National Research Council (NRC) Assessment of Doctoral Programs

Transcription

1 National Research Council (NRC) Assessment of Doctoral Programs NRC Assessment What Is It? A study of the quality and characteristics of doctoral programs in the U.S. o Only programs in the Arts and Sciences Third in a series of efforts to help universities improve the quality of their doctoral programs through: o Benchmarking o Providing potential students with accessible, readily available information on doctoral programs nationwide o Enhancing the nation s overall research capacity NRC Assessment What s New? In addition to the previously gathered data of size, university resources, program faculty productivity, and student characteristics, this assessment includes data relating to: o Student financing o Teaching o Other aspects of student resources Previous studies included ranking of programs; this study utilizes new approaches to ratings and rankings. Three components to the NRC Assessment: Data for more than 5,000 programs Ranges of rankings based separately on three dimensions of educational quality 1. research activity average publications per faculty member average citations per publication percent of core and new doctoral faculty respondents holding grants awards per faculty member. 2. student support and outcomes percent of students fully funded in the first year percent of students completing their degrees within 6 years (8 years for the Humanities) time to degree placement in academic positions (including academic postdoctoral positions), and whether a program collects data about the employment outcomes 3. Diversity of the academic environment. (generally not given much weight) the percent of faculty who are from underrepresented minority groups percent of faculty who are female Percent of students from underrepresented minorities Percent of students who are female the percent of students who are international

2 Calculating Ranges of Rankings from the data: Two approaches were taken and then combined to calculate ranges of rankings. One approach asked about the importance of program characteristics independent of any particular program. The second approach asked about the quality of specific programs without specifying particular characteristics. The results of the two approaches were then combined to form one set of weights. In the first approach, doctoral faculty members were asked directly what they considered to be the most important characteristics that contributed to program quality. The faculty responses, calculated separately for each field, constituted a first set of weights. (R ranks) In the second approach, samples of programs were rated on their perceived quality by samples of faculty separately for each field. From a statistical analysis of these program quality ratings weights were derived for each of the characteristics. These weights constituted a second set of weights for each field. The weights calculated by each method were similar but not identical. (S ranks) Uncertainty was allowed for by taking 500 samples of raters, since rater opinions may vary, and by allowing for the variance of each characteristic within a range. The ratings were then arranged from highest to lowest (that is, ranked) for all the programs in a field..for each program, the middle quartiles of rankings were then calculated. This calculation results in a Range of Rankings for each program rather than a single rank order. Similarly derived ranges of rankings are calculated for each of the supplementary measures.

3 UH Doctoral Programs in NRC study: 1. American Studies 2. Anthropology 3. Astronomy 4. Botany 5. Cell & Molecular Biology 6. Chemistry 7. Civil & Environmental Engineering 8. Communication & Information Science 9. East Asian Languages & Literatures 10. Economics 11. Electrical Engineering 12. English 13. Geography 14. Geology and Geophysics 15. History 16. Linguistics 17. Mathematics 18. Meteorology 19. Molecular Biosciences & Bioengineering 20. Music 21. Nursing 22. Oceanography 23. Philosophy 24. Physics 25. Physiology (now Developmental and Reproductive Biology) 26. Political Science 27. Psychology 28. Second Language Acquisition 29. Sociology 30. Theatre. Tropical Plant & Soil Sciences 32. Zoology

4 Fields Included (nationally) Agricultural Science Animal Science 60 Entomology 28 Food Science Forestry and Forest Science 33 Nutrition 44 Plant Sciences 116 Biological and Health Sciences Biochemistry, Biophysics, & Structural Biology Cell & Developmental Biology 122 Ecology & Evolutionary Biology 94 Genetics and Genomics 65 Immunology & Infectious Disease 78 Integrated Biology 120 Microbiology 74 Neuroscience & Neurobiology 94 Pharmacology, Toxicology, &Environmental Health 116 Physiology 63 Kinesiology 41 Nursing 52 Public Health 92 Physical Sciences Applied Mathematics 33 Astronomy And Astrophysics 34 Chemistry 178 Computer Sciences 126 Earth Sciences 140 Mathematics 127 Oceanography, Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology 50 Physics 160 Statistics and Probability 61 Engineering Aerospace Engineering Biomedical Engineering & Bioengineering 74 Chemical Engineering 106 Civil & Environmental Engineering 130 Computer Engineering 20 Electrical & Computer Engineering 136 Engineering Science & Materials 12 Material Science & Engineering 83 Mechanical Engineering 127 Operations Research, Systems & Industrial 72 Social Sciences Agricultural and Resource Economics 28 Anthropology 82 Communications 83 Economics 117 Geography 49 Linguistics 52 Political Science 105 Psychology 236 Public Affairs, Public Policy & Public Administration 54 Sociology 118 No. of Programs 159

5 Humanities American Studies Classics Comparative Literature English Language and Literature French & Francophone Language & Literature German Language And Literature History History of Art, Architecture, & Archeology Music Philosophy Religion Spanish & Portuguese Language & Literature Theater and Performance Studies Website: