Institutional Research : Challenges of Academic Support Staff

Abstract

This article presents guidelines for finding institutional research topics by academic support staff in higher education institutions that begin to conduct institutional research by studying institutional research work, research textbooks, and direct experiences. It was found that institutional research plays an important role in the development of a work system and solving problems that occur from work operations, as well as enabling benefits for researchers, the institution, and service users. However, there are two factors affecting institutional research: 1) Internal factors consisting of 1.1) Attitudes towards conducting research, 1.2) Knowledge and research skills, and 1.3) Allocation of time for research, and 2) External factors consisting of 2.1) Support by institutions and 2.2) Motivation for research.  As for the guidelines for searching institutional research topics, the academic support staffs  are able to search from information sources in their office, including direct experiences from work operations,  exchange of experiences through the Community of Practice (CoP), participation in academic forums and research studies, or directly from research questions in the office. After that, the data will be analyzed on the basis of 1) Capability of conducting the research, 2) Nature of the research topic, 3) Benefits of the research, and 4) Favorable environment for conducting the research which will make the research topic tangible and possible to conduct.