Institutional Research

Institutional research (IR) is any qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methodology research activity undertaken in a college, university, hospital, or other institutional setting that produces data, information, or knowledge in support of the institution's efforts to measure the effectiveness of its mission, goals, and objectives. IR was conceived during the 1950s as a mechanism for centralizing and facilitating the compilation, analysis, and reporting of data regarding an individual college or university, and since that time IR has also been adopted by companies and organizations outside the world of education. The accountability, quality assurance, and institutional effectiveness movements that drove much of higher education and other industry sectors over the subsequent decades, along with new developments in technology and significant increases in reporting demands of federal agencies, served to accelerate and expand the growth of the IR function. Today IR provides a complex and diverse set of activities designed to enhance administrative decision making, respond to the external demands placed on institutions, inform institutional policy development, and provide empirical data to underpin institutional planning and budgeting.

IR is conducted in a collaborative manner similar to action research where the members of the IR office will work with their colleagues from across the organization in planning research and assessment activities and in the actual collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. As practiced within the context of institutional effectiveness, IR personnel help their peers (a) to identify mission-critical policies, programs, personnel, and performances to assess; (b) to collect, analyze, and interpret relevant data; and (c) to use the results of the analysis to improve or enhance the institution.