A survey of 167 institutions engaged in the regional reaccreditation process between 1987 and 1992 revealed that the presence of institutional research activities was positively related to the institution carrying out a systematic assessment of institutional effectiveness. (Author/MLW)

A study analyzed data from four national surveys of the American professoriate conducted between 1969 and 1988. To assess whether groups of institutions might be accumulating advantage relative to others, research activities were compared across five Carnegie institution types. An overall strengthening of research emphasis and other changes…

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…

Explains the institutional research process used by the Oregon University System to identify peer comparators for the state's seven diverse public universities. The process combined detailed statistical information with a sensitivity to the political dynamics and judgments of campus presidents and staff. Identifies 10 conditions that contribute to…

In theory, not-for-profit organizations will be characterized by higher production costs per unit of output than for-profit producers of otherwise-identical goods/services, since profit maximization implies cost minimization per unit of output; breaking even does not imply cost minimization and, indeed, may imply inflated costs. We explore the…

Previous research has concluded that an institution's ranking in the annual "U.S. News and World Report" "Best Colleges" issue impacts admission outcomes and pricing decisions at schools in the Consortium for Financing Higher Education. This article expands on the previous work by analyzing the effects of the "U.S. News and World Report" rankings…

Data on publication rates were gathered for two years from the Corporate Indexes published by the Institute for Scientific Information, and numbers of faculty by academic discipline were computed using standard reports generated annually by the participating universities. These rates can provide one measure of relative university research…

The empirical validity of the Biglan model of academic disciplines is supported. Examples are provided to illustrate how the systematic use of this model could enhance the quality of research on university faculty members and the academic administration of colleges. (Author/MLW)

The use of a semantic differential measure to investigate the institutional image of Tufts University (Massachusetts), both internal and external, is reported. The study focused on (1) differences between the current and desired image, and (2) differences among alumni, current student, and other constituencies' views of the institution.…

Multiple program impact analysis was used to evaluate the overall effectiveness in programs for 11,766 first-year students at the University of Texas at Austin. The technique examines the relationship between involvement in multiple educational programs and selected educational outcomes. Among findings was that participation in more than one…

The derivation of discipline cost indexes, developed to permit accurate interinstitutional comparisons of relative costs among disciplines, is explained using expenditure data from five peer institutions. How the indexes have been used in one research university's budget allocation process is then described. (Author/MSE)

A procedure for smoothing proportions of a double-entry expectancy table is described. The product is a nomograph from which can be read expectancies from combinations of values of two predictor variables. Use of the procedure in admission of first-year college students, based on students' high school class rank and standardized test composite…

Characteristics of enrollees in the Michigan Education Trust, an advance tuition payment plan, during its 1988 and 1989 open enrollment periods are examined and compared with those of the state's general population and the 1988 entering class of freshmen in its public universities. (Author/MSE)

In order to explore possible impacts of changing information technology on the role of the institutional research analyst, three institutional research foundations, measurement, human information processing, and decision support technology are examined. (Author/MLW)

Areas in which human judgment must be used to conduct a fair statistical analysis of college faculty salary equity are discussed, and guidelines for making those judgments are offered. Four decision elements and four fields of study are considered as the basis for establishing criteria for selecting the appropriate regression model. (Author/MSE)