Races category has been the de facto mechanism to count multiracial college students since 2010, little research has critically examined how this category has been used in institutional research contexts. Extending previous scholarship on monoracism in higher education, we define "quantitative monoracism" as the…

On the back of Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, this collection brings together a wide range of authors to consider what has worked well in evaluation of UK research, what could have worked better and where the UK's higher education system should go from here. Chapters in the volume include: (1) The REF: A hydra-headed beast or an…

Assessment, accountability, and transparency represent a greater focus than ever in higher education. Community colleges are not exempt from these requirements, though they are overlooked in the creation of state and national assessment instruments. Therefore, we designed and distributed the Perceptions of Community College Assessment (PCCA)…

As tuition rates for higher education rise, universities are under increased pressure from internal and external stakeholders to document outcomes such as graduation rates. To do so, higher education institutions must use data effectively. This paper examines the University of Wisconsin--Stout's (UW-Stout) strategies for data use in the…

In this brief, Kaylan Baxter talks about the potentially transformative role of two connected units less commonly associated with racial justice: institutional research (IR) and institutional effectiveness (IE). Institutional research (IR) consists of a wide-ranging set of tasks conducted in support of the decision-making processes of various…

This article provides postsecondary leaders with a way to quickly develop a more thorough understanding of higher education accountability. It describes the complexity of the broader higher education accountability environment and then maps the seven accountability silos: assessment, accreditation, institutional research, institutional…

Data quality has become a pressing issue for many campuses in recent years, as colleges struggle to extract timely, accurate, and consistent information from ever-proliferating institutional data sources in order to meet strategic decision-making and accountability demands. In this mixed methods study, a survey and semi-structured interviews were…

This chapter focuses on perspectives of external data reporting and their implications for institutional research offices and campuses as a whole. The authors examine a variety of uses for externally reported data and explore opportunities for using these data more fully across the institution.

To whom should higher education institutions provide data, and what is the impact of transparency on institutions?

Higher education accountability is a field characterized by complexity. Prior frameworks grounded in psychometrics, economics, and history fall short in explaining the persistence and composition of its complexity. This article employs organizational theory to identify the multiple conflicting approaches of higher education accountability and…

This afterword offers challenges and considerations as the assessment movement continues to develop. The author offers some simple considerations for readers to ponder as they advance their evidence-based decision making processes, and encourages others to use these methods within the context of recent neuroscientific evidence that learning and…

The same high stakes accountability measures that have shaped the K-12 educational context over the past decade have become part of the university teacher preparation landscape. National accrediting organizations have created more rigorous, outcomes-based accountability measures for teacher preparation programs. Educational stakeholders offer…

Accountability is among the least understood policy issues in higher education (Burke 2005). The rapid rise in tuition costs in both public and private institutions (Heller 2006) in all corners of the globe (Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley 2009) has challenged the idea of higher education as a public good. Student learning outcomes is one…

The growing calls for accountability within higher education have mobilized student affairs divisions to develop practices that provide evidence of student learning and development. In order to do this effectively student affairs divisions understand the importance of creating, managing, and sustaining a culture of assessment. The purpose of this…

From the excesses of Wall Street to the whole mortgage mess, the issue of accountability has become part of a heated national conversation. It is a debate to which higher education is certainly no stranger. But now, with tuition rates at private and public schools rising precipitously--and state budgets shriveling--the cries for increased…