Decades of research in survey methodology and psychology have yielded important insights about how to create effective and valid survey instruments. As Porter (in press) has argued convincingly, college student surveys often fall well short of these standards by placing unrealistic demands on students' memory and by assuming that students readily…

This chapter describes several examples of institutional use of state- and college-level tracking data to benchmark performance, improve student success, and enhance program effectiveness.

The Office of Research of the American Council on Education has established a file--the "ACE Institutional Research File"-- to (1) provide reasonable coverage of the national population of institutions of higher education; (2) contain information on a wide variety of topics likely to be pertinent to higher education research; (3) include complete…

This chapter describes the National Student Clearinghouse and discusses opportunities and challenges for tracking community college students. It also presents a system perspective on using clearinghouse data to promote more comprehensive student and graduate tracking. (Contains 2 tables.)

This chapter examines lessons learned by states that are using student unit record (SUR) data to improve outcomes for community college students and recommends steps states can take to strengthen their use of SUR databases to benefit students and communities. (Contains 1 exhibit.)