This study examined institutional researchers' use of qualitative methods to document institutional accountability and effectiveness at two-year colleges in Texas. Participants were Institutional Research and Effectiveness personnel. Data were collected through a survey consisting of closed and open ended questions which was administered…

The process of building a culture of evidence involves using data to understand where students are experiencing problems, designing strategies for remedying those problems, implementing them, and then evaluating the effectiveness of those implemented strategies. This case study is about two programs that were implemented within the last two years…

One of the continuing areas of controversy surrounding higher education is affirmative action. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear "Fisher v. Texas," and their ruling may well influence universities' diversity initiatives, especially if they overturn "Grutter v. Bollinger" and rule that diversity is no longer a…

This quantitative study utilized secondary self-reported data from the 2008 administration of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey from two Texas public universities to investigate the pre-college demographic, academic, attitude, behavioral, and familial factors that may relate to students' self-reported political…

This article provides insights from a 2-year, cross-site evaluation of state funded developmental education sites and serves as a focus article for response by those sites. Receiving grants from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), nine sites (5 community colleges and 4 universities) implemented innovative developmental education…

Charters represent an expansion of public school choice, offering free, publicly funded educational alternatives to traditional public schools. One relatively unexplored research question concerning charter schools asks whether charter schools are more efficient suppliers of educational services than are traditional public schools. The potential…

In 2001, the Texas state legislature created the Texas Excellence Fund (TEF) and the University Research Fund (URF) with the purpose of supporting institutional excellence and research capacity at general academic institutions. During the 2002-2003 biennium, participating Texas public universities received revenues from these funds (Legislative…

The "Student Evaluation of Instruction" (SEOI) was administered to all full-time and part-time faculty. Approximately 121,184 surveys were sent out in (5,346) envelopes; 78,310 surveys were returned to the Office of Institutional Research. The return rate for the SEOI packet envelopes was 96%. The response rate for the survey was 65%.…

"Building Institutional Capacity for Data-Informed Decision Making" is the third installment of the Cutting Edge series, which aims to help colleges engage faculty, scale successful interventions, and create a strong culture of evidence through use of data to strengthen their institutional change and student success efforts. Though the…

The following paper culminates a year of research conducted by researchers at E[superscript 3] Alliance and Texas State University and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The following reports on promising practices observed and reported at Manor New Tech High School (MNTH), a Texas Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (T-STEM)…

THE PURPOSES OF THIS STUDY WERE TO DEFINE INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH, TO EXAMINE ITS PRACTICE IN CERTAIN COLLEGES, AND TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT IT DOES NOT INFLUENCE CURRICULUM CHANGE. THE DATA WERE OBTAINED THROUGH INTERVIEWS WITH PRESIDENTS, ACADEMIC DEANS, AND DEPARTMENT CHAIRMEN OF FIVE LARGE TEXAS PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGES AND DO NOT NECESSARILY…

Describes LONESTAR, a longitudinal tracking system developed for a consortium of Texas community colleges in response to a new state mandate on remedial education. Looks at the features of LONESTAR that respond to short-term reporting requirements and facilitate long-term tracking of students. (DMM)

The Gulf Coast Association for Institutional Research (GCAIR) conducted a study of those concurrent/dual credit (CDC) students enrolled fall semester, 2001. The purpose was to determine a profile for this group of students which included gender, ethnicity, GPA, re enrollment, etc. Since there has been little research done on these students,…

This document presents a compilation of possible formats for questions which can be used in preparing follow-up questionnaires for community/junior college students. The compilation resulted from the review and selection of pertinent questions from approximately fifty follow-up questionnaires obtained from sources both within and outside of Texas.…

This report presents data on the costs of follow-up studies, based on 29 separate follow-up studies conducted by eight public community/junior colleges in Texas. The purpose of this study, conducted by Navarro College as a subcontractor of Project FOLLOW-UP, was to provide data and information regarding the cost of follow-up studies that would be…