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Taxonomy
In any assessment of doctoral programs, a key question
is: Which programs should be included? The task of con-
structing a taxonomy of programs is to provide a framework
for the analysis of research-doctorate programs as they exist
today, with an eye to the future. A secondary question is:
Which fields should be grouped together and what names
should be given to these aggregations?
CRITERIA FOR INCLUSION
The construction of a taxonomy inevitably confronts limi-
tations and requires execution of somewhat arbitrary
decisions. The proposed taxonomy builds upon the previous
studies, in order to represent the continuity of doctoral
research and training and to provide a basis for potential
users of the proposed analysis to identify information impor-
tant to them. Those users include scholars, students, aca-
demic administrators as well as industrial and governmental
employers. Furthermore, a taxonomy must correspond as
much as possible to the actual programmatic organization of
doctoral studies. In addition, however, a taxonomy must
capture the development of new and diversifying activity.
Thus, it is especially true in the area of taxonomy that the
recommendations that follow should be taken as advisory
rather than binding by the committee that is appointed to
conduct the whole study. These efforts are further compli-
cated by the frequent disparity among institutional nomen-
clatures, representing essentially the same research and
training activities, as well as by the rise of interdisciplinary
work. The Committee did its best to construct a taxonomy
that reflected the way most graduate programs are organized
in most research universities but realizes that there may be
areas where the fit may not be perfect. Thus, the subject
should remain open to review by the next committee.
We recognize that scholarship and research in inter-
disciplinary fields have grown significantly since the last
study. Some of this work is multidisciplinary; some is cross-
19
disciplinary or interdisciplinary.) We could not devise a
single standard for all possible combinations. Where
possible, we have attempted to include acknowledged inter-
disciplinary fields such as Neuroscience, Biomedical Engi-
neering, and American Studies. In other instances, we listed
areas as emerging fields. Our goal remains to identify and
evaluate inter-, multi-, and cross-disciplinary fields. Once
they become established scholarly areas and meet the thresh-
old for inclusion in the study established by this and future
committees, they will be added to the list of surveyed fields.
The initial basis for the Committee's consideration of its
taxonomy was the classification of fields used in the
Doctorate Records File (DRF), which is maintained by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) as lead agency for a
consortium that includes the National Institutes of Health,
U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Endowment for
the Humanities, and U.S. Department of Education.2 Based
on these data, the Committee reviewed the fields included in
the 1995 Study to determine whether new fields had grown
enough to merit inclusion and whether the criteria them-
selves were sensible. In earlier studies, the criteria for inclu-
sion had been that a field must have produced at least 500
Ph.D.s over the most recent 5 years and be offered by pro-
grams that had produced 5 or more Ph.D.s in the last 5 years
in at least 25 universities. After reviewing these criteria, the
Committee agreed that the field inclusion criterion should be
kept, although a few fields in the humanities should continue
to be included even though they no longer met the threshold
requirement.
iBy "multidisciplinary" or "cross-disciplinary" research we mean
research that brings together scholars from different fields to work on a
common problem. In contrast, interdisciplinary research occurs when the
fields themselves are changed to incorporate perspectives and approaches
from other fields.
2National Science Foundation (2002).
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20
Recommendation 3.1: The quantitative criterion for
inclusion of a field used in the preceding study should be,
for the most part, retained i.e., 500 degrees granted in
the last 5 years.
The Committee also reviewed the threshold level for
inclusion of an individual program and, given the growth in
the average size of programs, generally felt that a modifica-
tion was warranted. A minimal amount of activity is required
to evaluate a program.
This parameter is modified from the previous study-
3 degrees in 3 years to account for variations in small
fields. The 25-university threshold is retained.
Recommendation 3.2: Only those programs that have
produced 5 or more Ph.D.s in the last 5 years should be
evaluated.
Two fields in the humanities, Classics and German lan-
guage and literature, had been included in earlier studies but
have since fallen below the threshold size for inclusion in
terms of Ph.D. production. Adequate numbers of faculty
remain, however, to assess the scholarly quality of programs.
In the interests of continuity with earlier studies and the
historical importance of these fields, the Committee felt that
they should still be included. Continuity is a particularly
important consideration. In the biological sciences, where
the Committee redefined fields, the fields themselves had
changed in a way that could not be ignored. Smaller fields in
the humanities have a different problem. A number of them
are experiencing shrinking enrollments, but it can be argued
that inclusion in the NRC study may assist the higher-quality
programs to survive.
Recommendation 3.3: Some fields should be included
that do not meet the quantitative criteria, if they were
included in earlier studies.
The number of degrees awarded in a field is determined
by the number of new Ph.D.s who chose that field from the
Survey of Earned Doctorates based on the NSF taxonomy.
However, there is no external validation that these fields
correctly reflect the current organization of doctorate pro-
grams. The Committee sought to investigate this question
by requesting input from a large number of scholarly and
professional societies (see Appendix B). Beginning in
December 2002, the proposed taxonomy was also presented
in a public Website and suggestions were invited. As of mid-
June 2003, over 100 suggestions had been received, end both
the taxonomy and the list of subfields were discussed with
the relevant scholarly societies. The taxonomy was also used
in the pilot trials, and although the correspondence was not
exact, the pilot sites found a reasonable fit with their gradu-
ate programs. This taxonomy included new fields that had
grown or been overlooked in the last study. It also reflected
ASSESSING RESEARCH-DOCTORATE PROGRAMS
the continuing reorganization of the biological sciences. The
taxonomy put forward by the Committee, compared with the
taxonomy for the 1995 Study, appears in Table 3-1.
Inclusion of the arts and sciences and engineering fields
preserves continuity with previous studies. Inclusion of agri-
culture recognizes the increasing convergence of research in
those fields with research in the traditional biological
sciences and the legitimacy of the research in these fields,
separate and independent of other traditional biological
disciplines.
The biological sciences presented special problems. The
past decade has seen an expansion of research and doctoral
training in the basic biomedical sciences. However, these
Ph.D. programs are not all within faculties of arts and
sciences, which was the focus of the 1995 Study. Many of
them are located in medical schools and were overlooked in
earlier studies. The Committee sought input from basic bio-
medical science programs in medical schools through the
Graduate Research Education and Teaching Group of the
American Association of Medical Colleges to assure sys-
tematic inclusion the next time the study is conducted.
Recommendation 3.4: The proposed study should add
research-doctorate programs in agriculture to the fields
in engineering and the arts and sciences that have been
assessed in the past. In addition, it should make a special
effort to include programs in the basic biomedical
sciences that are housed in medical schools.
The Committee reviewed doctorate production over the
period 1998-2002 for fields included in the Doctorate
Records Field. It identified those fields that had grown
beyond the size threshold, notably communication, theatre
research, and American studies. In addition, it reviewed the
organization of life sciences fields and expanded them some-
what, reflecting changes in doctoral production and the
changing nature of study. These decisions by the Committee,
as mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, should not be
viewed as binding by the committee appointed to conduct
the full study.
Recommendation 3.5: The number of fields should be
increased, from 41 to 57.
A number of additional programs in applied fields urged
that they be included in the study. The Committee decided
not to include those fields for which much research is
directed toward the improvement of practice. These fields
include social work, public policy, nursing, public health,
business, architecture, criminology, kinesiology, and educa-
tion. This exclusion is not intended to imply that high-
quality research is not conducted in these fields. Rather, in
those areas in which research is properly devoted to improv-
ing practice, evaluation of such research requires a more
nuanced approach than evaluation of scholarly reputation
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TAXONOMY
TABLE 3-1 Taxonomy Comparison 1995 Study and Current Committee
Major Fields
21
1995 Taxonomy
2005 Taxonomy
Biological Sciences
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Cell and Developmental Biology
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
Molecular and General Genetics
Neurosciences
Pharmacology
Physiology
Engineering
Aerospace Engineering
Biomedical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Industrial Engineering
Materials Science
Mechanical Engineering
Physical Sciences
Astrophysics and Astronomy
Chemistry
Computer Science
Geosciences
Mathematics
Oceanography
Physics
Statistics/Biostatistics
Life Sciences
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology
Molecular Biology
Developmental Biology
Cell Biology
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Microbiology
Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics
Immunology and Infectious Disease
Neuroscience and Neurobiology
Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Environmental Health
Physiology
Plant Sciences
Food Science and Food Engineering
Nutrition
Entomology
Animal Sciences
Emerging Fields
Biotechnology
Systems Biology
Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering
Aerospace Engineering
Biomedical Engineering
Biological and Agricultural Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Operations Research, Systems Engineering, and Industrial Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Astrophysics and Astronomy
Chemistry
Computer and Information Science
Earth Sciences
Mathematics
Applied Mathematics
Oceanography, Atmospheric Sciences, and Metereology
Physics
Statistics and Probability
Emerging Fields
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Information Science
continues
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TABLE 3-1 Contiunued
ASSESSING RESEARCH-DOCTORATE PROGRAMS
Major Fields
1995 Taxonomy
2005 Taxonomy
Arts and Humanities
Art History
Classics
Comparative Literature
English Language and Literature
French Language and Literature
German Language and Literature
(History listed under Social and Behavioral Sciences)
Linguistics
Music
Philosophy
Religion
Spanish Language and Literature
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Anthropology
Economics
Geography
History
(Linguistics listed under Arts and Humanities)
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Arts and Humanities
American Studies
History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology
Classics
Comparative Literature
English Language and Literature
French Language and Literature
German Language and Literature
History
(Linguistics listed under Social and Behavioral Sciences)
Music
Philosophy
Religion
Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature
Theatre and Performance Studies
Global Area Studies
Emerging Fields:
Race, Ethnicity, and Post-Colonial Studies
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Film Studies
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Anthropology
Communication
Economics
Agricultural and Resource Economics
Geography
(History listed under Arts and Humanities)
Linguistics
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Emerging Field
Science and Technology Studies
alone. It should also include measures of the effectiveness
of the application of research. The Committee's view is that
this task is beyond the capacity of the current or proposed
methodology. It does recommend that, if these fields can
achieve a consensus on how to measure the quality of
research, the NRC should consider including such measures
in future studies.
The question can also be raised: Are the additional costs
in both respondent and committee time of increasing the
number of fields by 37 percent justified? To answer this
question, it is useful to consider the benefits of the increase.
First, the Committee believes that the current taxonomy
reflects the classification of doctoral programs as they exist
today. The Committee felt it was better to increase the
number of fields through an expanded taxonomy than to
force institutions to shape themselves to the Procrustean bed
of an outmoded one. Second, the Committee was convinced
that newly included large programs, such as communication,
could benefit from having the quality of scholarship in their
programs assessed by peer reviewers and that such informa-
tion, as well as data describing the programs, could assist
potential students who are making a selection among many
programs. Third, the agricultural sciences are an area in
which important and fundamental research occurs. They
were excluded from earlier studies primarily because the
focus of those studies was the traditional arts and sciences
fields. Today, they are changing and are increasingly similar
to the applied biological sciences. In addition, they are an
important part of land-grant colleges and universities, an
important sector of graduate education. On the cost side, the
expense of gathering and analyzing data has fallen impres-
sively as information technology has improved. The primary
additional direct cost of increasing the number of fields is the
cost of assuring adequate response rates.
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TAXONOMY
NAMING ISSUES
The Committee wanted its taxonomy to be forward-
looking and to recognize evident trends in the organization
of knowledge. One such example is the growth in inter-
disciplinary research. This trend should be reflected in the
study in a number of ways: the naming of broad fields, flex-
ibility in the number of programs to which a faculty member
may claim affiliation, and the recognition of emerging fields.
The Committee recognized that activities in engineering
and the physical sciences are converging in many respects.
Recommendation 3.6: The fields should be organized
into four major groupings rather than the five in the pre-
vious NRC study. Mathematics and Physical Sciences
are merged into one major group along with Engineering.
As discussed above, the Committee urges that the agri-
cultural sciences be included in future studies, because of
their focus on basic biological processes in agricultural appli-
cations and the importance of the research and doctorates in
these fields, separate and independent of other traditional
biological disciplines. This leads to the more inclusive name
of "life sciences" for the group of fields that includes both
the agricultural and biological sciences.
Recommendation 3.7: Biological Sciences, one of the four
major groupings, should be renamed "Life Sciences."
The question of naming arises in all fields. Graduate
program names vary by university, depending on when the
program was established and what the area of research was
called at that time. The Committee agreed that programs
and faculty need some guidance, given a set of program
names, as to where to place themselves. This can be accom-
plished through the inclusion of subfield names in the
taxonomy. Subfield names identify areas of specialization
within a field. They are not all-inclusive but will allow
students, faculty, and evaluators to recognize and identify
the specific activities of complex fields. Programs in the
subfields themselves will not be ranked individually. They
will, however, permit the identification of "niche" as
opposed to general programs for the purpose of subsequent
analysis. The Committee obtained the names of subfields
through consultation with scholarly societies, by requesting
subfield titles on the project Webpage, and through inquiries
sent out to faculty. These subfields are listed in Appendix E.
Recommendation 3.8: SuLfields should be listed for
many of the fields.
Some programs will find that the taxonomy fits, but others
may find that they have separate programs for a number of
subfields, or conversely, have programs that contain two or
more fields. The Committee recognized that these sorts of
23
problems will arise and asks that programs try to fit them-
selves into the taxonomy. This will help assure comparabil-
ity across programs. For example, a physics program may
also contain an astrophysics subspecialty. This program
should list its physics faculty as one "program" for the
purposes of ratings and list its astrophysics faculty as
another, separate program, even though the two are not, in
fact, administratively separate. Programs that combine sepa-
rate fields listed in the taxonomy will be asked to indicate
this in their questionnaires and the final tables will report
that the fields are part of a combined program. A task left to
the next committee is to assure that the detailed question-
naire instructions will permit both accurate assignment of
faculty to research fields and accurate descriptions of pro-
grams available to students.
The flip side of this problem arises in the agricultural sci-
ences. Many institutions have separate programs for each
subfield. Their faculty lists should contain faculty names
from all the programs, rather than separate listings for each
program. These conventions, although somewhat arbitrary,
make it possible to include faculty from programs that would
otherwise be too small to rate. In all cases, faculty should
then identify their subfields on the faculty questionnaire.
This would permit analysis of the effect of rater subfield on
ratings.
FINDINGS FROM THE PILOT TRIALS
Six of the pilot sites got to the point of administering the
questionnaires and attempting to place their programs within
the draft taxonomy. The taxonomy proved generally satis-
factory for all the broad fields except for the life sciences. A
particular problem was found with "molecular biology." It
was pointed out that molecular biology is a tool that is widely
used across the life sciences but is not a specific graduate
program. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for cell biology.
Given the trial taxonomy, many biological science programs
are highly interdisciplinary and combine a number of fields.
The Committee hopes to address this issue by asking respon-
dents to indicate if faculty, who specialize in a particular
field, teach and supervise dissertations in a broad biological
science graduate program.
Another problem was that the subfield listing was viewed
as "dated." The Committee addressed this finding by query-
ing colleagues at their own and other institutions and by ask-
ing scholarly societies. This is an issue, however, that should
be revisited prior to the full study.
EMERGING FIELDS
The upcoming study must attempt to identify the emer-
gence of new fields that may develop and qualify as separate
fields in the future. It should also assess fields that have
emerged in the past decade. For purposes of assessment,
these fields present two problems. First, although an area of
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24
study exists in many universities, it may or may not have its
own doctoral program. Cinema studies, for example, may
be taught in a separate program or it may exist in graduate
programs in English, Theatre, or Communication, among
others. To present data only about separate and named pro-
grams gives a misleading idea of the area of graduate study.
Second, the emerging areas of study may be transitory. Com-
putational biology, for example, is just beginning to exist. It
may become a broad field that will, in the future, include
genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics, or, alternatively,
it may be incorporated into yet another field. The Commit-
tee agreed that the existence of these fields should be recog-
nized in the study but that they were either too new or too
amorphous to identify a set of faculty for reputational com-
parison of programs. Quantitative data should be collected
about them to assist in possible evaluation in future studies.
Recommendation 3.9: Emerging fields should be identi-
fied, based on their increased scholarly and training
activity (e.g., race, ethnicity, and Post-Colonial studies;
feminist, gender, and sexuality studies; nanoscience;
ASSESSING RESEARCH-DOCTORATE PROGRAMS
computational biology). The number of programs and
degrees, however, is insufficient to warrant full-scale
evaluation at this time. Where possible, they should be
included as suLfields. In other cases, they should be listed
separately.
Finally, the Committee was perplexed about what to do about
the fields of area studies that focus on different parts of the
world. These fields are highly interdisciplinary and draw on
faculty across the university. By themselves, they are too
small to be included, yet they are likely to be of growing
importance as trends toward a global economy and its
accompanying stresses continue. The Committee decided to
create a broad field, "Global Area Studies," in the Arts and
Humanities and to list each area as a subfield within this
heading.
Recommendation 3.10: A new broad field, "Global Area
Studies," should be included in the taxonomy and include
as suLfields: Near Eastern, East Asian, South Asian,
Latin American, African, and Slavic Studies.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
emerging fields
