Reflections on the NAFSA IE Competencies: Data Collection and Analysis

Editor’s note: This article is one in a new series for 2023 that explores one of the 12 International Education Professional Competencies 2.0 in each issue of International Educator. Each written by a NAFSA member, the articles cover how that competency is critical to the future of the field and what it looks like in practice. 

NAFSA’s International Education Professional Competencies 2.0 include data collection and analysis among the key skills that international educators need to be effective advisers, leaders, advocates, and scholars in the future. The data collection and analysis competency includes skills and abilities such as applying quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches to understand international education questions and topics, ensuring data integrity, bringing data into the decision-making process, and using data to analyze and assess the impact of programs, processes, and policies. International educators need knowledge of databases and how they work, how to use data results to communicate with stakeholders, and, yes, that dreaded word, statistics.

Data collection and analysis are a large part of what I do on a daily basis in my role as an assistant professor of international and global education at SIT’s Graduate Institute, whether it’s teaching quantitative research methods courses, advising Master’s and doctoral students on capstone projects and dissertations, or conducting my own research. As someone who conducts primarily quantitative research, here are three things that I wish all international educators knew about data collection and analysis:

1. We can’t afford to be afraid of math.

I will