W. John Minter and Howard R. Bowen's annual report on "Financial and Educational Trends in Independent Higher Education, 1978" is examined. Problems in data reporting by college administrators that skew financial assessment reports are noted. A rating questionnaire for institutional quality is appended. (Author/LBH)

Precepts posited in defense of federal intervention (financial support, social injustice, moral responsibility, etc.) are articulated, and general costs of compliance are enumerated. The impact of specific legislation and suggestions for reducing compliance costs are also addressed, along with a prognosis for the future. (Author/LBH)

Institutional researchers and planners are urged to adopt conceptual marketing tools to help them deal with situations where data are sparse and time is short. An easily used decision technique is described that can increase the likelihood of getting good answers to the question: How much information is enough? (Author/LBH)

Using the quartile deviation of faculty salary data as a measure of institutional quality, the authors ranked the 138 major universities designated by AAUP as Class I institutions. Since the results were similar to other ranking systems and salary data are readily available, it is argued that studies of salaries hold promise as measures of…

Recent literature on student characteristics and their predictive potential for academic achievement is reviewed. The results are often contradictory, and generally account for little variance beyond that accounted for by tests of intellectual ability. The usefulness of the cluster analysis approach is demonstrated. (Author/LBH)

Measures of attributes of leadership situations faced by department chairmen were theoretically and empirically related. Findings indicated that high task structure (faculty homogeneity and academic task structure) is associated with better member relations and greater cooperation on administrative matters. Implications for administrators are…

Three groups of college students operated under different contingencies in the same classroom. The Programmed Achievement (PA) condition required students to show 100 percent mastery on 12 chapter quizzes, at the risk of grade loss. Control students took quizzes with no requirement for mastery, and a group of low achievers tried both methods. The…

The basic Delphi methodology is outlined along with possible goals and objectives in a Delphi study. The results of an actual case study in the use of the Delphi method for higher education curriculum development are reported, and attention is given to the problem of selecting participants for a Delphi exercise. (Author/LBH)

The voting pattern of high-paradigm faculty (chemistry, physics, mathematics, and engineering) was compared to low-paradigm faculty (sociology, political science, history, and education) concerning a controversial campus issue to liberalize curriculum choices for students. High-paradigm faculty were not willing to grant students more latitude to…

The effect of three peer monitoring and retest conditions on student quiz scores, attitudes, study time, final course grades, and independent pretest-posttest scores was studied. The three conditions involved learning partners, unlimited number of retests, and a combination of learning partners and retests. Results indicate that some behavioral…

The idea that knowledge is a major determinant of policy in industry and government is discussed with reference to Harold Wilensky's book, "Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry." Implications for academe's institutional research activities are considered. (LBH)

Analysis of data from computer printouts of CUNY's allocations indicates that the sharp drop (18 percent in 1976) in applications cannot be explained solely by the end of open admissions. Characteristics of the students not applying are examined and reasons for the enrollment decline are studied. (Author/LBH)

Faculty at a state university were asked how they felt about the workload survey administered on campus and whether the NCHEMS' factors were related to their acceptance of the survey. Results upheld one NCHEMS relationship: that a positive attitude toward a survey is related to perceived value of the data for allocating faculty resources and…

The effect of alienation resulting from discrepancies between departmental goals and reward policies on faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining is examined, based on attitudinal data from a faculty survey and records from a large public university. Observed trends in militancy are interpreted in terms of institutional context and…

Responses to questions on demography, knowledge about student fees, attitudes toward collection and distribution of fees, and utilization and satisfaction with eight specific fee-funded programs were collected by mail survey from a sample of 1,002 University of Boulder students stratified by class year, ethnic group, and school. Only one-third…