MBA Evidence-Based Innovation

Percept Research is offering a new tool for business schools that utilize the MBA Lifecycle Survey Suite -- a Dean's Dashboard that organizes information relevant to student loyalty and tracks key performance indicators throughout the MBA Lifecycle.

Percept Research is pleased to introduce an updated format for the Key Driver Analysis (KDA) offering.  The Key Driver Analysis is a statistical analysis package available for all of the MBA Lifecycle surveys. 

In response to requests from programs that graduate students during the summer months, Percept Research agreed to extend the fielding period for the 2010-11 MBA Exit Survey from June 30 to July 31.  We implemented this change so summer-graduating programs would not have to wait for a year to receive their benchmark results.  We now recognized this one-month change in schedule also caused other shifts in critical steps in our process. 

Do you know what web conversations are saying about your MBA program?  Do you know what the web conversations are saying about competitor MBA programs?  Do you know what the web marketing efforts of your MBA program look like to others?

As a MBA Director, there are often many things that you would like to improve in your MBA program, but you do not have the resources to tackle all of them.

Core to the success of a higher education market research study is method of sampling -- a sample is a group of people drawn at random from all those people who are in your chosen market. If a researcher does not design the right sampling plan, then the research results will likely be inaccurate; thus, the right design is a key, first critical step in defining a research study.

Once it is determined that qualitative and quantitative research is required to meet the goals of a research study, the next key question is: which one comes first?

The debate currently focuses on traditional in-person focus groups or interviews versus non-traditional Internet-based research techniques. A perusal of posts and articles, in addition to my ten years of direct experience in qualitative research, indicates that both have merits and drawbacks that can drive decisions when choosing the right methodology.

Percept Research has adjusted the MBA Student Exit Survey fielding year to August 1 – July 31 starting with the 2010-11 year.  Previously, the legacy fielding year ranged from July 1 – June 30.  We made this adjustment based on feedback from summer graduating programs and internal analysis of MBA outtake dates.

George Mason University is expanding its MBA portfolio with a new National Defense Executive Master of Business Administration program. The first cohort entered the program in August 2010. As part of our business school innovation series, Karl von Gunten interviewed Roy Hinton, Associate Dean of Executive Programs.