Download or read book Evidence Based Decision Making in Community Colleges written by Davis Jenkins and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there is increasing interest in evidence-based decision making in postsecondary education, there have been few large-scale empirical studies on the subject, and none of the research to date has examined in depth what specific data college faculty and administrators use in their jobs and the extent to which they use data analysis to design and improve the impact of programs and services. This report offers findings from a study designed to fill that gap in the knowledge base. The study was based on a survey and on telephone interviews about the use of student data by faculty and administrators at community colleges participating in Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a major national initiative designed to improve educational outcomes for community college students, particularly students of color, low-income students, and others who have traditionally faced barriers to success in college. Findings suggest three broad conclusions: (1) Achieving the Dream may have had an impact on data use at the colleges: greater use of data on student outcomes by faculty and administrators who are involved in the initiative indicates that an externally originated initiative can bring about changes in practice; (2) Producing substantive changes in culture and practice is a long process; and (3) Apparent disconnect between the extent of data use by faculty and administrators and the views and management practices of the college leadership may indicate that leadership commitment and a data-oriented approach to institutional management may not be sufficient to encourage faculty and administrators to become more data-oriented in practice, and that greater emphasis at department level is needed to encourage use of data for improvement. The authors advocate that further analysis is needed to better understand the relationship between data use and budgeting and planning efforts. Four appendixes are included: (1) Methodology for Creating Indicators of Data Use and Correlative Factor Measures; (2) Response Rate by College; (3) Demographics of Respondents; and (4) Tables on Patterns of Data Use by College. (Contains 22 tables and 2 footnotes.) [Additional funding was provided by College Spark Washington.].

Download or read book Improving Decision Making written by Mantha Mehallis and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays focuses on the importance of accurate and timely information for effective decision making. First, Ivan Lach considers the proliferation of statewide planning and policy formation and discusses problems with and ways to improve statewide research. Next, Cheryl Opacinch focuses on decision making for federal postsecondary policy, discussing strategies for influencing the policy-making process by improving the use of community college research. After tracing trends in two-year college research, William Ramsey presents plans for action to involve research as a tool in the development of a master plan. Joseph Rossmeier places his discussion of information resource management in the context of the growing importance of computers, the role of information as a primary institutional asset, and a hierarchy of information needs. M. Kathryne Baratta examines the use of student data in planning and for better management. The utilization of student information systems is further discussed by Toni Hall and Jim Reed, who recommend a planned approach to student follow-up, strategies for organizing research and promoting data utilization, and ways that decision makers should use student information. Mike Stevenson and Dan Walleri present nine guidelines for financial decision making in a period of retrenchment. Mantha Mehallis deals with the improvement of decision making through institutional research. Finally, Donna Dzierlenga cites relevant ERIC documents. (AYC)

Download or read book The Structure of Student Decision Making at Community Colleges CCRC Brief Number 49 written by Judith Scott-Clayton and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a longer review, this Brief summarizes research evidence and theoretical discussion regarding whether community college students are more likely to persist and succeed in programs that are tightly and consciously structured, with relatively little room for individuals to deviate from paths toward completion, and with limited bureaucratic obstacles. The lineage of this hypothesis can be traced back in part to Tinto's seminal work on student persistence (1993), which recognized that the dropout phenomenon is not solely an individual failure but also an institutional one. In the community college context, this hypothesis has been prominently raised in recent years by Rosenbaum, Deil-Amen, and Person (2006), who examined differences in organizational procedures between public and private two-year colleges. The definition of "structure" used in this Brief refers not only to explicit institutional policies and procedures, but also to "norms and nudges" that may more subtly influence individuals' decisions at a point of action. This broad definition is influenced by recent literature on choice architecture, which calls attention to the way that choices are structured and presented. After outlining the kinds of decisions community college students face and the context within which they do so, this Brief introduces several concepts to examine how the structure of student decision-making may influence students' choices. It then discusses evidence regarding potential structure-based interventions and concludes with suggestions for future research and practice. [This Brief is based on "The Shapeless River: Does a Lack of Structure Inhibit Students' Progress at Community Colleges? CCRC Working Paper No. 25. Assessment of Evidence Series" (ED515131).].

Download or read book Evidence Based Management written by Eric Barends and published by Kogan Page Publishers. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decisions in businesses and organizations are too often based on fads, fashions and the success stories of famous CEOs. At the same time, traditional models and new cutting-edge solutions often fail to deliver on what they promise. This situation leaves managers, business leaders, consultants and policymakers with a profound challenge: how can we stay away from trends and quick fixes, and instead use valid and reliable evidence to support the organization? In response to this problem, evidence-based management has evolved with the goal of improving the quality of decision-making by using critically evaluated evidence from multiple sources - organizational data, professional expertise, stakeholder values and scientific literature. This book sets out and explains the specific skills needed to gather, understand and use evidence to make better-informed organizational decisions. Evidence-Based Management is a comprehensive guide that provides current and future managers, consultants and organizational leaders with the knowledge and practical skills to improve the quality and outcome of their decision-making. Online resources include case studies, exercises, lecture slides and further reading.

Download or read book Decision Making for Student Success written by Benjamin L. Castleman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year, many students with affordable college options and the academic skills needed to succeed do not enroll at all, enroll at institutions where they are not well-positioned for success, or drop out of college before earning a credential. Efforts to address these challenges have included changes in financial aid policy, increased availability of information, and enhanced academic support. This volume argues that the efficacy of these strategies can be improved by taking account of contemporary research on how students make choices. In Decision Making for Student Success, scholars from the fields of behavioral economics, education, and public policy explore contemporary research on decision-making and highlight behavioral insights that can improve postsecondary access and success. This exciting volume will provide scholars, researchers, and higher education administrators with valuable perspectives and low-cost strategies that they can employ to improve outcomes for underserved populations.

Download or read book The Impact of Management Decision making on Student Success in Community Colleges a Case Study written by Albert G. Alt and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advisor: Kathy Dee Geller.

Download or read book Understanding Equity in Community College Practice written by Erin L. Castro and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-12-21 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do equity-oriented practices look like in different community college contexts? Given the increasing role of the community college in realizing equitable outcomes for students, examples of what practitioners are doing to move forward an equity agenda are urgently needed. The diverse perspectives and issues in these chapters explicitly advance an equity agenda and offer: Conceptual and empirical rationales to support equity-oriented practices, Examples of programming and practice that support the lives and livelihoods of underserved student populations, and Examples of policy, programming, and thinking that emphasize the role of the community college in expanding educational opportunity for underserved students. Driven by a change in thinking and imagination, these examples show how practitioners can—and should—tailor programming in light of larger patterns of inequality. This is the 172nd volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Essential to the professional libraries of presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other leaders in today's open-door institutions, New Directions for Community Colleges provides expert guidance in meeting the challenges of their distinctive and expanding educational mission.

Download or read book Applying Institutional Research in Decision Making written by John Losak and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Data based Decision Making in Education written by Kim Schildkamp and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a context where schools are held more and more accountable for the education they provide, data-based decision making has become increasingly important. This book brings together scholars from several countries to examine data-based decision making. Data-based decision making in this book refers to making decisions based on a broad range of evidence, such as scores on students’ assessments, classroom observations etc. This book supports policy-makers, people working with schools, researchers and school leaders and teachers in the use of data, by bringing together the current research conducted on data use across multiple countries into a single volume. Some of these studies are ‘best practice’ studies, where effective data use has led to improvements in student learning. Others provide insight into challenges in both policy and practice environments. Each of them draws on research and literature in the field.

Download or read book Ethical Leadership and the Community College written by Carlos Nevarez and published by IAP. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is designed to aid community college leaders in becoming ethical leaders. This aim is essential, as ethical leadership is needed to address the continual ethical quandaries and persistent leadership dilemmas (e.g., funding, governance, accountability, shifting student demographics) facing public postsecondary education in the current era. When leaders are fully committed to the ideals that underscore public education (e.g., public good, access, social mobility, civic engagement) and accept the notion that their role as leaders is to be a servant to others, ethical leadership serves as a roadmap to guide their decisions, actions, and advocacy. This volume serves as a comprehensive resource in articulating the foundational, conceptual, interpersonal, and practical dispositions of the critical need to develop leaders with high moral aptitudes.

Download or read book Global Development of the Community College Model written by Carmen L. McCrink and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-03-13 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the community college is a longstanding institutional type within the U.S., the success of this model has recently garnered international attention. As countries outside the U.S. grapple with issues regarding access and affordability of higher education opportunity, the concept of the community college has gained traction. This issue explores: The global expansion and development of the community college model in various countries and regions around the world, Insights into the establishment and sustainability of these institutions in other countries through research and analysis, and Case studies that focus on the development and implementation process of community colleges amid various social, political, and economic contexts. This is the 177th volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Essential to the professional libraries of presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other leaders in today's open-door institutions, New Directions for Community Colleges provides expert guidance in meeting the challenges of their distinctive and expanding educational mission.

Download or read book Handbook of Data Based Decision Making in Education written by Theodore Kowalski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 686 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Education has fought long and hard to gain acceptance as a profession and, since professionals by definition use data to shape the decisions they make, education has little choice but to continue moving in this direction. This 3-part handbook represents a major contribution to the literature of education. It is a unique compendium of the most original work currently available on how, when and why evidence should be used to ground practice. It is a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary, research-based, and practice-based resource that all educators can turn to as a guide to data-based decision making. The Handbook of Data-Based Decision Making in Education is a must read for researchers who are just beginning to explore the scientifically based nature of educational practice. It is also appropriate for policy makers and practitioners who are confronted with young people who need to be in classrooms where "best practices" are the norm and not the exception.

Download or read book Building a Culture of Evidence in Community Colleges written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the education sector, calls for accountability and results and for greater transparency in the reporting of student outcomes have been increasing. While this pressure began two decades ago in K-12 education, community colleges are now also paying closer attention to how they can and should use data on student outcomes to drive better results. Some creative and entrepreneurial community colleges are taking a hard look at how they can create and sustain an internal culture of evidence-based practice. Building a Culture of Evidence in Community Colleges, prepared with funding from the MetLife Foundation, looks at four colleges that are national leaders in using institutional research strategically and for improvement: City College of San Francisco; Community College of Baltimore County; Indian River Community College; and LaGuardia Community College. All four of these leading colleges have received or been finalists for the MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award. The pioneering efforts of these schools in the use of student data for identifying problems and potential solutions provide a rich source of expertise on what it takes to build an institution-wide culture of evidence-based decision making. They also illustrate how community colleges can make routine the use of data to identify strengths and weaknesses, pinpoint areas for improvement, and assess the impact on students of new programs and innovations. The experiences of these institutions also suggest changes in state and community college system policies that can enable significantly more institutions to follow their lead.

Download or read book Building a Culture of Evidence for Community College Student Success written by Thomas Brock and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can community colleges make better use of data to improve student outcomes? That's the fundamental idea behind "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," a bold initiative launched in 2003 by Lumina Foundation for Education to help community college students succeed--particularly, low-income students and students of color, who have traditionally faced the most barriers to success. This report, a co-production of MDRC and the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University's Teachers College, describes Achieving the Dream's attempt to build this "culture of evidence" at the first 27 community colleges that joined the initiative. After little more than a year, every college has made some progress toward that goal; many have developed new programs for struggling students; and six colleges already show signs of institutionalizing evidence-based decision-making and planning. This report reflects only the first year of implementation of a four-year initiative. The report also presents data on average institutional performance on selected student outcomes prior to the start of the initiative. Later on in the evaluation, these data will be used as a baseline against which changes in student achievement will be measured. The key findings are: (1) As expected, institutional measures reveal low rates of success at baseline; (2) The colleges embraced the goal of building a culture of evidence; (3) Nearly half of the colleges used data analysis to identify problems to address on their campuses; (4) Colleges implemented a wide array of strategies to improve student success; and (5) Six colleges showed signs of institutionalizing a culture of evidence after only one year; however most other colleges evinced signs of progress. Chapter 1 of this report describes the history and design of the initiative, its "theory of action," the participating Round 1 colleges, and the evaluation methodology. Chapter 2 presents findings on how students are faring at the colleges at baseline, before the colleges had begun making changes in their culture or operations. Chapter 3 describes the efforts the colleges are making to build a "culture of evidence" that gathers, analyzes, and uses data to inform decision-making. Chapter 4 examines how college presidents and other individuals responsible for Achieving the Dream on each campus are working to engage faculty and other members of the community in the initiative. Chapter 5 describes the major programmatic strategies that colleges have chosen to improve academic outcomes for students. Chapter 6 concludes with an assessment of progress to date and of the efforts that the colleges are making to institutionalize and sustain the initiative. The following are appended: (1) Supplementary Tables for Chapter 2: Characteristics of Round 1 Colleges, Academic Year 2004-2005; (2) Achieving the Dream Data Decisions and Definitions of Derived Variables; and (3) Supplementary Tables for Chapter 5: Strategies Implemented at Round 1 Colleges as of Spring 2006. (Contains 23 tables and 6 figures.) [This report was written with Bethany Miller and Christian Geckeler.].

Download or read book Creating a Data Informed Culture in Community Colleges written by Brad C. Phillips and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brad C. Phillips and Jordan E. Horowitz offer a research-based model and actionable approach for using data strategically at community colleges to increase completion rates as well as other metrics linked to student success. They draw from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to show how leaders and administrators can build good habits for engaging with data constructively. At the core of their approach is a strategic effort to help administrators and faculty identify leading indicators that they can affect and monitor before student failure occurs. The book also helps educators make better use of common sources of data, clarify problems to be solved, match research-based interventions to problems, and evaluate results. The authors incorporate strategies for college personnel to engage with data more effectively by integrating student stories into presentations and embedding these discussions into existing meetings and routines. Three case studies from Long Beach City College, Southwestern College, and Odessa College further illustrate how this approach was implemented as part of comprehensive reform efforts. Based on two decades of experience working with colleges across the country, Creating a Data-Informed Culture in Community Colleges promises to be a valuable contribution to the ongoing conversation about information use in education to improve student outcomes.

Download or read book The Relationship Between Decision making and Accountability written by Bonnie A. Dowd and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inherent to college governance in many community colleges throughout the nation is the expectation that a collegial or participatory model of decision-making is the appropriate mode of governance. This type of model structures an organization to allow the opportunity for all constituencies to participate in decision-making. Some states, such as California, have mandated a participatory decision-making process, commonly referred to as “shared governance” (AB1725) while others operate in a similar manner but not by legislative mandate. Regardless of the model of decision-making used to govern community colleges, most states are being asked to address educational accountability with regard to student performance outcomes. States, such as Florida, have reorganized their entire educational governance structure (SB1162) in an attempt to increase student success. This case study provides an in-depth look at how internal structures of participatory decision-making respond to external requirements for accountability. The underlying premise for this study is that the decision-making process employed by a community college system at the state and local level significantly impacts any attempt to achieve accountability. The study examined two community college systems at the system (state) and college (local) level: California and Florida. Four research questions guided data collection with an additional sub-research question regarding how perceptions differed at the system and college level. A total of 29 respondents, at both the system and college levels, participated revealing meaningful insights about shared decision-making, accountability, student performance outcomes, performance-based funding and leadership. The findings of this study revealed that 1) whether mandated or not, participatory decision making results in a higher degree of commitment by all constituencies, 2) commitment while not guaranteeing success increases the likelihood of an initiative such as performance based funding improving student performance, 3) an emphasis on accountability shifts the focus to student success and removes barriers to completion, 4) community colleges continue to be under-funded while expected to provide services to meet growth and diversity demands and, 5) leadership is key to the success of any participatory decision-making initiative. This study suggests that additional research is needed to investigate implications of leadership and external influences.

Download or read book Institutional Research and the Culture of Evidence at Community Colleges Report No 1 in the Culture of Evidence Series written by Vanessa Smith Morest and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report presents findings from a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) on how well prepared today's community colleges are in moving toward the greater use of data and research to improve student success. Data for the study were drawn from two major sources: first, an e-mail survey of college administrators responsible for institutional research (IR), and, second, case studies of 28 community colleges. The study aimed to learn how much IR capacity community colleges have in terms of IR staff size and facility with research methods, how IR is utilized by different actors within colleges, and what barriers exist that impede the development of IR analysis that would benefit college decision making. The study finds that community colleges wanting to expand the role of IR face several challenges in terms of resources, data collection, and institutional priorities. It also suggests that college leadership is a key component in making the necessary investment in IR capacity and in promoting changes in organizational practice that are required to embrace a strategy for using data to improve institutional performance.