The purpose of this study was to examine four analytical methods and to illustrate by example any which seem to hold the potential for extracting additional knowledge from institutional research studies by means of their synthesis through meta-analysis; the measurement of the importance of their findings, through content analysis; the study of the relationships among their characteristics and findings, through multiple correspondence analysis; or the prioritization of research topics through the analytical hierarchy process. / A demonstration of the analytic hierarchy process was conducted within the context of a single institution in order to answer questions related to the worth of this process, its difficulty, and the time it requires. Results were compared for different questionnaire-types, for different process-judges, and for a "direct" process. The "forward" and the "clustering" approaches to simplify the prioritization were examined. / The demonstration of the analytic hierarchy process showed that the process was not so difficult to apply, and that the required time could be reduced. Other conclusions were that experienced faculty members are preferred for giving opinions on faculty workload issues, and that the prioritization changes according to area of knowledge. Moreover, the superiority of the computer-questionnaire over the paper-questionnaire was not conclusive. / The worth of this application should be assessed on the basis of the intrinsic nature of institutional research studies which generally cannot be generalized, and the two major difficulties reported by this research: the findings are (a) descriptive, and (b) highly diverse. These reasons precluded the integration of research findings by meta-analysis and also made useless the measure of the emphasis of research findings by content analysis. Meanwhile, the analytic hierarchy process overcame both difficulties and led to prioritizing the research topics. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-11, Section: A, page: 3460. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75434 |
| Contributors | CASTELLANO-BOHORQUEZ, AMILCAR AUGUSTO., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 291 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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