Selecting value-added models for postsecondary institutional assessment

Value-added scores from tests of college learning indicate how score gains compare to those expected from students of similar entering academic ability. Unfortunately, the choice of value-added model can impact results, and this makes it difficult to determine which results to trust. The research presented here demonstrates how value-added models can be compared on three criteria: reliability, year-to-year consistency and information about score precision. To illustrate, the original Collegiate Learning Assessment value-added model is compared to a new model that employs hierarchical linear modelling. Results indicate that scores produced by the two models are similar, but the new model produces scores that are more reliable and more consistent across years. Furthermore, the new approach provides school-specific indicators of value-added score precision. Although the reliability of value-added scores is sufficient to inform discussions about improving general education programmes, reliability is currently inadequate for making dependable, high-stakes comparisons between postsecondary institutions.     

The shaping of institutional research and planning

This paper reviews the origins of institutional research and its more recent association with a separately identifiable planning function. It examines in depth the issues involved in institutional research and planning and particularly emphasizes the role of values, politics, and social pressures in regard to the planning function. Planning by single institutions is likely to be more directed to attaining administrative and faculty aspirations than to meeting educational and social needs. As a result, there is considerable doubt that the institutional research and the planning function can be successfully conjoined. To prevent one dominating the other, the best resolution is that of interacting but independent units whose analyses and recommendations are brought into accord with reality (both needs and resources) by the administrations and boards in which responsibility for institutional operations is vested.The paper also points up some of the problems generated for institutional researchers by the poor quality and unjustified claims and recommendations of much of what purports to be scholarly writing or research on higher education.     

Achieving agri-environmental policy outcomes using models of institutional change

Abstract

Institutions involved in public policy and technological innovation are concerned with processes that influence the behaviour of people. This paper reports on research in the New Zealand dairy industry that is seeking to develop improved process models for managing change in a range of policy, industry and business contexts. The Practice Interplay Model was used to evaluate mediating methods for negotiating environmental and production outcomes within the context of a farm dairy effluent management case study. Significant misalignments between research, farming, extension and policy practitioners' expectations and perceptions of factors required for effective farm dairy effluent management were found. The combination of interactive workshops linked to quantitative verification and testing and follow-up interviews enabled a depth of investigation that was rich in information yet cost-effective in terms of research resources. The process used identified opportunities to change the actions of system participants and alignment between them. It enabled strategies to be agreed that would continually improve and strengthen the process of change. Further development and application of the Practice Interplay Model to policy problems, including the ongoing development of tools and techniques used within the methodology, has the potential to break though into a new policy-development paradigm in New Zealand.     

Developing faculty data bases and institutional research studies as advanced planning mechanisms for potential litigation

The purpose of this paper is to familiarize higher education administrators and support personnel with the types and number of faculty cases litigated and reported at state and federal levels for the 1982 calendar year. Each case was reviewed for the basic facts, the underlying legal rationale, the data requirements, and the decision of the court. Categories of cases and the associated data needs were developed. From these categorical data summaries, suggested institutional research data bases and studies were formulated as advanced planning mechanisms for potential litigation or, hopefully, litigation avoidance. This is an update of research reported in part at the 1983 AIR Forum.Presented at the 24th Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Fort Worth, Tex., May 1984.     

Leadership and Strategic Management: keys to institutional priorities and planning*

Allocating and managing resources have always been important cornerstones of institutional leadership. Institutional resources include financial, physical and human components. Even in the best of times, it is a challenge to do this effectively. In times of diminished and shrinking resources, distributing these precious commodities across the institutions in the most equitable and productive manner is fraught with complications. As higher education funding streams expand and present more options, they also create new challenges. Leaders today must be well-versed in the emerging realms of philanthropy and entrepreneurialism. Beyond monetary resources, leaders and senior managers must monitor and understand the external environment in order to make discerning decisions about the viability of further infrastructure investments because of changing student demographics or the complexities of personnel within the dynamic culture of social organisations. This article will stress the need for leadership and an institutional planning process as essential prerequisites to effective resource allocations. Portugal will also be discussed as a case study.     

Enrollment Management

No abstract available for this article.     

Effective methods for institutional research: How important is institutional type?

Despite the view that institutional research is most successful when it is an extension of the administrators who need its products, most institutional research offices are centralized. In this paper a newly-organized, small college model that is both decentralized and integrated is described. Evaluation of the model is reported. Goals and activities are related to recently identified external and organizational factors that seem to contribute to the proliferation of institutional research.Susan H. Frost is director of institutional planning and research and adjunct assistant professor of education at Emory University. She holds degrees from Agnes Scott College and the University of Georgia. Since 1990 she has organized the first offices of institutional research at both a comprehensive college and at a research university. Currently she is investigating patterns of institutional decision making on university campuses.     

The Enrollment Challenge for Business Schools:

No abstract available for this article.     

College Course Grades for Dual Enrollment Students

This study compared college course grade outcomes, both during and after high school, of dual-enrollment students to those of traditional students. The study was based on a large, multiyear sample of Iowa high school and community college students. The results showed that while in high school, dual-enrollment students consistently outperformed traditional students in community college courses. However, much of the difference might be due to underlying differences in the two groups associated with the type of college the students chose to attend after high school (i.e., four-year vs. two-year). Dual enrollment students tended to perform about the same as traditional students in terms of post-high-school community college course grades. For students who enrolled in four-year institutions after high school, analyses of college course grade data suggested a small positive effect of dual enrollment on first-year college grade point average (GPA).     

入学与平等

身处大城市的平民对受教育的权利似乎感受并非那么深刻 ,但是对处于经济欠发达地区、农村及边远地区的人们来说似乎比什么都来得重要。因为受教育对他们来说 ,是改变自己生存条件的一条有效途径。于是 ,“入学与平等”的呼声 ,从英迪拉·甘地国立开放大学的演讲台传向五大洲。来自世界各地近三百位开放大学的专家学者在印度首都新德里呼吁开放与远程教育采取国际联合行动 ,为第三世界的广大弱势人群提供入学与平等的受教育权利。然而 ,社会的发展却总是不平衡的。尽管我们这个占世界人口五分之一强的发展中大国已被世界贸易组织所接纳 ,但其…