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Data Issues

The list below consists of issues identified by the WASC Data Team as part of the process of building Tables 1.1.1 – 6.3 or as part of their analysis of the data in the tables.

General

  • It would be helpful to post various definitions.  A start is adding a link to the IPEDS glossary at http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/glossary/.  Further financial definitions are needed as well.

Undergraduate Program

  • Undergraduate transfer retention and graduation rates need to be tracked
  • Ethnicity of undergraduate applicants and admits needs to be tracked by ethnic group rather than white/non-white
  • Undergraduate GPA’s need to be tracked (added to the snapshot)
  • The number of undergraduate readmissions is down.  What is the reason for this? (Table 1.1.1)
  • There is good progress in the average GPA and SAT scores of our incoming undergraduate students (Table 1.2.1).  What impact, if any, do these higher standards have on our efforts to recruit talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds?
  • Roughly half the transfer students are male (Table 1.3.1).  Is there something significant in that?
  • Further study need to be done to determine which of the many strategies of the admissions office are the most effective in recruiting ethnically diverse students.
  • How does the ethnic composition of incoming undergraduate students compare to that of our catchment area?
  • There was a significant increase in the number of part-time undergraduate students (those below 12 units) in 2003-04 (Table 2.1).  This should be investigated.
  • The number of students receiving Pell Grants has decreased significantly (Table 2.4). Is it because of changing government policy or because of a change in the affluence level of our undergraduate population?  Is this increasing the financial stress placed on our students?
  • The diversity of both undergraduate and graduate student populations has increased (Table 2.3).  As with the admissions data, it would be useful to compare the ethnic diversity in our student population to that of our catchment area.

Graduate Program

  • Graduate admissions data needs to be tracked and a resolution to collecting data on the screening process needs to be found.
  • Graduate student retention needs to be tracked – the number of years to degree completion.
  • Graduate student average GPA’s need to be tracked (added to the snapshot).
  • The graduate snapshot needs to be taken at the end of the fall semester to better capture enrollment.  Some careful work needs to be done to define exactly what should be in that snapshot.  Is there a reason to take graduate snap shots at other times of the year?  When should that be done?
  • It would be helpful to have graduate data separated by site.

Faculty and Staff

  • Faculty and staff profiles (ethnicity, numbers, etc) need to be tracked for every year even if WASC only requires them every other year.
  • Faculty and staff data should be gathered in a way that is meaningful to PLNU and then reduced for the IPEDS reports (since we classify some faculty in ways that are different than the IPEDS standards).
  • Part Time faculty are VERY hard to track.  It would be helpful if there were some hiring deadlines.  The human resources office (HR) reports that often the information from the deans is outdated because of how rapidly things change.  It may be better if part time faculty data came from the individual departments.  The fluidity is causing headaches for HR.
  • Faculty and staff ethnic composition needs to be compared to that of our catchment area.
  • There needs to be a fall Part-time faculty count recorded each fall at the time that the FTE snapshot is computed.
  • It would be helpful to track the turn over in part time faculty. 
  • It would also be helpful to know the average age of the full-time faculty.  The committee expressed concern about the number of retirements that will be coming in the next 4-5 years.  For planning purposes, the University needs to know the coming retirement trends and budget for the associated costs (searches, housing co-investment, etc).  The HERI faculty survey data indicates that roughly 20% of our full time faculty are 60 or older, 10.9% of them plan on retiring in the next three years and 20% of the faculty have considered early retirement.

Physical and Fiscal Resources

  • The type of classrooms available need to be studied.  Do we have the correct number of rooms needed to teach using a variety of pedagogical methods?
  • The committee recommends that some further study be given to the trends in the number of both large and small undergraduate classes.
  • A simple summary financial statement similar to that given to the Board of Trustees would be a helpful addition to the data set.
  • In determining full time equivalent (FTE) faculty, we need to double-check the counting of coaches and others.  The 50% rule seems to be misapplied when computing IPEDS numbers.  There needs to be a written protocol for how they are computed.

Data Collection and Organization

  • We need written standardized lists of what data is collected in various areas and when it is collected. This can serve as a guide in record keeping.  This should include a list of what is in the snapshots that are taken by the Office of Institutional Research and others.
  • A list linking PLNU degree title and IPEDS code number needs to be established, written down and used.   Current IPDES reporting indicates that there has been some variation in the use of codes.
  • There needs to be a multi-year cycle of surveys.  We should be on a five-year cycle for surveys and the needs of individual departments for program review should be incorporated into those surveys.
  • Seniors and Freshmen should be given a single survey rather than multiple surveys.
  • Most of the results of the standard survey data that we receive (e.g. UCLA faculty) is in summary form.  While it is helpful to look at overall percentages and averages, we are unable to do additional institutional research based on this data (except compare the averages to prior years' averages). In addition, researchers in various departments would like access to the raw data in order to perform additional studies of general scientific interest or those that would benefit further understanding of our students. Without the raw data we are unable to conduct these studies.   We recommend purchasing the raw digital data from these standardized surveys.
  • As part of our effort to create a “culture of evidence” at PLNU the use of data needs to be documented in reports.  If data is used, it should be cited.  In addition, the institution need to verify that data collected is useful.  Are we truly using the information gathered as part of decision making or research processes?