The Office of Institutional Research and

Transcript:The Office of Institutional Research and:
The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment OIRA, Assessment, & Quasi-Experimental Designs: An Introduction September 2012 Reuben Ternes, OIRA Overview Today’s Presentation has 3 parts. 1) A little bit about me 2) A little bit about OIRA 3) A little bit about quasi-experimental design research techniques Me My background is in Quantitative Psychology. I tell most people that I am a statistician, since nobody really knows what a Quantitative Psychologist is. When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I work at a public university as an institutional researcher and that it is my job to figure out how the university can educate students better, faster, smarter, stronger, and cheaper using data that the university routinely collects about their own students. More Me My specialty: Quasi-Experimental Designs Regression Discontinuity Designs Propensity Score Matching Time Series Analysis, Etc. I will talk more about these later. Recent Research: Data Mining/Machine Learning Algorithms (mostly Random Forest). These are algorithmic systems designed to predict outcomes from large amounts of data. I won’t be talking about MLAs much today. OIRA Office of Institutional Research and Assessment OIRA: Is the keeper of much of the university’s official data. Is responsible for a great deal of federal and state reporting that deals with official data. Tracks enrollment, retention rates, graduation rates, etc. Projects enrollments, surveys students (NSSE, CIRP, etc.), provides data to outside constituents (legislative requests, US News, etc.) OIRA Website www.oakland.edu/oira Lots of good stuff on our website! Current and Historical data on: Enrollment, degrees, grade data, admissions data Survey results (NSSE, CIRP), IPEDS, CDS Research Reports, Presentations (like this one) Assessment data/information/resources Plans, rubrics, example reports, etc. etc. What Else Does OIRA Do? Occasionally, we help faculty and staff with both research design and statistical interpretation. Surveys, design of experiments, statistical consultations, etc. OIRA also helps the UAC and GEC handle Assessment, as required by the NCA/HLC and other accrediting bodies. We also do a great deal of policy analysis. Policy Analysis What kinds of policy analysis? Should we recommend all students to take 16 or more credits their first semester, regardless of their incoming academic ability? If we raise our students incoming academic profile, what impact will that have on retention and graduation rates? Does need-based aid increase retention rates? Does merit-based aid? Which one is better at attracting students? Policy Analysis and Assessment share a lot in common, and the