A study investigated the knowledge and skills of college and university institutional researchers (n=601) in relation to their perceptions of the effectiveness of their work. Analysis found that relationships between background characteristics, knowledge and skills in institutional research, and perceptions of effectiveness were minimal.…

A study investigated indicators of student academic performance in six samples (n=911 each) of men and women students from 19 baccalaureate, 27 master's, and 29 doctoral granting institutions. Measures of achievement gains associated with three good educational practices (faculty-student contact, cooperation among students, active learning) were…

A study investigated relationships between academic majors and six undergraduate student work values (authority, recognition, administrative responsibility, financial success, helping others, artistic creativity), using Holland's theory of occupational choice. Subjects were 18,137 students persisting at four-year institutions from 1985 to 1989.…

A study investigated how the diversity of a group of business administration students affected performance in and satisfaction about participation in a computerized business strategy game. Subjects were 129 small groups, composed of undergraduate and graduate students, in 21 class sections. Results showed diversity negatively affected group…

A study tested a resampling methodology (bootstrap simulation) by examining the effects of class size and student motivation on students' ratings of teaching effectiveness. Results suggest that evaluations based on student ratings should look at more than class averages, and that class size and student motivation affect overall ratings. Examples…

Investigated the impact of Greek affiliation of 4,119 college students on freshman-to-senior ratings of four educational philosophies (vocational, academic, collegiate, nonconformist) differentiated in the Clark-Trow model. Small, significant degrees of change in collegiate and non-conformist philosophies suggest Greek affiliation increased social…

Gifted and regular high school students (n=158) completed a questionnaire on beliefs in fixed ability to learn, simple knowledge, quick learning, and certain knowledge; then advised a hypothetical student about going to college despite poor grades and few resources; and reported their feelings toward school and expectations of college demands.…

Reviews results of a study assessing the effectiveness of developmental studies program policy at a community college. Issues addressed include required remediation of skill-deficient students, enrollment in college-level courses by skill-deficient students, and differing policies for skill-deficient students depending on extent of deficiency.…

A survey of 1956-91 business school alumni (n=2,000) found marginal probability of giving significantly related to time since graduation, major, willingness to recommend the institution to others, household attributes, family ties to the university, number of other donors known, and availability of employee matching-gift programs. The model…

A study investigated the effectiveness of a weighting procedure for adjusting survey results to correct for nonresponse bias. Using data from a Cooperative Institutional Research Program followup survey, results indicate that the procedure is highly effective in univariate distributions; its effectiveness in adjusting correlation and regression…

Demonstrates how alumni research can be designed to focus program assessment on student outcomes and be responsive to program goals, administrators' policy concerns, faculty instructional values, and professional practice standards. Based on study of 347 teacher education master's degree recipients, the paper presents a conceptual framework and…

During early 1990s, increases in private colleges' prices outpaced increases in inflation, input prices, and income growth, but after accounting for rapidly increasing college-funded student aid, positive differentials decreased relative to the 1980s. Substantial dispersion among private colleges in actual net prices received from full-time…

Two studies illustrate how omitting faculty rank as a predictor variable from gender equity studies of faculty salaries can lead to incorrect conclusions about gender discrimination. One uses hypothetical data constructed so there is no gender difference in salary, but omission of academic rank skews the results. The second uses data from a…

A study of families' means of paying for college using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study strongly indicates that part of the process of deciding how students should pay for college is the parents' college financing experience. These effects appear in patterns in parent contribution, amount of financial aid received, and use of…

Content analysis of 441 electronic mail (e-mail) messages used by 31 Finnish undergraduate students investigated the use of the medium for practicing argumentation (grounding of stated claims) in two teaching modes: a tutor-led seminar and self-directed student discussion. Results indicated argumentation improved during the experiment, especially…