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Working with Institutional Research

October 26, 2023

At a glance

Learn best practices to working with your institution’s IR office.

Contributors

Sandra Staklis RTI International

Practices & Centers

Center for Justice & Economic Advancement

Introduction

Institutions of higher education have offices of institutional research (IR) that oversee the planning, collection, and dissemination of information on students, academic programs, and other aspects of the institution. These offices typically manage the reporting of student and programmatic data required by state or federal government agencies, such as for the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System maintained by the U.S. Department of Education. Some IR offices also provide faculty and staff with information about students and the effectiveness of higher education programs and can help collect and interpret the data needed for federal and other reporting requirements.

IR offices can assist higher education programs in prisons with accessing and collecting data on their students and programs. IR offices can also help programs meet the data reporting requirements and evaluate program effectiveness, including student outcomes.

What is institutional research?
According to the Association for Institutional Research, the primary role of IR is to provide objective, systematic, and thorough research that supports the institution’s goals, planning, policy formation, and decision making. Although the scope of IR activities varies by institution, the functions of institutional research can include the following:

Identifying information needs
Collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and reporting data and information
Contributing to operational, budgetary, and strategic planning and program evaluation
Serving as stewards of data and information
Education, information producers, users, and consumers

Depending on the institution, IR offices may also coordinate with other offices in the institution engaged in data collection and analysis, such as offices of the registrar, financial aid, and institutional effectiveness.

What support can IR offices provide for higher education in prison programs?

Through the functions listed, IR offices can help program staff collect, access, and analyze the data needed to start a program, analyze its effectiveness, and analyze student outcomes, depending on office capacity.

If the IR office isn’t front and center as it is at my campus, faculty may not know what they do. We start programs knowing that we’re going to be looking at the data. We don’t think of that after the fact. On day one, we ask: How are we going to measure this? How are we going to see if we’re successful? We don’t just get started and figure that out later.
Collin Witherspoon, Executive Director of Institutional Research, Amarillo College

What support can IR offices provide for higher education in prison programs?

Meeting Department of Education regulations for Pell Grants

IR offices can help program staff interpret and meet federal regulations that require data on programs and students. For example, the IR office could provide data needed for the initial Pell Grant approval process and for determining whether a program is operating in the best interest of students, such as data on instructor qualifications, credentials, and turnover.

Meeting accreditation requirements

Accreditation agencies are part of the process for approving programs to administer Pell Grants to incarcerated students. During higher education in prison programs’ initial two-year period of access to Pell Grants, college accreditation agencies evaluate the program and conduct a site visit. At each step, accreditors may request information that IR offices can facilitate access to, such as data on faculty qualifications and workloads, student services, and course and program assessment measures.

Access to post-program data on your students

In addition to collecting data on students while enrolled, some IR offices can access data on students’ post-program outcomes even if they do not enroll in your institution after release. For example, IR offices may be able to obtain data on postsecondary enrollment from the National Student Clearinghouse or employment and wage data from state departments of labor. These data can provide insights into student outcomes after they leave your program.

Assessing program outcomes/supporting continuous improvement

Although IR office capacity and staff expertise vary, IR can also assist with collecting survey and other data on students and programs and provide ongoing feedback on student and program outcomes through existing analysis tools such as dashboards. Some IR offices also have the capacity to conduct in-depth analysis of data on programs and students that go beyond descriptive statistics. These analyses might include assessing the impact of specific program features on retention and completion or comparing the outcomes of different groups of students over time.

Access to data from departments of corrections

To effectively support students who are incarcerated, programs often need information on their students from departments of corrections, such as sentence length and time to release. IR offices can help programs establish a process to access these data and provide examples of data sharing agreements and data sharing templates.

What are effective practices for working with IR?

Involve IR early

Outreach to IR offices during the planning phase of your program can support effective collaboration and help higher education in prison programs understand and meet federal and other data reporting requirements. IR specialists can advise on effective alternatives to collecting data online and integrating the resulting data into existing data systems and analysis tools, such as dashboards, that can help programs meet data reporting needs and avoid duplicating efforts.

Be aware of IR office capacity

IR offices serve departments and programs across the institution, which entails competing priorities and ongoing reporting deadlines. Programs should consult their institution’s IR office to learn what kind of support staff can provide and how much advance notice is needed for assistance. An understanding of how the IR office manages tasks and planning for collaboration can improve coordination and make it more likely that the IR office will be able to meet your program’s needs.

Additional resources

“Duties and Functions of Institutional Research,” Association for Institutional Research, n.d., https://www.airweb.org/ir-data-professional-overview/duties-and-functions-of-institutional-research.

Kaylan Baxter, “Accountability During Crisis: The Transformative Potential of Institutional Research and Effectiveness in the Struggle Toward Racial Justice,” The Community College Context, October 2020, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED609878.pdf.

EvaluATE, “Tips for Working with Institutional Research,” YouTube video, February 13, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu_WUGghCv8&ab_channel=EvaluATE.

Myra Hyder, Accessing Pell Grants for College Programs in Correctional Settings: A Summary of the Regulations and Requirements (Brooklyn: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023), https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/accessing-pell-grants-for-college-programs-in-correctional-settings.pdf.

Institutional IR offices typically maintain websites with information about their services and the process for submitting data requests. Examples from institutions participating in Ready for Pell include the following:

Des Moines Area Community College: Office of Planning, Assessment and Data

Herkimer College: Institutional Research Department

Hope College: Office of Institutional Research

Portland State University: Office of Institutional Research and Planning

Tulane University: Office of Assessment and Institutional Research

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