Institutional Research Analyst Any IR Analyst out there that can help me prepare
ID: 3256159 • Letter: I
Question
Institutional Research Analyst
Any IR Analyst out there that can help me prepare for an interview for the position description below? What questions should I prepare for? Just seeking thoughts and or advice!
The qualifications, knowledge, and skill requirements for this position include:
Bachelor's degree in mathematics, statistics, social science, or related discipline and a minimum of three years of data analysis experience required (higher education institutional research or student services preferred)
Knowledge of higher education including:
FERPA required
Knowledge of college performance indicators preferred
Student recruitment and admissions, financial aid, enrollment, retention, and completion preferred
Common Data Set and educational surveys preferred
National Student Clearinghouse preferred
Strong computer skills including proficiency with
Microsoft Office Suite, with emphasis in EXCEL, required
Standard statistical software such as SPSS or SAS preferred
Relational databases and enterprise resource planning systems, such as Workday, Banner, or PeopleSoft, preferred
SQL query tools preferred
Knowledge of R language preferred
Experience with research including:
Data collection and analysis required
Knowledge of statistical sampling and survey methodology required
Experience designing and administering surveys and analyzing survey response data preferred
Experience conducting focus groups and summarizing findings preferred
Strong verbal, written, and aural communication skills
Experience presenting complex information in a comprehensive and actionable format to audiences of various backgrounds
Strong organization and time-management skills with experience prioritizing and managing multiple projects simultaneously and meeting deadlines
Ability to work independently or as an effective member of a team
Strong commitment to the college mission.
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES: The essential job functions and responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:
Identifying potential challenges or opportunities for improvement, developing research plans including data collection and analysis, and reporting findings to appropriate decision makers to help establish short- and long-term strategic plans and targets.
POSITION TITLE: Institutional Research Analyst
SPECIFIC DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: The specific duties and responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:
Providing data and analysis related to student recruitment and admissions, financial aid, enrollment, retention, course success, completion, transfer, job placement and wages, academic program effectiveness and viability, employee and resource allocation.
Providing meaningful assessment of institutional and departmental initiatives.
Utilizing previously identified software and tools to perform cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses using complex multivariate data sets drawn from both internal and external sources, collect and organize the data needed for each project, reconcile ambiguous or contradictory information, analyze and interpret the data with current and historical perspectives, and present findings and recommendations.
Communicating data, analysis and recommendations effectively in a wide variety of formats that are compelling and visually interesting to technical and non-technical audiences, in narrative, tabular, graphical, and oral presentations.
Staying abreast of current and emerging issues.
Exercising judgment and discretion regarding student and employee privacy, and external and internal sensitivities when developing and presenting analyses and recommendations.
Building and maintaining strong collaborative relationships across the College as well as ensuring effective integration and appropriate dissemination of data across operational areas.
Completing other duties and responsibilities as assigned.
Explanation / Answer
You must focus on all the statistical concepts
such as
Tool is just a means of performing the analysis , you can perform all of these in excel , spss , sas , R or Python.
However , SAS and SPSS are commercial tools and comes with heavy annual fees.Excel has limited statistical capabilities when compared with R or Python.
It would be nice to learn an open source tool such as R .
The learning curve would be steep but it is supported by a large community and comes with 1000+ packages across different domains. Produces awesomes plots and well documented packages