We have studied the lecture course performance of approximately 2500 students enrolled in general physics over a five-year period to determine the influence of laboratory enrollment on lecture course performance. A statistical analysis showed the major determinants of lecture performance to be the SAT math score, overall grade average, and lab enrollment, with a significant interaction between overall grade average and lab enrollment. The results show that grades of good and poor students were influenced very little, while those of intermediate students were helped significantly by concurrent lab enrollment.

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The development of more effective communications, particularly in formal and informal interinstitutional data exchange, is a challenge facing institutional research (Firnberg, 1977). Institutional research must move from reporting data to providing information on which to make the "here-and-now" decisions confronting academic administration (Sliger, 1979). To do this, we must have data in context—often in the context of comparable information from peer institutions. The reports required by external constituents or the pre-packaged information-exchange procedures may be useable, but such reports often reflect the concerns of the external agencies to the extent that they cannot be used for institutional management.