Education

A study of recent graduates of two School of Education undergraduate programs illustrates institutional research design and utilization issues. A survey mailed to 800 alumni from 5 graduating classes (1987-1991) resulted in 326 responses from those with a Teacher Education major and 120 responses from those with a Human Development major, and 10 graduates who had both a Teacher Education and a Human Development major. Findings are reported for variations in expectations from college by academic major, variations in perceived professional growth by academic major, evaluation of pre-professional teaching experience, early professional challenges (work-related problems), differences in work-related problems by academic major, relationship of perceived professional growth to problems in early teaching, and relationship between perceived professional growth, pre-professional teaching experience and overall evaluation of undergraduate education. Survey results were presented in separate reports to the Dean, faculty, and program chairpersons. The role of both researchers and administrators in institutional research utilization is emphasized. Critical design issues noted included identifying the appropriate population for the survey, identifying subpopulations for future analysis, planning to ensure an adequate respondent group for analysis, involving the intended audiences of the research in the design phase, designing the survey instrument to obtain the content and level of evaluative feedback of interest to intended audiences, and designing questions and scales which measure the constructs addressed in the research (JB