Peer analysis is a valuable tool for self-evaluation, comparison evaluation and creating standard benchmarks.\u00a0 So what is it? Why should I care?<\/p>\n
Peer analysis is a process of comparing one thing to a similar thing.\u00a0 Most industries can, and do, use some form of peer analysis.\u00a0 To be useful, the information utilized in peer analysis must be accurate and authentic.\u00a0 Community colleges can calculate statistics in thousands of different ways.\u00a0 However, to be useful in peer analysis, there must be a standard for all community colleges to calculate those statistics.<\/p>\n
But let us back up for a minute, what is a peer?\u00a0 I am going to compare one dog to another.\u00a0 I have dog A, Brutus a top winning Bullmastiff, and dog B, Diamond a top winning Toy Poodle.\u00a0 If we are looking at whether both are dogs, then they are peers.\u00a0 If the evaluation is who conforms to the breed standard, then they are being measured against their peers also, other Toy Poodles and Bullmastiffs.\u00a0 If we want to know who is the best pet then we have a problem.\u00a0 Why? We have no accurate and authentic evaluation for \u201cbest pet.\u201d\u00a0 What gives us the best standard for evaluation?\u00a0 The breed standard is best.\u00a0 The standard tells us how Brutus and Diamond compare to their peers but within the subset of dogs.\u00a0 The standard is developed by those intimately involved and most knowledgeable about a breed.<\/p>\n
Peer analysis in education is similar.\u00a0 It is appropriate to measure community colleges against one another to \u201cset goals and monitor performance\u201d (L\u2019Orange, 2008, June) but only once we are able put the community colleges in a category by themselves.\u00a0 Then, standardized measures are applied to manipulate the group.\u00a0 These measures can be simple or complex.\u00a0 Determining geography is straightforward and standardized.\u00a0 Standardizing graduation rate is more complicated.\u00a0 For proper analysis, multiple measures are utilized when comparing graduation rates.<\/p>\n
There are no \u201cmagic\u201d statistics when performing peer analysis.\u00a0 The magic lies in creating a multi-dimensional picture, through a particular lens of analysis, of the institutions by factoring in numerous variables.\u00a0 What does that picture look like compared to the peers’ picture?\u00a0 Think of Brutus and Diamond for a moment; when they are at a dog show, each judge has put on a lens.\u00a0 What trait does that judge give more weight to? Head structure? Movement?\u00a0 The pitfall is looking through one lens while ignoring the rest of the picture or never looking through different lenses.<\/p>\n
Community colleges can compare themselves to one another to track progress and determine areas for improvement by using peer analysis.\u00a0 Peer analysis cannot provide a complete picture of a college, however; comparing inputs and outputs shows uniqueness, similarity, along with areas for improvement and achievement.<\/p>\n
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References<\/strong><\/p>\n L’Orange, H.\u00a0 (2008, June).\u00a0 Unit Record Data Systems: A State Perspective.\u00a0 State Higher Education Executive Officers.\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.sheeo.org\/resources\/publications\/unit-record-data-systems-state-perspective<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Peer analysis is a valuable tool for self-evaluation, comparison evaluation and creating standard benchmarks.\u00a0 So what is it? Why should I care? Peer analysis is a process of comparing one thing to a similar thing.\u00a0 Most industries can, and do, use some form of peer analysis.\u00a0 To be useful, the information utilized in peer analysisContinue reading<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[15,22],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peer-analysis","tag-community-colleges","tag-peer-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roscelloassociates.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}