Summary: Ever wonder what the Institutional Research Office on your campus actually does? Read this helpful fact sheet written by Tom Thompson to learn more about this campus resource and how you may benefit from collaborating with your colleagues.
What is an Institutional Research (IR) office?
All campuses have an IR office and some also have an Assessment unit.
- IR is usually housed under Academic Affairs or the President’s Office.
- IR’s role on campus includes: gathering data for mandatory reporting to the state and accreditors, gathering benchmark data on other institutions, and assisting an institution with evaluating its achievement of its strategic goals, i.e. related to retention, persistence and completion.
- Assessment units can be separate from the IR office and are often focused on student learning outcomes. (See the information on CAS and student learning outcomes at this link)
What does an IR office typically do?
The IR office gathers all types of data for the institution. This typically includes areas such as student enrollment, persistence (i.e., continuing to next semester), retention (i.e., returning the following year) and completion (i.e., graduating or transferring successfully). The IR office often gathers data on course outcomes, grade distributions and outcomes after completion (i.e. employment).
Institutional, divisional and departmental strategic goals are tied to assessments. The IR office helps to analyze, track and report findings related to these assessments. IR will generate some reports annually and can often be engaged to generate specialized reports for departments or divisions.
How can the IR office help a DRS office?
Disability Resource/Service (DRS) directors should get to know key IR people and find out about their assessment cycles and projects. DRS units can plan and request support for specialized evaluations. Some examples include:
- Determining the academic performance of students with disabilities including such information as average GPA, courses completed vs. attempted, persistence, retention, and completion/transfer/graduation. By providing IR with User ID numbers (UIDs) only, they can design a study that parallels general studies already done on campus. This is easily justifiable as a part of a comprehensive, program evaluation. Note that providing UIDs to the IR office does not compromise student confidentiality!
- Getting advice on developing quick surveys about satisfaction, quality, and achievement of DRS departmental goals.
- Evaluating the impact of specialized services (e.g., academic coaching, tutoring.) on a cohort of students with disabilities. Note that these supports are beyond mandated accommodations)
Caution: DRS directors should make it clear that the primary function of the DRS office is to facilitate access, not guarantee success. Gathering data on the progress, retention and success of students with disabilities enables the college to determine whether this cohort of students is progressing like other cohorts (such as first generation, racially/ethnically diverse students, or athletes) and to ensure they are accessing other types of collegiate support. The effectiveness of DRS should be evaluated based on the fulfillment of its mission of providing effective accommodations, facilitating access and collaborating in changing campus culture to be more accessible and inclusive.
Advice for working effectively with an IR office
First determine the scope and timetable of how your IR office works. What are its cycles for gathering various types of student data? What is its capacity to help design, execute and evaluate smaller data gathering projects? How does one request support-- is there a research request form or some other method of submitting a request? Assessment cycles usually won’t vary much and there is often a calendar of reporting deadline . Annual reporting at the end of a fiscal/academic year is typical. Preparing for an accreditation visit is IR’s busiest task and when they do the most assessment. IR offices usually publish a host of data on their web site.
To initiate your relationship with IR and gain their support in doing assessments for DRS, consider these key steps:
- Talk with your immediate supervisor about your desire to improve the impact of DRS operations and to support the college’s understanding of the progress and success of students with disabilities. Learn about your division’s assessment projects & priorities.
- Sketch out your plans for assessments within DRS including how IR could begin to track and disaggregate data on the persistence, retention and completion of students with disabilities.
- Set up an initial meeting with IR to share your ideas and goals. Be prepared to ask for support for a pilot assessment project related to DRS operations. A pilot assessment project will give you a chance to gather some data and examine its usefulness.
- When you have assessment results and have designed your plan for improving an area of DRS operations, share your plans and credit IR for their support & participation.
Developed by Tom L. Thompson, Interim Director, California State University – Fullerton and retired Director of Access and Disability Services, Wm. R. Harper College (2016)