An Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States Humanities (1982) / Chapter Skim
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2 Methodology
2 Methodology
Pages 15-30
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From page 15... ...
Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Both the planning committee and our own study committee have given careful consideration to the types of measures to be employed in the assessment of research-doctorate programs. me committees recognized that any of the measures that might be used is open to criticism and that no single measure could be expected to provide an entirely satisfactory index of the quality of graduate education.
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From page 16... ...
A total of 12 measures (listed in Table 2.1) have been utilized in the assessment of research-doctorate programs in art history, classics, English language and literature, French language and literature, German language and literature, linguistics, music, philosophy, and Spanish language and literature.
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Reputational Survey Results4 08 Mean rating of the scholarly quality of program faculty. 09 Mean rating of the effectiveness of the program in educating research scholars/scientists.
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PROGRAM SIZE Information was collected from the study coordinators at each university on the names and ranks of program faculty, doctoral student enrollment, and number of Ph.D. graduates in each of the past five years (FY1976-80~.
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For example, some institutional coordinators may be far less restrictive than others in deciding who should be included on the list of program faculty. To minimize variation in interpretation, detailed instructions were provided to those filling out the forms.5 Measure 03 is of particular concern in this regard since the coordinators at some institutions may not have known how many of the students currently enrolled in graduate study intended to earn doctoral degrees.
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From page 20... ...
It is estimated that this matching process provided information on the graduate training and employment plans of more than 90 percent of the FY1975-79 graduates from the humanities programs. In the calculation of each of the four measures derived from the NRC survey, program data are reported only if the survey information is available on at least 10 graduates.
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From page 21... ...
It also should be noted parenthetically that unemployment rates for doctoral recipients are quite low and that nearly all of the graduates seeking jobs find positions soon after completing their doctoral programs.9 Furthermore, first employment after graduation is by no means a measure of career achievement, which is what one would like to have if reliable data were available. Measure 07, a variant of measure 06, constitutes the fraction of FY1975-79 program graduates who indicated that they had made firm commitments for employment in Ph.D.-granting universities and who provided the names of their prospective employers.
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From page 22... ...
REPUTATIONAL SURVEY RESULTS In April 1981, survey forms were mailed to a total of 1,689 faculty members in art history, classics, English language and literature, French language and literature, German language and literature, linguistics, music, philosophy, and Spanish language and literature. The evaluators were selected from the faculty lists furnished by the study coordinators at the 228 universities covered in the assessment.
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23 TABLE 2.3 Survey Response by Discipline and Characteristics of Evaluator Total Program Faculty N Discipline of Evaluator Survey Sample Total Respondents N N 96 , Ar t History 520 150 94 63 Classics 373 150 100 67 English Language & Literature 3,280 318 198 62 French Language & Literature 613 174 110 63 German Language & Literature 445 150 95 63 Linguistics 501 150 10 5 70 Music 1,080 159 69 43 Philosophy 1,087 231 157 68 Spanish Language & Literature 694 207 136 66 Faculty Rank Professor 4,330 880 582 66 Associate Professor 2,611 522 337 61 Assistant Professor 1,480 240 139 58 Other 172 17 6 35 Evaluator Selection Nominated by Institution 2,797 1,385 905 65 Other 5,796 304 159 52 Survey Form With Faculty Names N/A* 1, 518 964 64 Without Names N/A*
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From page 24... ...
Second, it is quite apparent that within the academic community there has been a growing dissatisfaction in recent years with educational assessments based on reputational measures. Indeed, this dissatisfaction was an important factor in the Conference This information was furnished to the committee by the study coordinators at the universities participating in the study.
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From page 25... ...
Each program was considered by an average of approximately 90 survey respondents from other programs in the same discipline. m e evaluators were asked to judge programs in terms of scholarly quality of program faculty, effectiveness of the program in educating research scholars/scientists, and change in program quality in the last five years.~5 m e mean ratings of a program on these three survey items constitute measures 08, 09, and 10.
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For all four survey measures standard errors of the mean ratings are reported; they tend to be larger for the lesser known programs. me frequency of response to each of the survey items is discussed in Chapter XII.
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Whether this misreporting occurred is not known. MEASURES OF RESEARCH SUPPORT AND PUBLICATION RECORDS The committee's other four reports dealing with research-doctorate programs in the biological sciences, engineering, mathematical and physical sciences, and social sciences all present two additional measures pertaining to research support in individual programs and two measures pertaining to the publication records of program faculty and other staff.
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From page 28... ...
Finally, although counts could have been obtained on the numbers of recent articles authored by program faculty members in the humanities, the committee believes that such information would be misleading since it would not include the books or chapters of books authored by these faculty members. In the humanities disciplines books represent a major part of the publication effort, but reliable information on the authorship of books is not readily available.
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From page 29... ...
The initial table in each chapter also presents estimated standard errors of mean ratings derived from the four survey items (measures 08-11~. A standard error is an estimated standard deviation of the sample mean rating and may be used to assess the stability of a mean rating reported for a particular program.~9 For example, one may assert {with .95 confidence)
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From page 30... ...
-- i.e., the observed difference in mean ratings is too large to be plausibly attributable to sampling error.2 2 The final chapter of this report gives an overview of the evaluation process in the nine humanities disciplines and includes a summary of general findings. Particular attention is given to some of the extraneous factors that may influence program ratings of individual evaluators and thereby distort the survey results.
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