Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to design and test the Institutional and Educational Research Programme (IERP) for a Mexican private university. The IERP aims to 1) Identify freshmen students’ demographic and academic profile, as well as their motivations and expectations regarding their undergraduate studies. 2) Update the characterisation of students’ demographic and academic profile, their motivations and expectations regarding their undergraduate studies when they are in the middle of their studies; as well as to understand their priority needs and their perception of faculty, their courses and learning process. 3) Continue monitoring the characterisation of students’ demographic and academic profile, their motivations and expectations regarding their undergraduate studies when they are finishing their studies; as well as to understand students’ perceptions of their learning process and university experience –including courses, faculty, learning outcomes and student services-; and to explore their future career plans and expectations. 4) Follow up the career development of alumni and their perception of the university in order to identify emerging practices in their field of expertise and to bring forward changes and improvements in the institution.
Using a mixed methods approach, the paper describes the process of how a series of quantitative and qualitative data collection instruments and techniques were designed, tested and applied in order to build the IERP. It also analyses the implications and challenges of integrating large and different data bases into the university’s assessment model. Data were collected applying survey questionnaires and focus groups to the university’s population (mid-term students n=267, graduating students n=143, alumni n=75) of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
The findings present a snapshot of the institution’s students at the present time and, more importantly, provide the base line data for the IERP in future measurements.
This paper presents the IERP and its pilot test, providing evidence for its replication in similar institutions.

Keywords:

Institutional research, educational research, mixed methods.