Higher education is in a moment of pause, facing an opportunity to transform or continue to perpetuate the status quo. The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the recognition of racial violence, has created an opportunity for institutions to question their own policies and practices. The purpose of this inquiry is to question the science behind…

We conducted a systematic literature review of 111 empirical studies published between 1969 and 2018. We found that research does not exponentially grow in comparison to research on higher education or leadership; empirical research emerging in the 1980s does not completely replace non-empirical inquiry. Studies from English-speaking authors…

The education of doctoral chemists contributes to the chemical research enterprise and thus to innovation as an engine of the economy. This quantitative analysis describes trends in the production and diversity of chemistry Ph.D. degrees in the top-50 U.S. Ph.D.-granting departments in the past two decades. Time series data for individual…

In this article, the authors discuss the utility of combining quantitative and qualitative methods in conducting intersectional analyses. First, they discuss some of the paradigmatic underpinnings of qualitative and quantitative research, and how these methods can be used in intersectional analyses. They then consider how paradigmatic pragmatism…

This methodological note illustrates how a commonly used calculation of the Delta-p statistic is inappropriate for categorical independent variables, and this note provides users of logistic regression with a revised calculation of the Delta-p statistic that is more meaningful when studying the differences in the predicted probability of an…

Research should be judged by the questions asked and the critiques offered.

Drawing on the work of several prominent scholars, the author describes the evolution of quantitative critical inquiry and compares this perspective to traditional research paradigms. (Contains 1 table.)

As a tour de force, data mining is likely to gain wider use in the next few years. To facilitate this transition, we make several recommendations addressed to both institutional research professionals and the Association of Institutional Research.

Findings of research conducted by Richard B. Freeman and J. Herbert Hollomon concerning the benefits of higher education are disputed. The variations in data choice and use are discussed that seem to explain differences in the findings of Freeman and a completely separate study conducted by the author. Freeman reported that the rate of return on…

This study attempted to investigate the organizational differences which develop between various divisions of a community college as a result of specialization. The Lawrence and Lorach concepts of differentiation and integration were utilized in the analysis. The results obtained supported the conclusion that considerable differences existed…

A report is made on the results of seven studies of KPU (Knowledge Production/Utilization) productivity by SCDEs (Schools, Colleges, and Departments of Education) in which the productivity measure was available through sources independent of the SCDEs themselves. Sources investigated included (1) publications in educational journals, (2) documents…

The data and computational procedures used by the IDEA system at Kansas State University (during the 1976-77 academic year) to interpret ratings of teacher performance are described in this technical report. The computations for each of the seven parts (evaluation, course description, students' self ratings, methods, additional questions,…

The data and computational procedures used by the IDEA System during the 1977-78 academic year at Kansas State University to interpret ratings of teacher performance are described in this technical report. The computations for each of the seven parts (evaluation, course description, students' self-ratings, methods, additional questions, diagnostic…