This chapter describes techniques and projects that mostinstitutions need if they are to be viable in an increasinglycompetitive labor market. The authors assert thatinstitutional researchers who increase their involvementin workforce development initiatives can become morevaluable to their institution.

An Action Agenda for InstitutionalResearchers

Lee Harvey, Richard A. Voorhees

With the growing focus on workforce development, it is an appropriate timefor institutional research personnel to increase their involvement in instruc-tional programming beyond the role required for program review and dis-continuation. Many institutional researchers give substantial attention toanalysis of institutional datasets that are often numerical in character.Employability and workforce development creates for institutional researchersa range of complex tasks and interesting conundrums. Employability andworkforce development, with its highly qualitative (and to some extentsituation-dependent) character, requires a particularly sophisticated analyti-cal approach. This chapter outlines a series of undertakings implied by seri-ous engagement with workforce development and employability.

There is a need to audit the institution to explore the extent to whichemployability development practices are embedded in programs, providedby central services (such as career advice and preparation), developedthrough extracurricular activity (linked or disengaged from institutionalsupport), or missing altogether. Such an audit is a substantial undertaking.It requires systematic analysis, almost certainly relying on self-reporting(and supporting curriculum documentation) because the cost of face-to-facediscussion with all program leaders would be prohibitive. It would, forexample, be necessary to construct a pro forma to aid reporting of employ-ability development, which is flexible enough to cater to all disciplines,years of study, and levels of qualification. This is no easy task, and institu-tional researchers should avoid the temptation to produce their own.Sharing practice here is vital. The audit needs to capture what happens in

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programs, down to the employability development on different modules;whether that development opportunity is formatively or summativelyassessed; and whether it is integral to delivery of the subject matter, devel-oped through peripheral activities, or reliant on some form of work experi-ence or employer-linked project. The audit should identify whether thedevelopment activity is compulsory and thus affects all students on a pro-gram or voluntary, and if the latter then what proportion of them take up theopportunity. This, then, needs to be complemented by analysis of the takeup of centrally provided employability development opportunities, such asthose provided by career services, local employers, or student associations.

Institutional researchers can identify a baseline number of studentsfrom disadvantaged backgrounds in each discipline area. A penetrationindex could be calculated comparing historical enrollment by type of courseor program pursued. This index would give institutional decision makersan overview of where opportunities lie. Again, this may involve somesophisticated analysis of available databases to identify “disadvantage.”

Institutional researchers can help position their institution to effectivelyengage in workforce development, especially career pathways or wideningparticipation, by identifying baseline data on the number of disadvantagedadults that they might serve from their region. Census data can be helpfulin pinpointing the areas within the college’s traditional service area wheredemographics indicate a potential demand for career pathway services.

Along with institutional auditing, student surveys toward the end oftheir program can gather their perception of the program’s effectiveness inenhancing their employability. An employability experience questionnaire,for example, is being developed in conjunction with the Higher EducationAcademy in the UK. Many of the student satisfaction surveys developed ini-tially at the Centre for Research into Quality at the University of CentralEngland in the UK include suites of questions about skill and attributedevelopment, student satisfaction with placement and internship, as well aslinks with industry.

A major challenge for institutional researchers, in conjunction withprogram leaders, is to develop methods through which the complexities ofemployability might be picked up in assessment practices. Despite consid-erable advances in fostering explicit employability development opportuni-ties, little evident advance has been made on the modes of assessing a rangeof employability and workforce development attributes. Apart from thestandard written assignment tasks, most students engage in few skill-assessment activities other than group projects or oral presentations.Institutional researchers could develop and pilot imaginative approaches toassessing a range of attributes, from risk taking to leadership.

Working with program leaders and software developers, institutionalresearchers could help identify the elements necessary for recording stu-dents’ attainment and aid in designing student-friendly self-reflection tools.In the UK, for example, initiation of “personal development programming”

(PDP), which combines career management with reflection on experienceof academic and extracurricular activity, is under way; there is an opportu-nity for institutional researchers to aid that innovative process but also toevaluate its impact and effectiveness. This would involve analyzing the con-tent of personal development files (PDFs) and exploring with students andteachers the function, value, and utility of the files. It might further lead toresearching how employers relate to PDFs and the use they make of themin the recruitment processes.

Widespread engagement of institutions with alumni offers the prospectof surveys designed to follow up the extent to which a program’s attentionto employability is coherent with alumni experiences in the world of work.This would be an important task to see if there is any correlation betweenhow a program aims to develop employability and the attributes studentsrequire when first recruited and then after a period of years.

A trickier but no less important and rewarding task for institutionalresearchers would be to research the relationship between student employ-ment (attained level, activities undertaken) and the range of employabilityenhancement activities the student engages in while on the program ofstudy. This would probably involve a cohort tracking study and fairly in-depth periodic interviewing to explore perception, attainment, and inten-tion at various stages. A natural supplement to this would be to explore theextent to which student performance in assessed aspects of employabilityattributes in the program reflected their actual employment or perceptionof how well they were prepared for employment by their program of study.

Institutional researchers have a role in aligning programs by focusingon employers and employment needs, using a variety of techniques as out-lined by Voorhees in Chapter Three. There probably is no better placewithin a given institution to centralize external information about job mar-kets and competitor programs than the institutional research office.

A key role for institutional researchers in exploring employer needs is toconduct employer surveys. These have other benefits; they also promoteemployer involvement in program development. Employer surveys areextremely useful, but the data are often hard to obtain. Experience suggeststhat employer surveys result in a low response rate and generate skeweddatasets, with uneven responses depending on the type of institution. Face-to-face inquiry fares much better than a postal survey but is much moreexpensive and time-consuming. Furthermore, there is a tendency to thinkthat an “employer” has a single view. This is not the case, as the Graduates’Work study showed (Harvey, Burrows, and Green, 1992). The line managerof a graduate recruit, the graduate recruitment office, and the senior managersoften had quite divergent perspectives on what constituted a good graduate.

A proxy for direct exploration of employer requirements is to surveycurrent students, especially part-timers. Surveys of current students can pro-duce invaluable insights for assessing market potentials. Although currentstudents tend to be oversurveyed, information an institution might collect

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selectively from surveys of current students would include preferences forscheduling options, delivery mechanisms, perception of existing college ser-vices, and preference for specific programs.

Institutional researchers could also examine new target markets. Asinstitutions expand into new markets, the preferences of prospective stu-dents for scheduling, program content, and institutional services need tomatch the institution’s ability to deliver. The use of the VALS typology(Chapter Three) may augment more traditional market research. Theemerging field of psychographic market research can certainly yield newinsights for targeted geographical areas in which the institution may con-sider program expansion.

Institutional researchers have a role in augmenting and monitoring newprograms. Working with student recruiters, curriculum modifiers and deliv-erers, and student services during the initiation and preimplementationphases of program development, institutional researchers can be active inrefining programs at the early stages and evaluating the success of new pro-grams once they are up and running.

Another area of research would be to explore the nature of employers’recruitment processes. Do they, for example, systematically seek out and eval-uate specific skills? How idiosyncratic are their recruitment desires and prac-tices? Does this vary from discipline to discipline? To what extent doemployers link recruitment to subject studied? This information will be use-ful for students, lecturing staff, and program designers. In many instances,academics in higher education and their students have little idea of the mech-anisms and criteria by which employers select students through recruitmentprocesses. This is not to suggest that academics must be steered in what theyteach by employers’ recruitment methods; far from it, given the bizarre natureof some recruitment. However, it is better not to be ignorant of the linkbetween higher education and employment.

The data derived from employers can give staff developers and aca-demics a set of information to help them devise a series of practices toenhance student employability. These might be assistance for students to more quickly gain employment on the basis of evaluation of employerrecruitment techniques, such as curriculum vitae writing, interviewing tech-niques, and coping with assessment centers, on through to more funda-mental practices such as developing a range of communication skills,teaching students to work in teams through development of various roles,and offering a range of real-world problem-solving activities. The employer-focused research undertaken by institutional researchers would lend guid-ance on the specific construction of these enhancement activities.

A key task for institutional researchers linked to workforce develop-ment would be to help guide strategy. Armed with an array of employabil-ity information, institutional researchers could work with staff developers,central service providers, and senior managers in institutions to inform astrategy that is the basis of a generic guide to program leaders and centralservice providers.

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Workforce development programs are not inexpensive to operate.Institutional researchers should familiarize themselves with the range ofexternal financial support available to students and programs. For example,in the United States clarity about Pell Grant eligibility, WIA individual train-ing accounts, and other resources that are available in state or foundationscholarship programs can answer basic questions about the feasibility ofstarting new institutional efforts. These input resources can be paired withknowledge of current program cost, especially for remedial programs, sothat institutions can more effectively engage external funders in dialogueabout what it costs to educate disadvantaged adults.

It is often onerous for institutions to create and maintain accountabil-ity systems for workforce programs such as WIA and Perkins (see ChapterFive). Institutional researchers carry much of the accountability burdenwhen their institution chooses to participate in these programs and as aresult requires familiarization with tracking systems that are both internaland external to the institution.

Although there are important reasons to report these data to externalaudiences, institutional researchers should analyze them internally becausethey will want to engage in cohort tracking of disadvantaged adults to deter-mine where best institutional practices lie in promoting their success. Thisrequires interinstitutional cooperation to identify disadvantaged adults whenthey enroll and the technical expertise to track their attendance across oneor more semesters. Careful analysis of their experiences within an institutionilluminates which internal pathways can be modified to meet institutionalexpectations to deliver a quality program.

Workforce development and employability offers an extensive array ofpotential new areas of activity for institutional researchers. These seem tobe exciting prospects, moving the institutional researcher role closer to pol-icy and strategy.

Reference

Harvey, L., Burrows, A. and Green, D. Someone Who Can Make an Impression. Report ofthe Employers’ Survey of Qualities of Higher Education Graduates. Birmingham, England:QHE, 1992.

LEE HARVEY is professor and director of the Centre for Research and Evaluationat Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom.

RICHARD A. VOORHEES is principal of Voorhees Group LLC, an independenthigher education consulting company in Littleton, Colorado.

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