A Day in the Life of an Institutional Researcher

Winter 2018

By Denise Uehara

Punahou School (Hawaii) is actively recruiting an institutional researcher who will work closely with members of the school’s leadership team and colleagues throughout the school to conduct research that helps us fulfill the current and future promise of education for students within and beyond our campus community. The institutional researcher will support academic initiatives that help prepare students for the changing world, and the growing social, political, economic, and ecological interconnectedness that are shaping that world.
 
In September 2016, as I read this job description on the American Educational Research Association (AERA) job board, I asked myself, “What exactly does this job entail?” As a faculty member at the University of Hawaii (UH), I was familiar with the roles and responsibilities of postsecondary institutional researchers (IR), but I didn’t know this position existed at any of our local independent schools.

So I searched the internet to see if there were IRs at other schools across the nation. I found a few other such job descriptions, which mentioned enrollment counts, financial-aid award percentages, and the NAIS document Demonstrating Independent School Quality: Inventory of Institutional Assessment Instruments. The latter gave me an idea of the type of data collection activities and measures that an independent school IR would use, all of which were familiar to me, but I still didn’t have a real understanding of the position in an independent school setting. 

University research often takes a bird’s-eye view with limited opportunity to see the day-to-day “action” resulting from the research. It sounded like this position would allow me to do what I most enjoy: applying research to malleable units of study where data actually informs decisions and ultimately focuses on students. I decided to throw my hat into the ring, and after a three-month application process, I was offered the position. 

With much excitement and some trepidation, I began the position in January 2017. All that I have ever done professionally, from school counseling and curriculum development to school accreditation and randomized controlled trials, prepared me for this work, yet I had so many questions. How will I execute? What will be the outcome of my work? How will I fit in professionally and personally? Will I be able to engage in this rather large and diverse community? Where is data stored, who has it, and how will I access it? In essence, how can I make an impactful contribution?
 

Developing and Implementing My Action Plan

This self-study highlighted the desire and opportunity to further collect, interpret, synthesize, and use meaningful data, aligned with what Punahou values in education, to enhance understanding and inform decision-making in areas ranging from admissions and deeper learning about the constituencies we serve. 
 
This excerpt from the Punahou IR job description references the Western Association of Schools and Colleges–Hawaii Association of Independent Schools (WASC-HAIS) 2015–2016 Accreditation Self Study Report. I read the full report, which proved to be a double-edged sword. It gave me a comprehensive academic sense of the school, along with its goals and accomplishments, but it also scared the heck out of me. How do I execute this multidimensional and multifunctional expectation with numerous priorities from diverse departments? My lens as a university researcher seemed so narrow as I was used to executing my own studies, controlling my own variables, and determining timelines and participants.

But I got to work. Using the Punahou School Self-Study Action Plan 2016–2023 Major Opportunities document as a guide, I drafted my own action plan. I focused on the essential questions in the document that were related to research, evaluation, data, assessment, measurement, and analyses. For example, the document discussed measuring the effectiveness of professional development, understanding our students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) abilities, and leveraging research and data for student learning and institutional advancement. Given my experiences, competencies, and interests, I knew that I could contribute to these actions and goals.  

After creating my action plan, I started to think about which activities to prioritize. But the work found me. Faculty wanted me to support their research and evaluation activities by creating surveys and questionnaires, analyzing existing data, and guiding them in their inquiry. For example, a Punahou Academy (grades 9 to 12) science teacher initiated a student-attitude questionnaire and needed help analyzing the data. A few other teachers wanted to survey their students’ perceptions about social studies, so I created a questionnaire that would help the department make curricular decisions. The admission department was in the market for a new application system and wanted suggestions about the types of additional data they could be collecting. Faculty fellows engaged in their scholarship asked for supports to analyze, interpret, and present their research in ways that were not only rigorous but accessible to our Punahou community.

With so much research happening at the school, I created a research process for both internal (Punahou School faculty) and external (universities, organizations, etc.) parties. Much like an institutional review board (IRB) reviews studies involving human subjects, our protocol ensures that any inquiry follows common guidelines that protect all parties and that research activities result in data or applicable information that benefits the education community and particularly Punahou School. 

My former colleagues from UH who are IRB members have helped me think through these processes. It helps having friends in the right places! To continue my own professional development, I am seeking membership on the UH IRB as an external member, which will inform my IR responsibilities and will offer the board a community-constituent perspective. 
 

Collaborating with the School Community

I report to both the Junior School (K–grade 8) and Academy principals, and they allow me untethered access to data across the school. This is critical because I have been tasked with creating a database architecture that will eventually lead to a master database, which will allow the school to answer its most pressing questions such as, “How do we measure the non-academic competencies of our students, the soft skills often deemed more important in today’s marketplace?” and “How do we ensure that we are collecting and synthesizing data in support of student learning?” or “What are the perceptions of our school in the broader community?” 

This ongoing task requires me to create, maintain, and nurture relationships throughout the campus, and I’ve found that key personnel who may not necessarily identify themselves as “key” can be critical to my work. Administrative assistants, department secretaries, information technology staff, and clerical personnel have been my go-to people when I need to locate and access data of all sorts. I have developed relationships with various IT staff whom I need to support my work. We now better understand each other’s responsibilities and opportunities and will be better able to collaborate in the future.

As I work across the school community, one of my objectives is to facilitate cross-department data literacy for decision-support roles. Understanding the types of data that each department or division collects not only scaffolds my work, but more importantly, it enables an integrated approach to carrying out the vision for Punahou School. More specifically, I hope to build individuals’ skills to collect, clean, store, summarize, and communicate data for various audiences, but particularly for the Punahou School community. 

I also consider myself a thought partner, or research advisor, to faculty and staff. I have had conversations with the athletics department about considering different data collection methods for practices that could inform game lineups. I have worked with admission to collect information that could further inform how the school markets itself. These interactions are opportunities to deepen the school’s capacity for improvement by connecting consumers and producers of data. 

One example of everyone coming together around data is the coordination of the Independent Schools Data Exchange (INDEX) endeavor for Punahou School, an activity associated with our membership in the Independent Schools of Maximum Capacity (INMAX) consortium. As the IR, I am in charge of coordinating decentralized data across departments, divisions, and grade levels to ensure that valid and reliable data is uploaded to the INDEX database. Likewise, I also coordinate entering and submitting data for NAIS Data Analysis for School Leadership (DASL). Coordinating these two activities proved to be an eye-opener about how we might improve our practices of institutional data collection, storage, and internal sharing procedures. 

This is an arduous task, but it is helpful to my overall work. Because the data fields include academic-performance numbers (via test scores and grades) as well as admission, financial aid, human resources, and many other variables, this is an IR smorgasbord of data. Therefore, I can source original data and mine it to answer internal questions of interest. In addition, I can meet with faculty and staff who are data “handlers” within their respective departments, expanding my outreach on building the master database architecture.  
 

Being the Best in the Role

My role has two strands of responsibility. They have different purposes and outcomes, but both have an overarching focus on students.

IR as a change agent. I help students, faculty, staff, and the larger Punahou community understand that they are decision-makers who impact achievement of the institutional mission, vision, and aims of a Punahou education.

IR as research advisor and thought partner. I support, promote, and conduct research activities that enable students and faculty to fulfill the mission, vision, and aims of a Punahou education. 

For these two responsibilities, I maintain up-to-date research credentials, such as FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) training, and I take human-research protections courses, such as CITI (Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative), both of which ensure that my work is ethical and professionally responsible. Furthermore, I stay informed about general research practices and standards, such as the newly revised Common Rule for the Protection of Human Subjects and the Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development, ensuring that our institutional research operates within vetted frameworks.  

I also maintain and develop relationships in local, national, and international research communities, such as the Pacific Regional Educational Laboratory (REL), one of 10 RELs across the nation. Through partnership and collaboration, the REL program creates opportunities for researchers and practitioners to network through productive and mutually beneficial activities. For example, I am currently a member of a Pacific REL Technical Working Group that is measuring SEL in schools. Through this group, I have access to national scholars whose research expertise may inform my work. AERA membership keeps me informed about advances in educational research and issues related to practical applications of research results.

Through quarterly newsletters and infographics, I inform the school community about my work. This communication not only ensures that everyone is up-to-date about faculty research endeavors, it also cultivates opportunities for cross-community conversations and connections. I often serve as a conduit between and among various individuals and groups, such as grade level, subject-area teachers, department staff, and external individuals, which requires a balance of humility and experienced outcomes-based advising. All the while I keep in mind the larger purpose, the school mission and vision: to help each student reach their fullest promise as responsible citizens of the world. 

As a university researcher, one’s contribution and value are often predicated on narrowly defined research methods, analyses, and dissemination. Those who can pull off a true experimental design study, using the most advanced analysis methods and then publishing it in the highest-rated journals, are applauded the loudest.

For an IR applause comes in the form of leveraging talent across the institution, where the use of data and analytics is purposeful and meaningful. Relationships are just as important as the data itself, and disparate pieces of information can connect and align structures and capacities. 

The IR position at Punahou has far exceeded my expectations both in terms of professional growth and personal enjoyment. Every day is a new adventure, whether I’m creating feedback surveys for Academy Camp and our Learning Commons or analyzing data from past senior classes to inform curricula. 

In addition, I will be co-teaching beginning research methods to an Academy class. Oh how I love my job! 
 


 

Bookmark This!

The following is a roundup of helpful, go-to resources for K–12 institutional researchers.
Denise Uehara

Denise Uehara is an institutional researcher at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii.