Research for Universities and Higher Education
Praxia Insights partners with universities, colleges, and research centers on funded research, program evaluation, student and faculty research, instrument development, and vendor evaluation. We can serve as research partner or Principal Investigator where a project needs credentialed research leadership.
Universities already have researchers, so people are sometimes surprised that we work with them. It's a question of capacity.
Faculty have teaching loads and their own research agendas, research centers run at capacity, and plenty of institutional work doesn't belong to any one department. Student success studies, program evaluations, vendor assessments, and survey work all need somebody with research training and nobody has the hours.
Our team has conducted research in partnership with Johns Hopkins CRRE, Columbia, Brown, Berklee, Ball State, University of Portland, and Pacific University, so we know how institutional research actually gets done.
Discuss a research partnership
What We Work On
Funded research projects: as research partner, Principal Investigator, or the evaluation arm of a larger study.
Program and initiative evaluation: assessing whether an institutional program is achieving what it set out to.
Student and faculty research: surveys, interviews, and focus groups on experience, outcomes, retention, and satisfaction.
Instrument development: building and validating surveys, assessments, and measurement tools for institutional or research use.
Literature and systematic reviews: for grant applications, program design, and publication.
Vendor evaluation: independent assessment of platforms and providers before a procurement decision.
Grant support: evaluation plans, logic models, needs assessments, and letters of commitment for applications.
Institutions We Have Worked With
Our team has conducted research in partnership with:
Johns Hopkins University Center for Research and Reform in Education
Columbia University
Brown University
Berklee College of Music
Ball State University
University of Portland
Pacific University
American Institutes for Research
K-12 schools and districts across all 50 states, and international schools
The K-12 reach matters more than it might look. Education research usually needs data from actual schools, and knowing how district approval works, how long consent really takes, and what a principal will agree to in October is the difference between a study that runs and one that stalls.
Published and Public-Facing Research
Some institutional research is meant to be seen. We've partnered with Berklee's BEATL Lab and Adobe on a multi-phase study of AI's impact on the music industry, where we designed the methodology, recruited and surveyed 1,000 music professionals, analyzed the data, and produced a branded public report along with social media assets.
If your project needs to reach an audience beyond a funder, we'll build that into the plan from the start.
Project Examples
A NIH-funded study examining neuropsychological predictors of adaptation after trauma.
A five-year randomized control trial (RCT), funded by the U.S. Department of Ed, to study individualized math instruction.
Led a national survey study in partnership with Berklee BEATL & Adobe to study AI use in the music industry.
How We Work
1. Initial consultation and plan
We meet to discuss your specific needs and confirm this is the right approach for the decision you're facing.
2. Project scoping and budget
You receive a custom scope of work with tasks, due dates, and budget before any work begins. Fixed scope, no hourly surprises.
3. Project execution
You receive updates on progress throughout, including recruitment status and fielding milestones.
4. A true partnership approach
We share insights with you as they come up throughout the project, so your team can start acting on what we learn long before the final report is finished.
5. Project completion
We deliver final insights in the format your team will actually use, whether that's a written report, an executive presentation, or a working session.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Capacity, usually. Faculty have teaching loads and their own agendas, and institutional research offices tend to run full. Bringing in an outside partner adds research capability for a defined project without hiring, and it also brings independence when the findings need to carry weight with a board or an accreditor.
-
Yes. Our researchers hold doctorates and can serve as PI on funded studies. Whether a specific funder permits an external organization to hold that role depends on the program, so tell us the funder and we'll confirm what's allowed.
-
Yes. We prepare and manage IRB submissions, including the protocol, consent and assent materials, and responses to reviewer questions. If your institution has its own IRB, we'll work through it.
-
Yes, and it's a large part of what we do. Our team has run research with schools and districts across all 50 states and internationally, so we know how district research approval works and how much lead time it needs.
-
Yes. Surveys, interviews, and focus groups with students, plus analysis of institutional data, are standard work for us. The most useful findings usually come from talking to students who left, and they're the hardest group to reach, so plan for that.
-
We can. Manuscripts, conference proposals, and practitioner materials are all things we produce. We'll agree authorship and publication plans at the start of a project so nothing is contested later.
-
Yes. We run independent vendor evaluations for institutions, covering capability comparison, user research with the faculty and staff who'd actually use the product, review of the evidence behind any effectiveness claims, and total cost analysis. We take no fees from vendors.
-
It depends on the scope, the length of the project, and how much data collection is involved. For funded projects the research cost is usually built into the grant budget, and we'll help you scope a defensible figure before submission. We'll give you a fixed-scope quote after an initial consultation.
-
Yes, and we often do. Institutional research offices hold the data and know the systems, and we bring capacity and independence. Splitting the work usually gets a better result than either side doing it alone.
-
Yes. We build assessments and surveys from the literature review through item writing, expert review, pilot testing, and validation, and we can build the platform that hosts it if the tool is going into use.
Our Experience
More than 60 studies designed, including case study, quasi-experimental, RCT, and mixed-method designs
More than 100 focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted
More than $4 million in grant-funded research managed
Clients spanning Fortune 500 companies, startups, nonprofits, universities, and federally funded programs
Our researchers hold doctorates in educational neuroscience, psychology, and related fields
Need research capacity for a project?
Tell us what the project is, what the funder expects, and your timeline, and we'll advise on the right partnership and what it would take.