In this chapter, the author explores and compares the work experiences of women faculty in fields of different gender compositions with data from three National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF: 1993, 1999, and 2004) surveys. By examining the influence of a wide range of factors, this study provides a comprehensive picture of the work…

Every college and university, whether public or private; two-year, four-year, or graduate; traditional or online, depends on recruiting and enrolling new students and strives to have as many of those students as possible complete their educational programs. Knowing how effectively an institution is managing the various stages of enrollment is…

This chapter introduces the concept of benchmarking and how higher education institutions began to use benchmarking for a variety of purposes. Here, benchmarking is defined as a strategic and structured approach whereby an organization compares aspects of its processes and/or outcomes to those of another organization or set of organizations to…

The purpose of this research is to analyze the attributes of top-tier public institutions and their host municipalities to determine if there are common factors in how the organizations are structured, how they interact, and whether a symbiotic relationship exists that can benefit both entities. This research attempted to determine if cities under…

Benchmarking, when done properly, offers a lot of promise for higher education units that want to improve how they do business. It is clear that much is known, but still more needs to be learned before it reaches its full potential as a useful tool. Readers of this issue of "New Directions for Institutional Research" have been treated to useful…

Although the notion is certainly cliched, baseball often serves as an excellent metaphor for life. Some of the methodologies currently being used to measure, evaluate, manage, and even play baseball may serve as references for ways that higher education may be measured, evaluated, managed, and played. This chapter proposes and presents…

Internal benchmarking is an established practice in business and industry for identifying best in-house practices and disseminating the knowledge about those practices to other groups in the organization. Internal benchmarking can be done with structures, processes, outcomes, or even individuals. In colleges or universities with multicampuses or a…

The process of identifying and selecting peers for a college or university is one of this volume's definitions for "benchmarking": "a strategic and structured approach whereby an organization compares aspects of its processes and/or outcomes to those of another organization or set of organizations to identify opportunities for improvement." The…

Guided by the missions and visions, higher education institutions utilize benchmarking processes to identify better and more efficient ways to carry out their operations. Aside from the initial planning and organization steps involved in benchmarking, a matching or selection step is crucial for identifying other institutions that have good…

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the conceptual, methodological, and statistical challenges in selecting appropriate peer institutions for comparative purposes. The authors' approach embraces a Western scientific tradition that physical things and phenomena can be "reduced into a set of key variables--identifiable parts--that make key…

College student self-reported gains are used frequently in institutional research and in general research on college outcomes (Gonyea, 2005). These self-report measures serve not only to identify experiences and programs associated with student growth but also to draw comparisons across colleges and universities. The vast majority of institutions…

Most institutional research (IR) practitioners lack access to direct measures of longitudinal student learning, let alone assessment instruments systematically embedded into the curriculum that yield representative cognitive gain data controlling for student motivation. Typically, measures of student learning growth rest on findings from survey…

In this chapter, the author examines the adequacy and appropriateness of self-report data using the lens of construct validity (Kane, 2006; Messick, 1989). Because construct validity focuses on the appropriateness of data for specific uses or interpretations, he limits his discussion to the use of self-report data in scholarly research. Other…

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the extent to which students' retrospective self-reported gains from high school are associated with college self-reported gains. As such, the chapter offers an empirical test of how accounting for one's predisposition to report educational impact changes estimates of the effects of college experiences…

Colleges and universities are increasingly using national surveys to assess their students' learning and development. Given the importance of the first year of college for student adjustment and retention (Tinto, 1993), some of these surveys are designed specifically to gauge the experiences and outcomes of first-year students. These large-scale…