The purpose of this essay is to discuss the impact of the EdD experience on one teacher's understanding of data and research. From a first-person narrative, the author shares how learning to collect and analyze qualitative data has the potential to change the way teachers can engage with "data-driven decision making" in a high school…

The Grand Challenges for Assessment in Higher Education project is a collaborative effort of 10 endorsing organizations and over 400 volunteers to increase the extent to which assessment (1) supports equity; (2) is visible, actionable, and drives innovation; and (3) guides rapid improvements in pedagogy (Singer-Freeman and Robinson 2020). Several…

Based on our experience developing and delivering a highly successful data visualization course within a Master of Science in Business Analytics program, we present a taxonomy for data visualization courses and recommend content and pedagogical features for each type of data visualization course therein. We also discuss the interdependence between…

State postsecondary education data systems are vital assets for policymakers, researchers, and the public. The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association's (SHEEO) Communities of Practice project builds upon SHEEO's efforts to measure the capacity and effective use of state postsecondary data systems and provides states with…

Written with faculty in mind, "Assessment by Design" is a practical resource that will also be useful to student affairs staff and administrators dedicated to using assessment to improve learning in curricular and co-curricular settings. This book presents the Cycle of Assessment as a framework that supports assessment in service of…

The COVID-19 pandemic constrained higher education institutions to switch to online teaching, which led to major changes in students' learning behavior, affecting their overall performance. Thus, students' academic performance needs to be meticulously monitored to help institutions identify students at risk of academic failure, preventing them…

This work reports on the implementation of a self-contained data-literacy exercise designed for use in undergraduate classes to help students practice data literacy skills such as interpreting and evaluating evidence and assessing arguments based on data. The exercises use already developed data-visualizations to test and develop students' ability…

Institutions of higher education are asked to consider how their work can advance equity in institutional outcomes. Assessment, too, has been asked to consider the ways in which traditional student assessment "privileges and validates certain types of learning and evidence of learning over others" (Montenegro and Jankowski 2017, p. 5).…

Speculative reform jumps the gun on notions of data-driven reform, requiring administrators to anticipate and act to ensure problems (and the data that would show them) do not materialize. Speculative reforms are incapable of delivering the outcomes they promise, as they are fueled by a fear of the future that their reforms do not extinguish. In…

Data-informed decision-making is no longer an optional or occasional practice, as higher education professionals now routinely respond to calls for accountability by providing data to show how their work impacts students. Institutions are operating with a culture that, at a minimum, includes the use of descriptive and diagnostic analyses to assess…

The growing use of analytics has increased the demand for more highly data literate graduates. Awareness of ambiguity in data has been suggested as a new data literacy skill. Here, we describe a student-centered semester-long project that can be used to teach this skill in an introductory analytics or database course. The project requires students…

The University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) is an urban research university with a special emphasis on fostering diversity. In 2021, the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence created a Faculty Fellows program to develop comprehensive resources and support in four areas: teaching and learning, service and engagement, research and creativity,…

Robust longitudinal education and workforce data are integral in addressing disparities in educational opportunities and economic outcomes. However, not all states link their P-12, postsecondary, and workforce data sets. Kentucky and Tennessee are two state examples that proved success in linking data from different agencies. TICAS' brief analyzes…

Traditional student information systems were designed primarily to collect and manage records of course enrollment and credit hours earned, as well as other data elements needed to monitor each student's progress to graduation. Now, institutions want to monitor and improve the quality and equity of students' learning experiences in courses and the…

Decision-making is a critical topic in any management and organizational behavior course. Navigating and understanding the various processes and influences on decision-making, however, can be complicated. This article revises and expands on a common "employee ranking" format activity. It uses in-class student data to systematically…