A study compared selected personal and environmental motivational variables in college faculty with allocation of work effort to teaching. Faculty represented the disciplines of English, chemistry, and psychology and various institution types. Self-valuation and perception of the environment motivators significantly accounted for the explained…

A study of 723 doctoral students investigated the relationship between time taken to complete the degree and economic factors, including employment hours, study hours, household income, indebtedness, amount and type of aid, and part-time student status. Field of study and foreign/domestic student status were also considered. (Author/MSE)

Analysis of data from a national survey of about 1,000 college faculty found African-American faculty reported higher levels of occupational stress than white counterpart, especially in areas of research and service activities. Possible effects of extra-academic assignments given to African-American faculty are considered. (Author/MSE)

Experience with implementation of Total Quality Management at the University of Minnesota-Duluth office of institutional research illustrates how tools alone will not produce desired changes if variation in team members' management styles are not taken into account. The team's capacity to accommodate individual differences is critical to success.…

In college administration, a climate for adaptive change should be created using the philosophy, processes, and tools of Total Quality Management in combination with other management innovations. An enterprise-wide infrastructure for distributing information on demand for decision makers to monitor institutional performance should be built.…

Although different in nature from academic activities, college fund raising also requires planning and management. To develop more responsive executive information systems, development officers must take the lead, ask the right questions, and work closely with campus institutional researchers, registrars, enrollment managers, and computer…

The process of academic program evaluation in pharmacy in the United Kingdom is described, focusing on the accrediting role of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, other existing peer review mechanisms, national developments in program evaluation, and school-level components of program quality assessment. (MSE)

Describes Maryland's community college research model, whereby State Board for Community Colleges staff work cooperatively with a voluntary statewide organization composed of institutional researchers from each college. Explains agenda setting, procedures, responsibilities, project monitoring, identification and dissemination of…

Columbia University (New York) dental-school study examined educational/patient care effects of changing from a numerical requirements-driven clinical curriculum to a comprehensive-care model driven by patient needs and led by faculty group leaders. Results suggest a significant increase in number of treatment plans completed by students, with no…

Examines court cases involving financial exigency as a cause for terminating college faculty appointments, confirming the role of institutional data on judges' and juries' decisions. Institutions are encouraged to have some type of retrenchment policy in place, be prepared to supply analysis relevant to the specifics of the policy, and to provide…

This article proposes that college students will contribute most effectively to institutional assessment efforts if they understand how meaningful their input is. This can be accomplished if the assessment system is compassionate, considerate, convenient, communicated clearly, cohesive, understandable, concise, committed, attributes improvements…

Two frameworks for educational assessment distinguished, which is quantitative, adequate for construing some kinds of learning, and qualitative, which is more appropriate for most objectives in higher education. The paper argues that institutions implicitly encourage quantitative assessment, thus encouraging a surface approach to learning although…

A study examined the extent to which broad indicators of performance could be used for university program improvement. A survey of 356 graduates of a Canadian research university found perceived teaching quality contributed significantly to ratings of overall academic program quality. The most frequently mentioned meaningful feature was…

A study using both quantitative and qualitative techniques investigated the role of institutional culture in socialization of newly-recruited faculty in social sciences/ humanities departments and compared them with perceptions of current faculty concerning institutional culture and departmental subcultures. Four stages of acculturation are…

Debate grows over the validity and reliability of college and university rankings, which judge rather than describe institutions, as the public's willingness to accept them increases. While many institutional characteristics can be measured, measurement methods need improvement. One solution is to publish the peer studies that the institutions…