Measuring and managing institutional environment of institutes of professional education

Abstract

Questionnaire surveys of perceptions of institutional environment have been found to be a good diagnostic tool to facilitate self-renewal, leading to effective management of institutions of Higher education. Normally, such tools are developed by interviewing multiple stakeholders (faculty, students, staff, etc.). By now, a number of tools have been developed and used. This paper presents four such tools that have been used extensively as diagnostic tools. One of them was developed to predict the adoption of innovations in engineering colleges and polytechnics. The second one was developed as a part of the self-renewal effort of one of the institutes of professional education and used to bring about change. The third one was developed using the Stern’s framework based on Henry Murray’s need-press model, which attempts to study student preference for activities or student interests (needs) and correlate them with corresponding Institutional environment (press) as perceived by the students. The questionnaires have been found to give more useful data about institutions, in addition to what the theoretical models offer. In using these tools, the authors promote a collaborative approach of Institutions based in the same location or managed by the common stakeholders of these institutions for bench marking, self-renewal and improvements.