<Research Note> Institutional Research in the United States: The Function of Academic Program Review

This thesis is an examination of the function of institutional research (IR) in the United States. Although previous research has shown that it is possible to classify these functions in different ways, this research adopts the classification suggested by Delaney (1997) and will especially focus on the function of "academic studies" (program evaluation). Although universities in both America and Japan have realized the necessity for program improvement, introducing other sections into the field of teachers & specialists has proven quite difficult in practice. Within the constantly changing university environment of today, however, the trend is for programs to no longer be products of the subjective ideas of a few specialists, but rather be developed based on various types of factual information from both inside and outside the university. Clarifying the intricate workings of "academic studies" is a crucial part of this development. The current thesis is an attempt to understand these workings using of a questionnaire survey, and it is the author's hope that it might also provide suggestions for further development of IR in Japan