National Research Council
Doctoral Surveys
Update: March 3, 2008
by Linda Putnam, Chair, Sub-Committee on the NRC
1. Release Date — Projected for September, 2008
2. Standard Items for Summary Data
a. Questionnaire Data
1). Faculty information — # of faculty in 2006, # of female faculty,
# of underrepresented minority faculty
2). Student information — # of international students, # of PhDs granted in
2003-2006, % of cohort completing in 6 to 8 years, median time to degree,
student financing, total PhD enrollment, # of women graduate students,
# of underrepresented minority students, median GRE scores, student
“treatment” variables (tuition coverage, health benefits, orientation, travel support), teacher training, student placement.
b. NRC Obtained Data — from national databases, ISI database, or faculty CVs.
1). Grants
2). Awards and honors—will include ICA and NCA association-wide awards
3). Publications, citations (except for humanities fields)
3. Development of ratings and rankings
a. Measures
1). Explicit measures—determine the top criteria of quality PhD programs as rated by faculty from Section G of questionnaire—items that assess the most important faculty quality, student characteristics, program, and general characteristics of Ph.D. programs in the field
2). Implicit measures—results of faculty rating for sample programs in each field, i.e., faculty assessment of the quality of other programs in the field (stratified by respondent rank, size of program, and region of the country).
3). All measures will be a per capita basis, adjusted for number of faculty and student counts in a program
b. Calculation of ratings and ranges
1).Correlate the explicit and implicit measures
2). Will use the coefficients from the above measures as weights to apply to data analysis
3). Will also include an inherent range of variation (uncertainty measure) in the weights
4). This calculation will result in ratings of both explicit and implicit valuation of variables with accompanying uncertainty (also in ratings and ranges) about these results.
c. Supplemental ratings—based on NRC derived measures, questionnaires, faculty CV, etc.
1). Research productivity—number of publications of different types
2). Student opportunities and outcomes—some of the student support variables from the NRC program questionnaire
3). Program diversity—summary descriptors of % of females, underrepresented faculty and students, and international students
4. Data Release
a. NRC will provide Graduate Council members and universities with detailed explanations of the methodology (the variables and weights used) BEFORE the release of the data.
b. NRC will produce the following products:
1). a “slim” volume that summaries doctoral education in general across the U.S.
2). a web-companion with ranges and ratings of programs in each field
3). an on-line database with software to permit users to choose weights, compare programs, and calculate own ratings and ranges based on analysis
4). an on-line technical report on the study
c. NRC Symposium—NRC plans to host an analytical symposium in the late fall or early winter of 2008-2009 with contributed papers based on uses of the data. Dr. Kuh indicated that CCA could participate in this symposium. I informed Dr. Kuh that we had committees working on ways to summarize and analyze data to provide a view of doctoral education in the field.
5. Other activities of NRC-CCA coordination
a. Development of list of items on faculty and program questionnaires for the NRC/CCA Task Force to use. This list was attached to the minutes of our last meeting.
b. Development of CCA’s recommendations for NRC standard summary items (see attachment). NRC will include a number of these items in their summarizing the data across the field.
c. Scheduled panel for ICA: The NRC Study: Gaining Insights on Doctoral Education in the Field—Panelists include: Ed Fink, Scott Poole, Charles Self, Tim Stephen, and myself. This panel is scheduled for Sunday, May 25, 1:30-2:45 in Salon 8 of the Sheraton in Montreal, Canada.
d. Coordinated with Tim Stephen—who has conducted a study that will be published in Communication Education noting similarities and differences in different assessments of doctoral education in the field—e.g. NCA reputational study in 2004; Academic Analytics Corporation survey in 2005, NRC study, and CommVista rankings of programs based on publication productivity (CIOS data).
d. Worked with two CCA Task Force on the NRC data analysis—the Measurement Group and the Baseline Data Group.
