Research Symposium

BIO

Precious Clarke is a second year junior pursing a degree in political science with a concentration in pre-law and human rights*social justice. From Broward County, Florida, Precious wants to work with policies and legislations in the near future, in hopes of one day becoming a senator. Mental health and racial discrimination are important topics which are motivating factors that contribute to the goals that she wants achieve at Florida State University and beyond.

What is Out There? A Practical Review of Race/Ethnicity Coding System Beyond IPEDS

Abstract

​

Post-secondary institutions record data on race and ethnicity to enhance the diversity, equity, and inclusion of students, faculty, and staff. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is the current system used for coding race and ethnicity for the majority of United States postsecondary schools. IPEDS was last changed to include alternative racial and ethnic categories in 2010 and has yet to be altered. Prior scholars and practitioners have identified that the current IPEDS coding system skews the percentages of individuals from certain racial and ethnic populations. This is due to there being a lack of specific categories provided for these individuals during the data collection process. The goal of this project is to contribute to the current literature and work of the Florida State University (FSU) Office of Institutional Research to compare different race/ethnicity coding systems. Concurrently, this proposal intends to posit changes that could be implemented in internal university assessments.​

Keywords: IPEDS, race/ethnicity, coding system