A faculty (n=347) survey at a research-oriented public university identified four major sources of faculty support: off-campus personal relationships; colleagues within the academic unit; professional support outside the academic unit; and an ethnic/minority network, on and off campus. Differences related to gender and rank were investigated.…

A draft code of ethics for college and university institutional researchers and related activities, prepared by the Committee on Standards and Ethics of the Association for Institutional Research, is presented. It addresses issues of individual training and competence, responsibility, confidentiality, relationships within institution and…

Discusses student tracking system development in terms of purposes, audience, organizational issues, and data utilization. Considers benefits (e.g., facilitates reporting behavioral outcomes, and illuminates the complementary/conflicting nature of college services) and costs (e.g., direct costs for computer programing, postage, printing, etc., and…

Some organizations are having difficulty with the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach. Problems appear to come from reliance on prepackaged TQM programs, large-scale, diffuse implementation, mass training programs, measurement paralysis, overemphasis on tools, process selection, outmoded reward structures, and simplistic views of change and…

Discusses common themes in the limited research on Appalachian institutions of higher education: interinstitutional links and links between institutions and the broader community. Reviews trends that offer research opportunities (the impact of K-12 reforms on higher education, effects of information technology on higher education, student…

Assessment can be viewed as innovation to be adopted by the people in an institution. It is up to leaders in higher-education institutions to identify early-adopter and majority groups of faculty in schools, colleges, and departments and work with them to adapt assessment to local conditions in a way that overcomes any perceived disadvantages.…

Assessment can have a profound transformational impact on a college or university, but for this to occur, such core values as improvement of student learning through collection of performance-related data must be integrated into the institutional culture. At Truman State University (Missouri), an initially modest commitment to improving student…

Current admission criteria for graduate and professional programs are discussed, their validity in predicting graduate student success is examined, and a potentially more effective model for predicting the success of various student groups (women, minorities, older students) is outlined. Innovative admission criteria and procedures are also…

Given the enormous public and private investment required to produce physicians and scientists, higher education can not dismiss reports that it produces too many MDs and PhDs. Universities can help by assuring students have timely information about employment prospects. Further research is needed on recent graduates' career paths, foreign medical…

A model postulating a relationship between faculty research activity, instructor behaviors, and student achievement is advanced, based on two causal models, one linking research activity and instructional effectiveness and another validating student evaluations as good indicators of instructional effectiveness, as measured by student achievement.…

At the University of Oulu (Finland), a 1992-93 institutional evaluation included both self-assessment and external evaluation. The self-evaluation paid little attention to institutional human resource management, while the external assessment gave substantial attention to personnel policy, staff development, and manpower planning. A more strategic…

State policies toward higher education in the twenty-first century are likely to continue in the patterns already established, though conflicts may intensify. State officials will need to be more sensitive to how policies affect institutions. Institutional representatives must recognize the legitimacy and priority of state, societal, and system…

A study of 412 foreign graduate students investigated their (1) perceptions of the stressfulness of role demands and (2) abilities to cope with those demands. Results indicated students associated English language skills and cultural distance with stresses and language, academic, and problem-solving skills with coping capacity. Implications for…

A study investigated college students' (n=226) academic help-seeking behavior under task-involved and ego-involved classroom conditions, students' attributions for failure, and two types of help source (instrumental, in which the student finds his own solution, and executive, in which a solution is disclosed). Implications for classroom teaching…

Main features of the cyclical procedure used by the University of Geneva (Switzerland) to evaluate 75 teaching and research units (TRUs) over a 6-year cycle are that it covers teaching, research, and services simultaneously and combines self-evaluation, peer assessment, and use of a database on TRU resources and achievements. (Author/MSE)