A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States (with CD) (2011) / Chapter Skim
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The faculty questionnaire, which was sent to all faculty identified as doctoral faculty by their institutions, collected data on funding, work history, and publications, as well as on demographic characteristics. One section of the questionnaire asked the respondent to rate the relative importance of program, faculty productivity, and demographic characteristics in assessing program quality, and then to rate the relative importance of components within these larger categories.
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This decision was made because perceived quality of the graduate doctoral program in a field is typically based on the knowledge and views of scholars in that field. Dimensional measures in three areas―research activity, student support and outcomes, and diversity of the academic environment―are also provided to give additional illustrative ranges of rankings of separate aspects of doctoral programs.
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These additional sources include uncertainty in the model for assessing quality based on quantitative measures as well as the uncertainty that the 20 measures capture the most relevant factors that are needed to assess quality in a particular field. The current approach does have the advantage of collecting exactly the same categories of data from all programs being assessed, and uses those data to calculate ratings based on the relative importance of measures as established by doctoral faculty.
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Doctoral programs can readily be compared, not only on measures of research activity in a program, but, for example, on measures of student support, degree completion, time to degree, and diversity of both students and faculty. These data will become even more valuable if they are updated periodically and made current, which the committee strongly encourages.3 The work that has gone into producing this assessment of doctoral programs has raised the level of data collection vital to understanding the broad dimensions of doctoral education in the United States.
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For fields in engineering, physical sciences, humanities, and social sciences, where comparisons between the previous study and this one are possible, we find that: • Since the last NRC study was published in 1995 (based on data collected in 1993) , the numbers of students enrolled in the programs that participated in both studies have increased in some broad fields (in engineering by 4 percentage points, and in the physical sciences by 9 percentage points)
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In the social sciences the percentage is 37 percent, which is the same percentage completion for the humanities after eight years. In the physical sciences, the six-year completion percentage is 44 percent.
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The effect of pervasive postdoctoral study is apparent in the biological and agricultural sciences, where only 6 percent of the faculty in doctoral programs are under the age of 40 as compared to more than double that percentage in the social and physical sciences and engineering. In the humanities 9 percent of the faculty are under the age of 40, but the humanities also have the highest percentage (27 percent)
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But the data themselves, even more so than the weighted summary measures and the illustrative ranges of rankings, can lead to analyses that throw revealing light on the state of doctoral education in the United States, can help university faculty and administrators to improve their programs, and can help students to find the most appropriate graduate programs to meet their needs. 10 Some of these analyses will be reported as part of this study at a workshop to be held after the data are released.
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