“The key to conducting research that is actionable and useful is to ask the right questions. Asking the right questions in the right way is the foundation. Then, I start with the end in mind. How will I communicate the results? What graphs and tables will help people see the most important aspects of the findings in the quickest and easiest way? What questions might I have if I were to see these results? If the questions are good and I can’t answer them with the information I have, I go back the to survey and redesign until I can.”
Discussing Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) CIRP Freshman Survey results with WPI faculty, students, and parents at WPI Family Weekend.
John has extensive experience with education research and evaluation at both the national and local level. For eight years he directed the largest and longest running study of higher education in the United States: the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP).
He also established the office of Student Affairs Planning, Evaluation and Research at Dartmouth College, using the CIRP and other national surveys as well as local surveys he created, to examine the student experience at Dartmouth.
Before establishing Pryor Education Insights, John was a senior scientist in the higher education division of Gallup, where he was the lead researcher on the Gallup-Purdue Index.
Partnering with schools, colleges and universities, associations, foundations, and other organizations to make research come alive is his passion.