INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND DECISION MAKING IN POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION

Three of the many variables affecting decision making in postsecondary education were identified and analyzed. The significant differences in decision making paradigms used by chief administrative officers in terms of the three variables--type of decision, influences on decision making, and use of institutional research services--was the focus of this study. This study addressed three questions: (1) Do decision makers use different decision paradigms as described by Schmidtlein for Type I (SITUATION I) and Type II (SITUATION II) decisions? (2) Do responses to environmental conditions affecting a decision differ from responses to value orientations for the same decisions? (3) Do decision makers who have contact with institutional research services use the same decision making paradigms as those who do not?; These questions were analyzed using a 2-way ANOVA in two models at .05 level of significance. The first addressed questions 1 and 2, and the second addressed question 3. A mail questionnaire that included semantic differentials to generate data in reaction to two types of decision making situations was sent to 130 chief administrative officers in member postsecondary institutions in the Middle States Association. Sixty people returned their questionnaires. Analysis of the data showed that there was no overall difference between the responses to the two types of decisions. However, there was a significant difference between the decisions for those who reacted to environmental conditions when the simple effects test was used to locate a significant interaction effect. There was a significant overall difference between the responses to environmental conditions for the two decision making situations and the responses to value orientations to the same situations. That this difference was significant for Situation II only was also revealed by the simple effects test. No significant difference was found in the decision making paradigms of respondents who use institutional research services and those who do not. In the second model, where environmental conditions and value orientations were combined, a significant difference between paradigms used for Situations I and II was found.