Quantifying undergraduate participation in institutional research activities is challenging. This article describes an approach for estimating student participation in scholarly activities using a parametric model to follow the inflows and outflows of students in terms of classes (first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year students) and to control…

We examine the American landscape of higher education quantitative research concerning how gender and sex demographic information is collected. We use a directed content analysis to examine the prevalence and operationalization of gender and sex among widely used higher education survey instruments. Our findings illuminate a seemingly haphazard…

The essay examines the variety of research methods and measures used in the first-year experience and students-in-transition field over the past 25 years. Interrogating the extant research, Kinzie explores whether the methods and analytic processes most commonly employed are adequate to advance our understanding of complex issues in the field. The…

This article is written for scholars, researchers, and academic leaders who have a passion to share their knowledge outside the classroom, laboratory, or institution. They want to make a difference and believe that the information they possess and ideas they have to offer have a public importance. Based on his book "Pitch Perfect:…

The authors investigated student and faculty perceptions of academic challenge at their institution, based on early administrations of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). This analysis revealed that the NSSE did not fully capture many meanings of academic challenge held by these faculty and students. This study led to a proposal for…