The Construction of an Institutional Data Archive for the Study of Continuity and Change in American Higher Education, 1965-2000

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-9986423 Steven G. Brint The project collects data on decisions made by top college and university administrators over the last 35 years and the priorities of current top administrators on academic curricula and programs. Data will be collected from three top officials (presidents, provosts, and directors of institutional research) at each of 345 institutions. The institutions will be selected through a stratified random sampling procedure in which chances of selection are higher for the higher-ranking institutions. This new data will be combined with selected variables drawn from 21 existing data sets to form an institutional data archive. For a majority of the enrollment and financial variables, time series data will be included at five-year intervals beginning in 1967-68. Most curricular and programmatic variables will also be collected at more than one point in time. These time series will open the way for quantitative studies of institutional change over a 30-year period. These data will be used to investigate five issues. Three of these questions concern important systemwide changes that occurred during the period. What are the extent and forms: (1) of movement toward professional programs and away from traditional liberal arts and sciences; (2) of movement toward interdisciplinary programs; (3) of increasing managerial influence over educational policies and priorities? The data will also to be used to provide a clearer understanding of the structure of the higher education system, including (4) the effects of structural location on the curricular and budgetary behavior of institutions; and (5) the sources of competitive advantage and disadvantage during period. The data set will be disseminated via CD-ROMs and made available to researchers and policy makers through the University of Michigan's Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The data has the potential to serve as the basis for ongoing research on the changing structure of the American higher education system.