There are few accounts in the higher education literature of mixing methods at the survey design stage and very little guidance targeting higher education researchers and practitioners who want to implement a mixed methods approach to design survey tools. This article explores an eight-step, iterative, mixed methods approach for creating a…

The concept of grit as described by Duckworth ("Journal of personality and social psychology" 92:1087, 2007) has captured the attention of educators and researchers alike. A measure of a student's ability to effortfully persist in the face of struggle, grit is proposed to be an important characteristic required for students to succeed…

The use of surveys, questionnaires, and rating scales to measure important outcomes in higher education is pervasive, but reliability and validity information is often based on problematic Classical Test Theory approaches. Rasch Analysis, based on Item Response Theory, provides a better alternative for examining the psychometric quality of rating…

The definition and description of student success programs in the literature (e.g., orientation, first-year seminars, learning communities, etc.) suggest underlying programmatic similarities. Yet researchers to date typically depend on ambiguous labels to delimit studies, resulting in loosely related but separate research lines and few…

Armed with a strong toolkit of knowledge and skills, institutional research (IR) professionals often serve as collaborators with campus colleagues who may need assistance with survey design, statistical analysis, program review, and assessment of individual programs or the institution. This paper discusses the role that an IR professional played…

Higher education administrators believe that revenues are linked to college rankings and act accordingly, particularly those at research universities. Although rankings are clearly influential for many schools and colleges, this fundamental assumption has yet to be tested empirically. Drawing on data from multiple resource providers in higher…

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…

Three forms of the Situational Attitude Scale (SAS) were given to 371 Japanese college students to measure their attitudes towards blacks, Koreans, and neutral persons without racial reference in 10 social and personal situations. Overall response pattern was similar to that of American and Danish students. (Author/LBH)

Academic cheating behavior by university students was surveyed using the randomized response technique and by conventional anonymous questionnaire methods. Underreporting is concluded to be a serious problem with anonymous questionnaires. (Author/MLW)

The attitudes and demographic characteristics of a group of college freshmen were compared to those of a sample responding to a mail survey and a sample responding to a telephone follow-up. The three samples did not differ significantly in mean attitude responses. (Author/MLW)

Once conducted in private by a small group of trustees, presidential searches occur today in a climate of constituency participation and access to information. A survey to examine current search practices regarding constituency involvement and confidentiality and disclosure is reported. (Author/MLW)

Major functional limitations of a Saudi Arabian university are discussed. Most students have little academic orientation; college education is viewed as a means to rapid prosperity; students lack adequate scholastic preparation and hold negative perceptions of faculty and administration. (Author/MLW)

The relative and independent influence of students' undergraduate achievement, social class, sex, and race on rank of graduate school they attend is examined. Anlaysis of covariance techniques indicates that undergraduate achievement is the strongest predictor of rank of graduate institution attended. (Author/MLW)

The perceptions of adult graduates (aged 25 or more at college entry) about the impact of their bachelor's degree, 3 to 5 years after graduation was studied. Results revealed that their two leading goals were to develop a new career and satisfaction of earning a degree. (Author/MLW)

Questionnaire return rates were examined under these conditions: (1) a large random sample; (2) no follow-up procedures; (3) same mailout procedures and instructions; (4) no incentives; (5) type of questionnaire; (6) appropriate lengths; and (7) daily tally of returns. A difference in the rate of return was found. (Author/MLW)