The Role of Institutional Research in Equitable Access and Success: Data, Power and Privilege 2011 Strategy Institute Tonya Benton (Facilitator), IR Director Highline Community College, Des Moines, WA Cathy Almquist, Director of IR and Assessment Trident Technical College, Charleston, SC Mary Millikin, Director of Planning and IR Tulsa Community College, Tulsa, OK Wilma Dulin, VP, Instruction & Student Svcs Yakima Valley Community College, Yakima, WA
Transcript
The Role of Institutional Research in Equitable Access and Success:
Data, Power and Privilege
2011 Strategy Institute
Tonya Benton (Facilitator), IR DirectorHighline Community College, Des Moines, WA
Cathy Almquist, Director of IR and AssessmentTrident Technical College, Charleston, SC
Mary Millikin, Director of Planning and IRTulsa Community College, Tulsa, OK
Wilma Dulin, VP, Instruction & Student Svcs Yakima Valley Community College, Yakima, WA
2/9/2011
Academic Context/ Brief DialogueData stories from panelistsAudience Discussion of Stories/ Questions
Summary remarks from panelists
Presentation Format
Learning Objectives
Identify colleagues for continued networking toward improved structural equity
Identify biases due to IR privilege in data collection, analysis and reporting
Discuss how individual biases can impact IR’s role in a college’s progress toward structural equity
What responsibility do I have in IR to effect change on these issues?
How have other CCs in “new Latino destinations” measured access?
What defines a “new Latino destination”?WHO is doing the defining? Does it matter?
FOR LOVE OF NUMBERS
A Cautionary Tale About Bias
Attitude Counts
IR people are, by nature, number lovers.
Numerophiles.
Attitude Counts
Some folks at our colleges are not number lovers.
Numerophobes.
Attitude Counts
What attitudes and biases do numerophiles have about numerophobes?
Their capability? Their competency? Does that affect the
way you look at results from their programs?
Isn’t that bias?
Example – Minority Mentoring
MOMAHSMentoringOur Minority African American and Hispanic Males
2007 - TTC had no significant difference in retention rates of white students and minority students. (Really.)
Retention Committee investigating “best practices” on campus.
MOMAHS reported a 90% annual retention rate.
But they only had 19 participants. And no graduates. How did they get a 90% retention
rate?!?
Raw Data – What IR Would Do
Starting Fall Cohort Following Fall
19 9
9/19 = 47.4%
Raw Data – What the Program Did
Starting Fall Cohort Following Fall
19 – 9 = 10 9
9/10 = 90%
Attitude Counts
What attitude did I (a numerophile) have have of the numerophobes?
It did affect the way I looked at results from their program.
I was dismissive. That IS bias!
Attitude Counts
Initial Reaction: They really don’t have a clue what they’re doing.
Realization: Yes, they made a mistake. But the result of that mistake is masking a real problem.
Time to take action: Look deeper at retention rates of minority males. Are they equivalent to minority
females? Is there a problem here we haven’t
uncovered yet? What’s my role here?
Moving Forward
The retention rate of minority males is not equivalent to other groups.
We do have a problem.
My role: help the people who directly support students understand and interpret data.
Lessons in Unbiased Qualitative Data Collection
Mary A. MillikinDirector of Planning & Institutional Research
Tulsa Community College
Qualitative Data Collection:Focus Groups
TCC trained in structured focus group facilitation by data coach, Dr. Ken Gonzalez Focus group facilitators volunteered rather than
were appointed Year 1 of ATD: Persistence focus groups
All facilitators white females Student participants representative of student body
Qualitative Data Collection:Focus Groups
In Year 3, TCC conducted persistence focus groups specifically of African American male students Data Coach advised us to use African American male
faculty and staff only. Training ensued.
Although I didn’t hesitate to follow the advice of our data coach, I couldn’t help wondering if I couldn’t be just as effective 20 years of conducting (unstructured) focus groups Egocentrism?
What we found
Students relayed similar persistence barriers as we found in general focus groups
Except when a non-African American male (AA male) facilitated! AA male students did NOT mention AA male-
specific barriers with non-AA male focus group facilitator (Data Coach for training purposes and Year 1 focus groups)
Students mentioned AA male-specific barriers only when facilitators were AA males and when only AA male students were in the groups.
What were the barriers?
(24 barriers)
AA Male Experience
(17 barriers)
Institutional
(69 barriers)
Managing College Life and Goals
Managing College Life and Goals: time management, work and family issues, transitioning to college
AA Male Experience
Negative Peer, Community, and Family Influences (12)
Not seeing others of the same race/gender (6)
Stereotyping (6)
Institutional barriers: college resources such as navigating campuses and textbooks.
In Summary
AA male students more candid with AA male facilitators
Literature tells us this is true with other non-white groups (Guiffrida, D.A. , 2010; Padilla, R. V., Trevino, J., González, K. P., & Trevino, J.,1997)
Begs the question: What other data and information do I miss through a “one size fits all” approach to data collection, analysis, and reporting?
References
González , K.P. (2009) Using Data to Increase Student Success: A Focus on Diagnosis Principles and Practices of Student Success. Lumina Foundation for Education: Indianapolis, IN.
Guiffrida, D.A. & Douthit, K.Z. (2010) The Black Student Experience at Predominantly White Colleges: Implications for School and College Counselors. Journal of Counseling and Development, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-230150805.html
Padilla, R. V., Trevino, J., González, K. P., & Trevino, J. (1997). Developing local models of minority student success in college. Journal of College Student Development, 38, 125-135.
From Faculty to Research to Faculty
Lessons learned about the power of data in changing the
institution’s ability to have difficult conversations
Preface to Wilma Dulin’s Comments
Faculty member
OIE Director
Program Director
What informed me?Bennett’s Intercultural Sensitivity Stages:
1. Denial or parochialism2. Defense and assumptions of
superiority3. Minimization or trivialization of
acknowledged cultural differences4. Acceptance, respect for differences5. Adaptation or empathic
understanding of others’ world views
6. Integration, including contextual relativism
What informed me?Racial Identify Models
Focused on changing how individuals perceive themselves with respect to race
Some models focus on separating groups for training
Other models assume that either or all groups are influenced by the same activities but that their cognitive explanations may differ
What I knew about faculty…
I realized that my peers were not mean people
I acknowledged that none of us had THE answer
I knew that scholarly research was more likely to be tolerated
I knew that numbers, data could be helpful
The Value of Drilling Deeper: Myth Busting
Initial Data •Disaggregated for multiple characteristics•Questions about why this is so?
