Surveys and Research

SIC is committed to research excellence and the responsible use of data to advance its mission in higher education. Through rigorous institutional research, assessment, and evaluation activities, SIC supports evidence-based decision-making, accountability, and continuous improvement. Data informs strategic planning, accreditation, student success initiatives, and resource allocation, ensuring decisions are grounded in accurate analysis and aligned with institutional priorities and community needs.

Institutional Research at SIC constitutes a form of scholarly inquiry and is essential to institutional quality assurance. Its scholarly contribution is measured not solely by abstraction but by demonstrated impact on educational effectiveness, student learning, and equity-- outcomes that reflect the core purposes of higher education.

Community college research also employs the same core scholarly standards as theoretical research, including hypothesis-driven inquiry, quantitative and qualitative methods, transparency of assumptions, and evidence-based conclusions. The contribution of this research lies in its capacity to test theory in practice, refine conceptual models through empirical evidence, and generate directly actionable insights.

Under Boyer’s framework, community college research is fully equivalent to theoretical scholarship, differing only in emphasis. Where theoretical research prioritizes abstraction, community college research prioritizes validation, implementation, and impact. Both are essential to a complete scholarly network.

Boyer’s model also makes clear that community college research is not outside scholarship-- it is scholarship, fully realized in practice. Theoretical research asks whether an idea should work; community college research demonstrates whether it does.