Reflective (Ac) Counting: Institutional Research, Evaluation, & Assessment in a Time of Cholera

Walter F. Heinecke   |    Volume Six: Summer  |   

Institutional researchers and assessment professionals in higher education are living in interesting and challenging times, one might say in times of crisis. In the post-Reagan era government and its agencies and public professionals have come under fire for being ineffective and reluctant to reform and protected as special interests (House, 1993). As federal and state coffers have shrunk in a time of rising costs of higher education, university budgets are tightening while at the same time calls for accountability are increasing (U.S. Department of Education, 2006). The discourse of higher education quality has changed to focus on “return on investment” as the criteria for college and university success. Free market economics take the spotlight off of private enterprises but shift attention of policy makers to public organizations and as House (1993) asserts, “As a consequence, higher education…is blamed for social and economic problems that originate elsewhere, such as in the economic structure itself” (p. 59). As a consequence, Terenzini (2009) asserts that assessment of student outcomes originating from external mandates is here to stay but that there are significant “conceptual, administrative, political and methodological issues” (p. 45) making such initiatives problematic. As a result, institutional researchers are caught in a conflicting press for efficiency, accountability and excellence. The research on the role of IR professionals reflects more emphasis on “accountability and performance” and “outcomes assessment” among other job tasks (Volkwein, 2008, p. 9). Here I attempt to offer perspective related to the “issues intelligence” as well as the “contextual intelligence” that make up the “organizational intelligence” of IR (Volkwein, 2008, p. 5; see also Terenzini, 1999).

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