In this age of accountability, transparency, and accreditation, colleges and universities increasingly conduct comparative analyses and engage in benchmarking activities. Meant to inform institutional planning and decision making, comparative analyses and benchmarking are employed to let stakeholders know how an institution stacks up against its…

The compilation of cross-institutional comparative information to support a college or university's goals is an effective yet politically dangerous venue of institutional research activity. Selecting a group of institutions for comparison can often be a major task involving external governing agencies, key institutional administrators, and…

This article suggests that the choice by institutional researchers to use qualitative or quantitative research is often dictated by time, money, resources, and staff and not necessarily with an understanding of the underlying philosophical assumptions structuring beliefs about methodology, knowledge, and reality. These underlying assumptions are…

A decision-focused paradigm is presented to guide the development of a comprehensive institutional plan. The primary emphasis is the identification of strategic decisions to be resolved by individual institutions and the key determinants of those decisions. Based on the paradigm, a more active role for institutional research is suggested in order…

In the context of decision support systems (DSS) use, four perspectives on evaluating decisions (consensual, political, empirical, and rational) and four models of organizational effectiveness (human relations, open system, internal process, and rational goal) are examined for their implications for DSS implementation and evaluation. (MSE)

West German use of performance indicators in higher education administration was studied in terms of differences between politically expressed intentions and actual application of the measures in institutional planning. Resource allocations was examined as one area of divergent developments. (MSE)

Factors influencing individuals with firm job offers to join the faculty at two research universities, urban and rural, are examined, focusing on the relative importance of tangible, intangible, and non-work-related benefits in the decision-making process. Comparisons are drawn to previous faculty recruitment studies and a complementary retention…

A study was conducted at the University of Miami to identify factors that might distinguish between donors and nondonors to the financial support of private universities. The theoretical framework for the study was based largely upon Lecky's self-consistency theory of personality. Three groups of donors and a group of nondonors to the University…

The role of research and information in legislative decisionmaking is discussed. It is suggested that planning is of marginal utility to state legislatures. The primary obstacles to planning in the legislative arena are the turnover among state legislators, internal shifts of power, and the legislative tendency to deal with discrete policy issues…

Attitudes about the University of Minnesota and characteristics of 384 students who applied to transfer to the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) were studied. It was found that 285 of the respondents enrolled in CLA for fall 1982, and 57 did not. When asked their reasons for enrolling or not enrolling, respondents most often cited the availability of…

The Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) database based on the American Freshmen Survey provides data for use in making marketing and management decisions in colleges and universities. This paper describes an operational cooperative model for managing and exploiting the data that CIRP makes available. The paper also offers an example…

A research design, decision support system, and results of a comparative analysis of enrollment and financial strength (of private institutions granting masters and doctoral degrees) are presented. Cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, multiple regression, and an interactive decision support system are used to compare the enrollment and…

A new model for college fact books is proposed, to create a new generation of institutional research reports that offer more comparative and unit- or topic-specific information, with illustrations, that would be useful for current decision-making needs. (MSE)

The communication of research findings among collegiate institutional researchers is considered in relation to the contribution of qualitative language in general, and catastrophe theory in particular. The qualitative language of catastrophe theory may help reduce the arbitrariness of description, through identification of qualitative features…

A three-part study conducted at a medium-sized, Christian comprehensive college in Michigan (Calvin College) examined the college choice process including why students apply but do not enroll, as well as the reasons why students enroll. Subjects consisted of: (1) those who made multiple inquiries and had multiple contacts with the college but did…