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Suggested Citation:"12 Summary and Discussion." National Research Council. 1982. An Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States: Humanities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9778.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

IT Sundry and Discussion In the nine preceding chapters results are presented of the assess- ment of 522 research-doctorate programs in art history. classics, English language and literature, French language language and literature, ~ language and literature. describing the means and ~ a particular discipline. In this chapter a comparison is made of the summary data reported in the nine disciplines. Also presented here are an analysis of the reliability (consistency) of the reputational survey ratings and an examination of some factors that might possibly have influenced the survey results. This chapter concludes with suggestions for improving studies of this kind--with particular attention given to the types of measures one would like to have available for an assess- ment of research-doctorate programs. This chanter necessar ilv involves a detailed discussion of various and literature, German linguistics, music, philosophy, and Spanish Included in each chapter are summary data intercorrelations of the program measures in ~ · ~ ~ ~ ~ statistics (means, standard Deviations, correlation coerr~c~en~s' describing the measures. Throughout, the reader should bear in mind that all these statistics and measures are necessarily imperfect attempts to describe the real quality of research-doctorate programs. Quality and some differences in quality are real, but these differences cannot be subsumed completely under any one quantitative measure. For example, no single numerical ranking--by measure 08 or by any weighted average of measures--can rank the quality of different programs with precision. However, the evidence for reliability indicates considerable stability in the assessment of quality. For instance, a program that comes out in the first decile of a ranking is quite unlikely to "really" belong in the third defile, or vice versa. If numerical ranks of programs were replaced by groupings (distinguished, strong, etc.), these groupings again would not fully capture actual differences in quality since there would likely be substantial ambiguity about the borderline between adjacent groups. Furthermore any attempt at linear ~ Programs of ordering (best, next best, . . .l 1~ "~=v -= ~ in.. ~ . =~ ^^ ~ inaccurate. roughly comparable quality may be better in different ways, so that there simply is no one best--as will also be indicated in some of the numerical analyses. However, these difficulties of formulating ranks 181

182 should not hide the underlying reality of differences in quality or the importance of high quality for effective doctoral education. SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS Displayed in Table 12.1 are the numbers of programs evaluated (bottom line) and the mean values for each measure in the nine humanities disciplines.) As can be seen, the mean values reported for individual measures vary considerably among disciplines. The pattern of means on each measure is summarized below, but the reader interested in a detailed comparison of the distribution of a measure may wish to refer to tables presented in the preceding chapters.2 Program Size (Measures 01-031. Based on the information provided to the committee by the study coordinator at each university, English programs had, on the average, the largest number of faculty members (31 in December 1980}, followed by music (20~. English programs graduated the most students (44 Ph.D. recipients in the FY1975-79 period) and had the largest enrollment (62 doctoral students in December 1980~. In contrast, classics programs were reported to have an average of only 11 faculty members, 10 graduates, and 17 doctoral students. Program Graduates (Measures 04-071. The mean fraction of FY1975-79 doctoral recipients who as graduate students had received some national fellowship or training grant support (measure 04) ranges from .12 for graduates of music programs to .36 for graduates in linguistics. With respect to the median number of years from first enrollment in a grad- uate program to receipt of the doctorate (measure 05), graduates in classics, linguistics, and philosophy typically earned their degrees more than a full year sooner than graduates in any other humanities discipline. In terms of employment status at graduation (measure 06), an average of 67 percent of the Ph.D. recipients from art history pro- grams reported that they had made firm job commitments by the time they had completed requirements for their degree, contrasted with 48 percent of the program graduates in French. A mean of 35 percent of the art history graduates reported that they had made firm commitments to take positions in Ph.D.-granting institutions (measure 07), while only 19 percent of those in French had made such plans. Survey Results (Measures 08-111. Differences in the mean ratings aer~vea Prom one repucac~ona' survey are small. In all nine disci- plines the mean rating of scholarly quality of program faculty See Table 2.1 for a description of each of the measures and the units in which values of a measure are reported. 2 The second table in each of the nine earlier chapters presents the standard deviation and decile values for each measure.

183 TABLE 12.1 Mean Values for Each Program Measure, by Discipline Art Linguis- Philos- History Classics English French German tics Music ophy Spanish Program Size 01 13 11 31 11 9 14 20 14 10 02 18 10 44 15 13 19 26 18 13 03 33 17 62 20 15 34 42 29 24 Program Graduates 04 .32 .28 .20 .26 .28 .36 .12 .27 .24 05 9.3 7.7 9.1 9.2 8.9 7.9 10.0 7.9 9.0 06 .67 .58 .57 .48 .51 .62 .64 .57 .60 07 .35 .32 .20 .19 .25 .28 .24 .25 .27 S urvey Results 08 2.7 2.9 2.5 2.6 2.9 2.8 2.8 2.6 2.7 09 1.5 1.6 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.6 1.6 1.5 1.6 10 1.1 .9 1.0 1.0 .9 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 11 1.1 1.2 .9 1.0 1.2 1.2 1.0 1.1 1.1 University Librar, 12 .7 1.0 .2 .5 .5 .8 .6 .3 .3 Total Programs 41 35 106 58 48 35 53 77 69

184 (measure 08) is slightly below 3.0 ("good"), and programs were judged to be, on the average, a bit below "moderately" effective (2.0) in educating research scholars/scientists (measure 091. In the opinions of the survey respondents, there has been "little or no change" (approximately 1.0 on measure 10) in the last five years in the overall average quality of programs. The mean rating of an evalua- tor's familiarity with the work of program faculty (measure 11) is close to 1.0 ("some familiarity") in every discipline--about which more will be said later in this chapter. University Library (Measure 12~. Measure 12, based on a composite index of the sizes of the library in the university in which a pro- gram resides, is calculated on a scale from -2.0 to 3.0, with means ranging from .2 in English to .8 in linguistics, and 1.0 in classics. These differences may be explained, in large part, by the number of programs evaluated in each discipline. In the disciplines with fewest doctoral programs (classics and linguistics), the programs included are typically found in the larger institutions, which are likely to have high scores on the library size index. Ph.D. programs in English are found in a much broader spectrum of universities that includes the smaller institutions as well as the larger ones. CORRELATIONS AMONG MEASURES Relations among the program measures are of intrinsic interest and are relevant to the issue of validity of the measures as indices of the quality of a research-doctorate program. Measures that are logi- cally related to program quality are expected to be related to each other. To the extent that they are, a stronger case might be made for the validity of each as a quality measure. A reasonable index of the relationship between any two measures is the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. A table of corre- lation coefficients of all possible pairs of measures is presented in each of the nine preceding chapters. This chapter presents selected correlations to determine the extent to which coefficients are compa- rable in the nine disciplines. Special attention is given to the cor- relations involving the number of FY197S-79 program graduates (measure 02) and the survey rating of the scholarly quality of program faculty (measure 08~. These two measures have been selected because of their relatively high correlations with several other measures. Readers interested in correlations other than those presented in Tables 12.2 and 12.3 may refer to the third table in each of the preceding nine chapters. 3 The index, derived by the Association of Research Libraries, reflects a number of different measures, including number of volumes, fiscal expenditures, and other factors relevant to the size of a university library. See the description of this measure presented in Appendix D.

185 Correlations with Measure 02. Table 12.2 presents the correlations of measure 02 with each of the other measures used in the assessment. As might be expected, correlations of this measure with the other two measures of program size--number of faculty and doctoral student enrollment--are reasonably high in all nine disciplines. Of greater interest are the strong positive correlations in many disciplines between measure 02 and measures derived from either reputational sur- vey ratings or university library size. The coefficients describing the relationship of measure 02 with measure 12 are greater than .40 in all disciplines except linguistics and music. This result is not surprising, of course, since one might expect the larger programs to be located in the larger universities, which are likely to have libraries of considerable size. The correlations of measure 02 with measures 08, 09, and 11 are even stronger in most disciplines. It is quite apparent that the programs that received high survey ratings and with which evaluators were more likely to be familiar were also ones that had larger numbers of graduates. Although the committee gave serious consideration to presenting an alternative set of survey mea- sures that were adjusted for program size, a satisfactory algorithm for making such an adjustment was not found. In attempting such an adjustment on the basis of the regression of survey ratings on mea- sures of program size, it was found that some exceptionally large programs appeared to be unfairly penalized and that some very small programs received unjustifiably high adjusted scores. Correlations with Measure 08. Table 12.3 shows the correlation coef- ficients for measure 08, mean rating of the scholarly quality of pro- gram faculty, with each of the other variables. The correlations of measure 08 with measures of program size (01, 02, and 03) are signifi- cantly positive for all of the humanities disciplines except music. Not surprisingly, the larger the program, the more likely its faculty is to be rated high in quality. Correlations of measure 08 with measure 04, fraction of students with national fellowship awards, are .30 or higher in only four disci- plines: English, linguistics, music, and Spanish. For programs in the biological and social sciences, the corresponding coefficients (reported in a subsequent volume) are found to be greater, typically in the range .40 to .70. The lower correlations in the humanities may be primarily explained by the smaller number of national fellowships available in these disciplines. Correlations of rated faculty quality with measure 05, shortness of time from matriculation in graduate school to award of the doctorate, are positive in all nine humanities disciplines. Although the coef- ficents are not as high as those pertaining to program size (discussed above), they suggest that those programs producing graduates in shorter periods of time tended to receive higher survey ratings. This finding is surprising in view of the smaller correlations in these disciplines between measures of program size and shortness of time-to-Ph.D. It seems there is a tendency for programs that produce doctoral graduates in a shorter time span to have more highly rated faculty, and this tendency is relatively independent of the number of faculty.

186 TABLE 12.2 Correlations of the Number of Program Graduates (Measure 02) with Other Measures, by Discipline Art Lingu is- Phi los- History Classics English French German tics Music ophy Spanish Program Size 01 .72 .63 .65 .40 .44 .57 .54 .36 .46 03 .68 .58 .70 .67 .32 .74 .61 .50 .53 Program Graduates 04 -.14 -.05 .01 -.14 -.24 -.10 -.02 -.02 .30 05 -.22 -. 03 .21 .06 .03 -.34 -. 03 .13 -. 27 06 .33 .21 .02 -.11 .08 .03 .12 .19 .08 07 .13 .25 .21 .07 -.05 .05 -.17 .28 .10 Survey Results 08 .76 .66 .68 .64 .58 .50 .12 .42 .42 09 .74 .72 .66 .67 .66 .53 .13 .45 .48 10 - .06 .07 . 19 .02 . 12 -.30 . 08 -.23 -.13 11 .7S .61 .69 .63 .52 .49 .17 .43 .37 University Library 12 .49 .44 .59 .51 .51 .12 .12 .49 .42

187 TABLE 12.3 Correlations of the Survey Ratings of Scholarly Quality of Program Faculty (Measure 08) with Other Measures, by Discipline Art Linguis- Philos- History Classics English French German tics Music ophy Spanish Program Size .69 81 50 62 51 - 02 38 .42 02 ·76 66 68 60 41 36 17 .36 .22 Program Graduates .12 .10 .38 -.06 -.14 .33 .44 .24 . 38 Oo56 360 34 04 0220 2244 49 - 26 34 - 3178 07 .08 .64 . 54 .38 .50 . 57 . 28 .61 .15 Survey Results 96 .98 97 98 .98 .99 .97 97 10 , 31 . 28 . 4 5 60 . 29 16 . 20 , 28 University Library .71 .62 .65 .23 .73 .57 . 70

188 Correlations of ratings of faculty quality with measure 06, the fraction of program graduates with definite employment plans, are moderately high in linguistics, classics, and philosophy. In every discipline except art history, the correlation of measure 08 is higher with measure 07, the fraction of graduates having agreed to employment at a Ph.D.-granting greater in classics, The correlations . institution. These coefficients are .50 or philosophy, linguistics, English, and German. Of measure 08 with measure 09, rated effectiveness ot doctoral education, are uniformly very high, at or above .96 in every discipline. This finding is consistent with results from the Cartter and Roose-Andersen studies.4 The coefficients describing the relationship between measure 08 and measure 11, familiarity with the work of program faculty, are also very high, ranging from .93 to .98. In general, evaluators were more likely to have high regard for the quality of faculty in those programs with which they were most familiar. That the correlation coefficients are as large as observed may simply reflect the fact that "known" programs tend to be those that have earned strong reputations. Correlations of ratings of faculty quality with measure 10, ratings of perceived improvement in program quality, are much smaller but still positive in all nine disciplines. The highest coefficients are found for programs in German (.60) and French (.45~. One might have expected that a program judged to have improved in quality would have been somewhat more likely to receive high ratings on measure 08 than would a program judged to have declined--thereby imposing a small positive correlation between these two variables. High correlations are also observed in most disciplines between measure 08 and measure 12 (university library size). With the excep- tion of linguistics these coefficients are .50 or greater in all disciplines. It should be noted that the correlations between measure 08 and measure 12 are generally noticeably higher in the humanities ~ . . ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . alsclpllnes tnan tnev are In science and enalneerlna dlsclullnes. Despite the appreciable correlations between reputational ratings of quality and program size measures, the functional relations between the two probably are complex. If there is a minimum size for a high- quality program, this size is likely to vary from discipline to discipline. Increases in size beyond the minimum may represent more high-quality faculty, or a greater proportion of inactive faculty, or a faculty with heavy teaching responsibilities. In attempting to select among these alternative interpretations, a single correlation coefficient provides insufficient guidance. Nonetheless, certain similarities across disciplines may be seen in the correlations among the measures. High correlations consistently appear among measures 08, 09, and 11 from the reputational survey, and these measures also are prominently related to program size (measures 01, 02, and 03~-- except in music--and to library size (measure 12--except in linguistics. These results show that for most disciplines the 4 Roose and Andersen, p. 19.

189 reputational rating measures (08, 09, and 11) tend to be associated with program size and with another correlate of size: university library holdings. Also, for most disciplines the reputational measures 08, 09, and 11 tend to be positively related to shortness of time-to-Ph.D. (measure 05) and to employment prospects of program graduates (especially measure 07~. ANALYS I S OF THE SURVEY RESPONSE Measures 08-11, derived from the reputational survey, may be of particular interest to many readers since measures of this type have been the most widely used (and frequently criticized) indices of quality of graduate education. In designing the survey instrument for this assessment the committee made several changes in the form that had been used in the Roose-Andersen study. The modifications served two purposes: to provide the evaluators a clearer understanding of the programs that they were asked to judge and to provide the com- mittee with supplemental information for the analysis of the survey response. One change was to restrict to 50 the number of programs that any individual was asked to evaluate--in art history, classics, German, and linguistics, evaluators were asked to consider all programs (except their own) since there were fewer than 50 in the total set being evaluated. Probably the most important change was the inclusion of lists of names and ranks of individual faculty members involved in the research-doctorate programs to be evaluated on the survey form, together with the number of doctoral degrees awarded in the previous five years. Ninety percent of the evaluators were sent forms with faculty names and numbers of degrees awarded; the remaining 10 percent were given forms without this information, so that an analysis could be made of the effect of this modification on survey results. Another change was the addition of a question concerning an evaluator's familiarity with each of the programs. In addition to providing an index of program recognition (measure 11), the inclusion of this question permits a comparison between the ratings furnished by individuals who had considerable familiarity with a particular program and the ratings by those not as familiar with the program. Each evaluator was also asked to identify his or her own institution of highest degree and current field of specialization. This information enables us to compare, for each program, the ratings furnished by alumni of that institution with the ratings by other evaluators, as well as to examine differences in the ratings supplied by evaluators in certain specialty fields. Before examining factors that may have influenced the survey results, some mention should be made of the distributions of responses to the four survey items and the reliability (consistency) of the ratings. As can be seen from Table 12.4, the response distribution for each survey item does not vary greatly from discipline to disci- pline. For example, in judging the scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08), survey respondents in each discipline rated between 6 and 11 percent of the programs as being "distinguished" and between 3 and 5 percent as "not sufficient for doctoral education." In evaluat-

190 Survey Measure TABLE 12.4 Distribution of Responses to Each Survey Item, by Discipline Art Linguis- Philos- Total History Classics English French German tics Music ophy Spanish 08 SCHOLARLY QUALITY OF PROGRAM FACULTY Distinguished 8.1 11.0 11.0 6.9 6.9 8.5 9.6 9.3 7.6 6.5 Strong 17.8 1S.5 24.1 15.1 16.6 23.9 20.6 19.7 15.5 17.4 Good 23.3 23.3 23.7 20.6 23.5 26.8 25.1 19.7 22.5 26.1 Adaequsae1 18 6 17 4 17 1 17 5 20 3 17 8 18 8 172 9 10 8 1202 6 Not Sufficient for Doctoral Education 4.3 5~4 3.2 4.9 3.7 3.3 3.5 4.5 5.0 3.7 Don ' t Know Wel 1 Enough to Evaluate 18.3 18.4 11.6 25. 3 19. 3 10 . 8 13. 0 26. 2 19.1 13. 2 TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100. 0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 0 9 EFFECTIVENESS OF PROGRAM IN EDUCATING SCIENTISTS Extremely Effeetive 8.1 10.6 9.6 6.7 7.1 11.1 10.0 9.3 6.7 6.9 Reasonably Effeetive 31.3 31.2 36.6 26.4 32.9 40.3 32.9 29.1 . 24.8 36.3 Minimally Effeetive 17.1 19.5 19.9 13.9 16.7 18.9 16.3 18.0 14.6 20.8 Not Effeetive 4.8 6.5 5.2 4.2 4.0 4.6 4.5 5.9 5.9 3.6 Don't Know Well Enough to Evaluate 38.8 32.2 28.7 48.8 39.4 25.1 36.4 37.7 48.0 32.4 TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 10 CHANGE IN PROGRAM QUALITY IN LAST FIVE YEARS Better 11.2 14.9 10.9 8.3 11.3 9.5 16.6 9.0 11.8 11.9 Little or No Change 31.0 31.2 34.0 21.4 31.5 41.9 31.7 28.9 32.7 34.5 Poorer 9.9 8.9 15.2 7.3 10.0 14.6 10.4 6.5 8.0 12.0 Don't Know Well Enough to Evaluate 47.9 45.0 39.9 63.0 47.2 33.9 41.3 55.6 47.6 41.5 TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 11 FAMILIARITY WITH WORK OF PROGRAM FACULTY Considerable 30.2 33.2 39.7 20.4 28.1 36.8 37.9 26.5 30.7 33.0 Some 43.8 40.4 43.7 44.2 44.6 45.8 41.3 41.6 42.6 46.9 Little or None 25.1 24.5 16.3 34.5 26.9 16.7 20.4 29.7 26.2 18.6 No Response 9 1 9 4 9 3 7 4 2 3 5 1 4 TOTAL 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 100 0 NOTE: For survey measures 08, 09, 10 the Don't know" category includes a small number of eases for which the respondents provided no response to the survey item.

191 ing the effectiveness in educating research scholars, they rated 7 to 11 percent of the programs as being "extremely effective" and approximated 4 to 7 percent as "not effective." Of particular interest in this table are the frequencies with which evaluators failed to provide responses to measures 08, 09, and 10. Approximately 18 percent of the total number of evaluations requested for measure 08 were not furnished because survey respondents in the humanities felt that they were not familiar enough with a particular program to eval- uate it. The corresponding percentages of "don't know" responses for measures 09 and 10 are considerably larger--39 and 48 percent, respec- tively--suggesting that survey respondents found it more difficult (or were less willing) to judge program effectiveness and change than to judge the scholarly quality of program faculty. The large fractions of "don't know" responses are a matter of some concern. However, given the broad coverage of research-doctorate pro- grams, it is not surprising that faculty members would be unfamiliar with many of the less distinguished programs. As shown in Table 12.5, survey respondents in each discipline were much more likely to furnish evaluations for programs with high reputational standing than they were for programs of lesser distinction. For example, for humanities pro- grams that received mean ratings of 4.0 or higher on measure 08, as many as 97 percent of the evaluations requested on measure 08 were provided; 89 and 79 percent, respectively, were provided on measures 09 and 10. In contrast, the corresponding response rates for programs with mean ratings below 2.0 are much lower--66, 43, and 32 percent response on measures 08, 09, and 10, respectively. Of great importance to the interpretation of the survey results is the reliability of the response. How much confidence can one have in the reliability of a mean rating reported for a particular program? In the second table in each of the preceding nine chapters, estimated standard errors associated with the mean ratings of every program are presented for all four survey items (measures 08-11~. While there is some variation in the magnitude of the standard errors reported in every discipline, they rarely exceed .15 for any of the four measures and typically range from .05 to .10. For programs with higher mean ratings the estimated errors associated with these means are generally smaller--a finding consistent with the fact that survey respondents were more likely to furnish evaluations for programs with high repu- tational standing. The "split-half" correlationsS presented in Table 12.6 give an indication of the overall reliability of the survey results in each discipline and for each measure. In the derivation of these correlations individual ratings of each program were randomly divided into two groups (A and B), and a separate mean rating was computed for each group. The last column in Table 12.6 reports the 5 For a discussion of the interpretation of "split-half" coefficients, see Robert L. Thorndike and Elizabeth Hagan, Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1969, pp. 182-185.

192 S urvey Measur e TABLE 12.5 Survey Item Response Rates, by Discipline and Mean Rating on Measure 08 Art Total History Classics English French German tics Music ophy Spanish Linguis- Philos- 0 8 SCHOLARLY QUALITY OF PROGRAM FACULTY Mean Rating on Measure 08 4.0 or Higher 97.1 99.3 98.1 98.1 99.0 97.5 99.7 87.6 96.3 99.2 3 0 - 3.9 93.3 93.0 95.4 93.2 94.0 94.2 98.9 82.6 92.5 94.7 2 0 - 2.9 81.3 81.3 88.6 73.9 80.1 86.2 90.0 73.1 81.2 84.5 Less than 2.0 65.7 64.7 72.5 57.8 63.4 79.6 60.0 58.1 67.1 78.3 O 9 EFFECTIVENESS OF PROGRAM IN EDUCATING SCIENTISTS Mean Rating on Measure 08 4.0 or Higher 89.0 95.7 94.8 86.2 91.9 91.4 96.0 79.8 82.2 92.9 3.0 - 3.9 75.4 81.8 80.1 67.7 77.5 80.9 84.6 70.6 63.2 82.0 2.0 - 2.9 57.4 63.8 67.1 48.1 57.1 68.3 60.0 60.9 48.5 62.2 Less than 2.0 42.8 48.6 50.6 34.8 41.6 62.2 31.9 46.0 37.2 53.8 10 CHANGE IN PROGRAM QUALITY IN LAST FIVE YEARS Mean Rating on Measure 08 4.0 or Higher 79.1 86.5 83.4 68.7 84.5 84.2 86.5 65.1 78.9 85.0 3.0 - 3.9 66.7 72.5 69.3 50.7 69.3 73.5 78.7 55.9 66.7 73.1 2.0 - 2.9 49.2 51.8 56.4 35.1 49.9 59.8 58.5 40.5 51.6 52.8 Less than 2.0 32.1 30.5 38.4 22,0 32.9 50.2 22.0 26.3 34.2 44.7

193 TABLE 12.6 Correlations Between Two Sets of Average Ratings from Two Randomly Selected Groups of Evaluators in the Humanities MEASURE 08: SCHOLARLY QUALITY OF PROGRAM FACULTY Discipline Mean Rating Std. Deviation Correlation Group A Group B Group A Group B N r Art History 2.66 2.68 1.17 1.12 41 .99 Classics 2.93 2.91 1.01 .98 35 .98 English 2.46 2.51 1.05 1.05 106 .98 French 2.62 2.61 .91 .91 58 .97 German 2.88 2.89 .93 .96 48 .99 Linguistics 2.78 2.73 1.03 1.04 35 .98 Music 2.78 2.81 1.00 1.02 53 .96 Philosophy 2.54 2.57 1.01 1.01 77 .98 Spanish 2.65 2.66 .75 .81 69 .96 MEASURE 09: EFFECTIVENESS OF PROGRAM IN EDUCATING SCHOLARS Discipline Mean Rating Std. Deviation Correlation Group A Group B Group A Group B N r Art History 1.51 1.55 .63 .66 41 .97 Classics 1.62 1.60 .50 .55 35 .95 English 1.51 1.53 .55 .52 106 .94 French 1.59 1.59 .48 .49 58 .95 German 1.72 1.70 .S0 .52 48 .97 Linguistics 1.61 1.59 .57 .55 3S .98 Music 1.S4 1.S9 .S6 .S6 S3 .90 Philosophy 1.48 1.47 .S3 .S4 77 .9S Spanish 1.61 1.63 .40 .40 69 .94 MEASURE 10: IMPROVEMENT IN PROGRAM IN LAST FIVE YEARS Discipline Mean Rating Std. Deviation Correlation Group A Group B Group A Group B N r Art History 1.09 1.11 .22 .22 41 .72 Classics .94 .90 .22 .24 3S .68 English .99 1.00 .26 .2S 106 .66 French 1.01 1.01 .2S .27 S8 .78 German .91 .90 .22 .24 48 .8S Linguistics 1.08 1.0S .38 .40 3S .90 Music 1.0S 1.03 .20 .22 S3 .S6 Philosophy 1.06 1.0S .32 .29 77 .88 Spanish .97 1.02 .24 .26 69 .75 MEASURE 11: FAMILIARITY WITH WORK OF PROGRAM FACULTY Discipline Mean Rating Std. Deviation Correlation Group A Group B Group A Group B N r Art History 1.08 1.10 .44 .43 41 .9S Classics 1.23 1.24 .38 .36 3S .9S English .86 .86 .44 .43 106 .96 French 1.02 1.01 .39 .39 S8 .9S German 1.19 1.22 .3S .3S 48 .93 Linguistics 1.18 1.18 .48 .46 35 .97 Music .98 .9S .36 .37 S3 .93 Philosophy 1.06 1.03 .40 .41 77 .94 Spanish 1.14 1.15 .29 .30 69 .89

194 correlations between the mean program ratings of the two groups and is not corrected for the fact that the mean ratings of each group are based on only half rather than a full set of the responses.6 As the reader will note, the coefficients reported for measure 08, scholarly quality of program faculty, are in the range of .96 to .99--indicating a high degree of consistency in evaluators' judgments. The correla- tions reported for measures 09 and 11, rated effectiveness of a program and evaluators' familiarity with a program, are somewhat lower but still at a level of .94 or higher in every discipline except music. Not surprisingly, the reliability coefficients for ratings of change in program quality in the last five years (measure 10) are considerably lower, ranging from .56 in music to .90 in linguistics. While these coefficients represent tolerable reliability, it is quite evident that the responses to measure 10 are not as reliable as the responses to the other three items. Further evidence of the reliability of the survey responses is presented in Table 12.7. As mentioned in Chapter VI of the mathe- matical and physical science volume of the committee's report, 11 mathematics programs, 7 selected at random, were included on a second form sent to 178 survey respondents in this discipline, and 116 indi- viduals (65 percent) furnished responses to the second survey. A comparison of the overall results of the two survey administrations (columns 2 and 4 in Table 12.7) demonstrates the consistency of the ratings provided for each of the 11 programs. The average, absolute observed difference in the two sets of mean ratings is less than 0.1 for each measure. Columns 6 and 8 of Table 12.7 report the results based on the responses of only those evaluators who had been asked to consider a particular program in both administrations of the survey. (For a given program approximately 40-45 percent of the 116 respondents to the second survey had been asked to evaluate that program in the prior survey.) It is not surprising to find comparable small differ- ences in the mean ratings provided by this subgroup of evaluators. Critics of past reputational studies have expressed concern about the credibility of reputational assessments when evaluators provide judgments of programs about which they may know very little. As already mentioned, survey participants in this study were offered the explicit alternative, "Don't know well enough to evaluate." This response option was quite liberally used for measures 08, 09, and 10, as is shown in Table 12.4. In addition, evaluators were asked to indicate their degree of familiarity with each program. Respondents reported "considerable" familiarity with an average of only one 6To compensate for the smaller sample size the "split-half" coefficient may be adjusted using the Spearman-Brown formula: r' = 2r/~1 + r). This adjustment would have the effect of increasing a correlation of .70, for example, to .82, a correlation of .80 to .89, a correlation of .90 to .95, and a correlation of .95 to .97. 7 Mathematics is the only discipline in which results were obtained from two separate administrations of the survey.

195 TABLE 12.7 Comparison of Mean Ratings for 11 Mathematics Programs Included in Two Separate Survey Administrations Survey All Evaluators Measure First Second First N X N X N X Evaluators Rating the Same Program in Both Surveys Second N X 08 100 4.9 114 4.9 50 4.9 50 4.9 09 90 2.7 100 2.8 42 2.7 43 2.7 10 74 1.2 83 1.2 38 1.1 34 1.2 11 100 1.6 115 1.6 50 1.5 50 1.6 08 94 4.6 115 4.6 48 4.6 50 4.5 09 81 2.6 91 2.5 40 2.6 39 2.5 10 69 1.0 82 1.0 37 1.0 36 0.9 11 98 1.4 116 1.4 50 1.5 50 1.5 Program C 08 86 3.4 103 3.6 42 3.4 44 3.5 09 56 2.0 66 2.1 28 2.1 29 2.0 10 55 1.1 62 1.3 30 1.2 27 1.4 11 99 1.0 116 1.1 50 1.1 50 1.0 Program D 08 74 3.0 93 3.0 37 2.8 38 2.9 09 50 1.8 48 1.6 27 1.7 16 1.6 10 46 1.4 52 1.5 24 1.4 23 1.5 11 90 1.0 113 0.9 46 1.0 46 0.9 Program E 08 69 3.0 95 3.1 39 3.0 46 3.1 09 40 1.8 60 1.9 25 1.8 30 1.8 10 36 0.8 58 0.9 24 0.8 29 0.9 11 96 0.8 115 0.9 52 0.9 52 1.0 Program F 08 63 2.9 90 3.0 26 3.0 32 3.1 09 35 1.8 46 1.7 10 1.6 13 1.8 10 32 1.1 43 1.1 11 1.3 12 1.2 11 95 0.7 115 0.8 43 0.7 44 0.7 Program G 08 69 2.7 92 2.8 39 2.7 39 3.0 09 35 1.7 45 1.6 17 1.7 19 1.7 10 36 1.1 43 1.2 17 1.1 19 1.2 11 85 0.9 116 0.8 46 0.9 46 0.9 Program H 08 58 2.2 73 2.5 36 2.2 37 2.4 09 32 1.3 43 1.3 22 1.2 19 1.3 10 30 1.5 39 1.5 20 1.7 17 1.4 11 90 0.7 116 0.6 51 0.7 52 0.6 08 55 2.0 74 1.9 30 1.9 30 2.0 09 33 1.0 41 0.9 19 1.0 18 0.8 10 27 1.2 31 1.1 15 1.1 13 1.2 11 99 0.5 115 0.5 50 0.5 50 0.5 Program J 08 51 1.5 67 1.5 26 1.4 28 1.4 09 31 0.8 36 0.7 14 0.6 14 0.7 10 26 1.2 23 1.1 14 1.2 12 1.3 11 96 0.5 113 0.3 49 0.4 48 0.4 Program K 08 33 1.2 48 1.2 17 1.1 21 1.4 09 19 0.8 21 0.5 11 0.6 8 0.4 10 12 0.8 15 0.9 5 1.0 5 0.8 11 99 0.2 114 0.2 48 0.2 47 0.2

196 program in every three. While this finding supports the conjecture that many program ratings are based on limited information, the availability of reported familiarity permits us to analyze how ratings vary as a function of familiarity. This issue can be addressed in more than one way. It is evident from the data reported in Table 12.8 that mean ratings of the scholarly quality of program faculty tend to be higher if the evaluator has considerable familiarity with the program. There is nothing surprising or, for that matter, disconcerting about such an association. When a particular program fails to provoke more than vague images in the evaluator's mind, he or she is likely to take this as some indication that the program is not an extremely lustrous one on the national scene. While visibility and quality are scarcely the same, the world of research in higher education is structured to encourage high quality to achieve high visibility, so that any association of the two is far from spurious. TABLE 12.8 Mean Ratings of Scholarly Quality of Program Faculty, by Evaluator's Familiarity with Work of Faculty MEAN RATINGS CORRELATION Consid- Some/ erable Little r N Art History 2.75 2.59 .97 41 Classics 3.05 2.78 .96 35 English 2.94 2.37 .87 106 French 2.84 2.50 .95 58 German 3.09 2.76 .97 48 Linguistics 3.09 2.60 .95 34 Music 2.98 2.67 .91 53 Philosophy 2.96 2.38 .92 77 Spanish 2.90 2.48 .94 69 NOTE: N reported in last column represents the number of programs with a rating from at least one evaluator in each of the two groups. From the data presented in Table 12.8 it is evident that if mean ratings were computed on the basis of the responses of only those most familiar with programs, the values reported for individual programs would be increased. A largely independent question is whether a restriction of this kind would substantially change our sense of the relative standings of programs on this measure. Quite naturally, the answer depends in some degree on the nature of the restriction imposed. For example, if we exclude evaluations provided by those who confessed "little or no" familiarity with particular programs, then

197 the revised mean ratings would be correlated at a level of at least .99 with the mean ratings computed using all of the data. {This similarity arises, in part, because only a small fraction of evaluations are given on the basis of no more than "little" famil- iarity with the program.) The third column in Table 12.8 presents the correlation in each discipline between the array of mean ratings supplied by respondents claiming "considerable" familiarity and the mean ratings of those indicating "some" or "little or no" familiarity with particular programs. This coefficient is a rather conservative estimate of agreement since there is not a sufficient number of ratings from those with "considerable" familiarity to provide highly stable means. Were more such ratings available, one might expect the correlations to be higher. However, even in the form presented, the correlations, which are at least .91 in all disciplines except English, are high enough to suggest that the relative standing of programs on measure 08 is not greatly affected by the admixtures of ratings from evaluators who recognize that their knowledge of a given program is limited. As mentioned previously, 90 percent of the survey sample members were supplied the names of faculty members associated with each program to be evaluated, along with the reported number of program graduates (Ph.D. or equivalent degrees) in the previous five years. Since earlier reputational surveys had not provided such information, 10 percent of the sample members, randomly selected, were given forms without faculty names or doctoral data, as a "control group." Although one might expect that those given faculty names would have been more likely than other survey respondents to provide evaluations of the scholarly quality of program faculty, consistently large differ- ences were not found (see Table 12.9) between the two groups in their frequency of response to this survey item. (The reader may recall TABLE 12.9 Item Response Rate on Measure 08, by Selected Characteristics of Survey Evaluators in the Humanities Art Linguis- Philos- Total History Classics English French German tics Music ophy Spanish EVALUATOR ' S FAMI LIARITY WITH PROGRAM Considerable 99 9 99 9 99 9 100.0 99.8 99.9 100.0 99.9 100.0 100. 0 Some 98.0 97. 4 98.7 97.3 97.9 99. 3 98.6 97 .2 97.9 98.2 Little or None 33.1 34.4 33.9 31.8 32.8 40.0 40.6 21.6 31.8 38.5 TYPE OF SURVEY FORM Names 82.5 82.6 88.7 75.9 81.4 88.7 89.5 72.6 82.0 87.5 No Names 73.7 72.5 86.0 64.0 71.5 96.1 65.8 82.8 68.9 79.1 INSTITUTION OF HIGHEST DEGREE Alumni 99 7 100.0 100.0 100.0 98.8 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 98. 7 Nonalumni 81.5 81.3 88.1 74.4 80.4 89.1 86.7 73.4 80.7 86.6 EVALUATOR' S PROXIMITY TO PROGRAM Same Region 88.5 89.8 89.9 84.0 90.2 93.5 91.0 83.9 86.2 92.8 Outside Region 80.7 80.2 88.1 73.3 79.2 88.5 86.4 72.2 80.0 86.0 NOTE: The item response rate is the percentage of the total ratings requested from survey participants that included a response other than "don't know. "

198 that the provision of faculty names apparently had a positive effect on survey sample members' willingness to complete and return their questionnaires in humanities disciplines. The mean ratings provided by the group furnished faculty names are generally lower than the mean ratings supplied by other respondents (see Table 12.10~. Although the differences are small, they attract attention because they are reasonably consistent from discipline to discipline (except Spanish) and because the direction of the differ- ences was not anticipated. After all, those programs more familiar to evaluators tended to receive higher ratings, yet when steps were taken to enhance the evaluator's familiarity, the resulting ratings are somewhat lower. One post hoc interpretation of this finding is that a program may be considered to have distinguished faculty if even only a few of its members are considered by the evaluator to be outstanding in their field. However, when a full list of program faculty is provided, the evaluator may be influenced by the number of individuals whom he or she could not consider to be distinguished. Thus, the presentation of these additional, unfamiliar names may occasionally result in a lower rating of program faculty. However interesting these effects may be, one should not lose sight of the fact that they are small at best and that their existence does not necessarily imply that a program's relative standing on TABLE 12.10 Mean Ratings of Scholarly Quality of Program Faculty, by Type of Survey Form Provided to Evaluator MEAN RATINGS CORRELATION No Names r N Art History 2.64 2.93 .92 41 Classics 2.89 3.18 .91 35 English 2.49 2.58 .91 105 French 2.61 2.70 .84 58 German 2.87 3.14 .91 48 Linguistics 2.73 3.18 .91 35 Music 2.78 2.85 .92 53 Philosophy 2.55 2.60 .93 77 Spanish 2.66 2.56 .86 69 NOTE: N reported in last column represents the number of programs with a rating from at least one evaluator in each of the two groups. eAs shown in Table 2.3, the survey response rate for those furnished faculty names is approximately 6 percentage points higher than that for those not given this information.

199 measure 08 would differ much whichever type of survey form was used. Since only about 1 in 10 ratings was supplied without the benefit of faculty names, it is hard to establish any very stable picture of rel- ative mean ratings of individual programs. However, the correlations between the mean ratings supplied by the two groups are reasonably high--ranging from .84 to .93 in the nine disciplines (see Table 12.10~. Were these coefficients adjusted for the fact that the group furnished forms without names constituted only about 10 percent of the survey respondents they would be substantially larger. From this re- sult it seems reasonable to conclude that differences in the alterna- tive survey forms used are not likely to be responsible for any large- scale reshuffling in the reputational ranking of programs on measure 08. It also suggests that the inclusion of faculty names in the committee's assessment need not prevent comparisons of the results with those obtained from the Roose-Andersen survey. Another factor that might be thought to influence an evaluator's judgment about a particular program is the geographic proximity of that program to the evaluator. There is enough regional traffic in academic life that one might expect proximate programs to be better known than those in distant regions of the country. This hypothesis may apply especially to the smaller and less visible programs and is confirmed by the survey results. For purposes of analysis programs were assigned to one of nine geographic regions9 in the United States, and ratings of programs within an evaluator's own region are categorized in Table 12.11 as "nearby." Ratings of programs in any of the other eight regions were put in the "outside" group. Findings reported elsewhere in this chapter confirm that evaluators were more likely to provide ratings if a program was within their own region of the country,~° and it is reasonable to imagine that the smaller and the less visible programs received a disproportionate share of their ratings either from evaluators within their own region or from others who for one~reason or another were particularly familiar with programs in that region. Although the data in Table 12.11 suggest that "nearby" programs were given higher ratings than those outside the evaluator's region, the differences in reported means are quite small and probably represent no more than a secondary effect that might be expected, because, as we have already seen, evaluators tended to rate higher those programs with which they were more familiar. Furthermore, the high correlations found between the mean ratings of the two groups indicate that the relative standings of programs are not dramatically influenced by the geographic proximity of those evaluating them. Another consideration that troubles some critics is that large programs may be unfairly favored in a faculty survey because they are likely to have more alumni contributing to their ratings who, it would stand to reason, would be generous in the evaluations of their alma 9See Appendix G for a list of the states included in each region. i°See Table 12.9.

200 TABLE 12.11 Mean Ratings of Scholarly Quality of Program Faculty, by Evaluator's Proximity to Region of Program MEAN RATINGS Nearby Outside r N CORRELATION Art History 2.81 2.70 .96 39 Classics 2.84 2.95 .98 33 English 2.55 2.50 .94 104 French 2.63 2.62 .86 57 German 3.06 2.94 .91 46 Linguistics 2.88 2.71 .97 31 Music 2.85 2.79 .92 50 Philosophy 2.65 2.57 .94 75 Spanish 2.70 2.66 .86 68 NOTE: N reported in last column with a rating from at least one represents the number of programs evaluator in each of the two groups. maters. Information collected in the survey on each evaluator's institution of highest degree enables us to investigate this concern. The findings presented in Table 12.12 support the hypothesis that alumni provided generous ratings--with differences in the mean ratings (for measure 08) of alumni and nonalumni ranging from .25 to .80 in the nine disciplines. Given the appreciable differences between the ratings furnished by program alumni and other evaluators, one might ask how much effect this has had on the overall results of the survey. The answer is "very little." As shown in the table, only 33 of the 106 English programs evaluated in the survey received ratings from any alumnus; in classics and linguistics more than half of the programs were evaluated by one or more alumni. Even in the latter two disciplines, however, the fraction of alumni providing ratings of a program is always quite small and should have had minimal impact on the overall mean rating of any program. To be certain that this was the case, mean ratings of the scholarly quality of faculty were recalculated for every humanities program--with the evaluations provided by alumni excluded. The results were compared with the mean scores based on a full set of evaluations. Out of the 522 humanities programs evaluated in the survey, no program had an observed difference as large as 0.2, and for 485 programs {92 percent) their mean ratings remain unchanged (to the nearest tenth of a unit). On Because of the small number of alumni ratings in every discipline, the mean ratings for this group are unstable and therefore the correla- tions between alumni and nonalumni mean ratings are not reported.

201 TABLE 12.12 Mean Ratings of Scholarly Quality of Program Faculty, by Evaluator's Institution of Highest Degree MEAN RATINGS NUMBER OF PROGRAMS WITH ALUMNI RATINGS N Alumni Nonalumni Art History 4.11 3.64 16 Classics 3.75 3.49 21 English 4~03 3.36 33 French 3.46 3.21 23 German 3.82 3.32 24 Linguistics 3.95 3.41 18 Music 3.69 3.25 26 Philosophy 3.92 3.12 27 Spanish 3.58 2.99 32 NOTE: The pairs of means reported in each discipline are computed for a subset of programs with a rating from at least one alumnus, and are substantially greater than the mean ratings for the full set of programs in each discipline. the basis of these findings the committee saw no reason to exclude alumni ratings in the calculation of program means. Another concern that some critics have is that a survey evaluation may be affected by the interaction of the research interests of the evaluator and the areats) of focus of the research-doctorate program to be rated. It is said, for example, that some narrowly focused programs may be strong in a particular area of research but that this strength may not be recognized by a large fraction of evaluators who happen to be unknowledgeable in this area. This is a concern more difficult to address than those discussed in the preceding pages since little or no information is available about the areas of focus of the programs being evaluated (although in certain disciplines the title of a department or academic unit may provide a clue). To obtain a better understanding of the extent to which an evaluator's field of specialty may have influenced the ratings he or she has provided, an analysis was made of ratings provided by evaluators in physics and statistics/ biostatistics. In each discipline the survey participants were divided into two groups according to specialty field (as reported on the survey questionnaire). The results of the analysis, which are presented in the mathematical and physical science volume of the committee's report, indicate that there is a high degree of correlation in the mean ratings furnished by those in differing specialty fields within these two disciplines. Although one cannot conclude from these findings that an evaluator's specialty field has no bearing on how he or she rates a program, these findings do

202 suggest that the relative standings of programs in physics and statistics/biostatistics would not be greatly altered if the ratings by either group were discarded. INTERPRETATION OF REPUTATIONAL SURVEY RATINGS It is not hard to foresee that results from this survey will receive considerable attention, through enthusiastic and uncritical reporting in some quarters and sharp castigation in others. The study committee understands the grounds for both sides of this polarized response but finds that both tend to be excessive. It is important to make clear how we view these ratings as fitting into the larger study of which they are a part. The reputational results are likely to receive a disproportionate degree of attention for several reasons, including the fact that they reflect the opinions of a large group of faculty colleagues and that they form a bridge with earlier studies of graduate programs. But the results will also receive emphasis because they alone, among all of the measures, seem to address quality in an overall or global fashion. While most recognize that "objective" program characteristics (i.e., fellowship support, employment of graduates, or library size) have some bearing on program quality, probably no one would contend that a single one of these measures encompasses all that need be known about the quality of research-doctorate programs. Each is obviously no more than an indicator of some aspect of program quality. In contrast, the reputational ratings are global from the start because the respondents are asked to take into account many objective characteristics and to arrive at a general assessment of the quality of the faculty and effectiveness of the program. This generality has self-evident appeal On the other hand, it is wise to keep in mind that these reputa- tional ratings are measures of perceived program quality rather than of "quality" in some ideal or absolute sense. What this means is that, just as for all of the more objective measures, the reputational ratings represent only a partial view of what most of us would con- sider quality to be; hence, they must be kept in careful perspective. Some critics may argue that such ratings are positively misleading because of a variety of methodological artifacts or because they are supplied by "judges" who often know very little about the programs they are rating. The committee has conducted the survey in a way that permits the empirical examination of a number of the alleged artifacts and, although our analysis is by no means exhaustive, the general conclusion is that their effects are slight. Among the criticisms of reputational ratings from prior studies are some that represent a perspective that may be misguided. This perspective assumes that one asks for ratings in order to find out what quality really is and that to the degree that the ratings miss the mark of "quintessential quality," they are unreal, although the quality that they attempt to measure is real. What this perspective misses is the reality of quality and the fact that impressions of quality, if widely shared, have an imposing reality of their own and

203 therefore are worth knowing about in their own right. After all, these perceptions govern a large-scale system of traffic around the nation's graduate institutions--for example, when undergraduate students seek the advice of their professor concerning graduate programs that they might attend. It is possible that some professors put in this position disqualify themselves on grounds that they are not well informed about the relative merits of the programs being considered. Most faculty members, however, surely attempt to be helpful on the basis of impressions gleaned from their professional experience, and these assessments are likely to have major impact on student decision-making. In short, the impressions are real and have very real effects not only on students shopping for graduate schools but also on other flows, such as job-seeking young faculty and the distribution of research resources. At the very least, the survey results provide a snapshot of these impressions from discipline to discipline. Although these impressions may be far from ideally informed, they certainly show a strong degree of consensus within each discipline, and it seems safe to assume that they are more than passingly related to what a majority of keen observers might agree program quality is all about. COMPARISON WITH RESULTS OF THE ROOSE-ANDERSEN STUDY An analysis of the response to the committee's survey would not be complete without comparing the results with those obtained in the survey by Roose and Andersen 12 years earlier. Although there are obvious similarities in the two surveys, there are also some important differences that should be kept in mind in examining individual pro- gram ratings of the scholarly quality of faculty. Already mentioned in this chapter is the inclusion, on the form sent to 90 percent of the sample members in the committee's survey, of the names and academic ranks of faculty and the numbers of doctoral graduates in the previous five years. Other significant changes in the committee's form are the identification of the university department or academic unit in which each program may be found, the restriction of requesting evaluators to make judgments about no more than 50 research-doctorate programs in their discipline, and the presentation of these programs in random sequence on each survey form. m e sampling frames used in the two surveys also differ. The sample selected in the earlier study included only individuals who had been nominated by the participating universities, while more than one-fourth of the sample in the commit- tee's survey were chosen at random from full faculty lists. (Except for this difference the samples were quite similar--i.e., in terms of number of evaluators in each discipline and the fraction of senior scholars. 2 ~ 2 For a description of the sample group used in the earlier study, see Roose and Andersen, pp. 28-31.

204 Several dissimilarities in the coverage of the Roose-Andersen and this committee's reputational assessments should be mentioned. The former included a total of 130 institutions that had awarded at least 100 doctoral degrees in two or more disciplines during the FY1958-67 period. The institutional coverage in the committee's assessment was based on the number of doctorates awarded in each discipline (as described in Chapter I) and covered a total population of 228 univer- sities. Most of the universities represented in the present study but not the earlier one are institutions that offered research-doctorate programs in a limited set of disciplines. In the Roose-Andersen study, programs in Russian were rated, along with programs in the nine human- ities disciplines evaluated in this assessment. The committee decided not to include Russian programs in its assessment--for reasons ex- plained in Chapter I. Finally, in the Roose-Andersen study, only one set of ratings was compiled from each institution represented in a discipline, whereas in the committee's survey separate ratings were requested if a university offered more than one research-doctorate program in a given discipline {such is rarely the case in humanities disciplines). The consequences of these differences in survey coverage is not large in the humanities: in the committee's survey, evaluations were requested for a total of 522 research-doctorate programs in nine humanities disciplines, compared with 483 programs in the Roose-Ander- sen study in these same disciplines. Figures 12.1-12.9 plot the mean ratings of scholarly quality of faculty in programs included in both surveys; sets of ratings are graphed for 26 programs in art history, 30 in classics, 82 in English, 49 in French, 36 in German, 26 in linguistics, 34 in music, 58 in philosophy, and 52 in Spanish. Since in the Roose-Andersen study programs were identified by institution and discipline (but not by department) the matching of results from this survey with those from the committee's survey is not precise. For universities represented in the latter survey by more than one program in a particular disci- pline, the mean rating for the program with the largest number of graduates (measure 02) is the only one plotted here. Although the results of both surveys are reported on identical scales, some caution must be taken in interpreting differences in mean ratings a program received in the two evaluations. It is impossible to estimate what effect all of the differences described above may have had on the results of the two surveys. Furthermore, one must remember that the reported scores are based on the opinions of different groups of faculty members and were provided at different time periods. In 1969, when the Roose-Andersen survey was conducted, graduate departments in most universities were still expanding and not facing the enrollment and budget reductions that many departments have had to deal with in recent years. Consequently, a comparison of the overall findings from the two surveys tells us nothing about how much graduate education has improved {or declined) in the past decade. Nor should the reader place much stock in any small differences in the mean ratings that a particular program may have received in the two surveys. On the other hand, it is of particular interest to note the high correlations between the results of the evaluations. For programs in art history,

205 5. 0++ + + 4. 0++ + + + Measure + 3.0++ 08 + + + + + + + + + 2. 0++ + + + + + + + + + 1 .0++ + + + + * * * * * * * * * * * * * * r = .92 0.0 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4,0 5.0 Roose-Andersen Rating (1970) FIGURE 12.1 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--26 programs in art history.

s . o 4 e O + Measure + 3.0++ 08 + 2. 0+ 1 . 0+ 206 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * r = .89 C.O + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 Roose-Ander sen Rat ing ( 197 0 ) FIGURE 12.2 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--30 programs in classics.

207 5. 0++ + + + + 4. 0++ + + + Measure + 3.0++ 08 + 2. 0++ + + + + 1 . 0++ + + + + 0.0 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Roose-Andersen Rating ( 1970) r = .91 FIGURE 12.3 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--82 programs in English language & literature.

208 5 . 0 ++ + + 4 . 0++ + Measure + 3.0++ 08 + + + 2 . 0 1 . 0 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ^.0 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 Roose-Ander sen Rat i ng ( 19 7 0 ) FIGURE 12.4 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--49 programs in French language & 1 iterature.

5 . o++ + 4. 0++ + 209 * * * * * * * + + Measure + 3.0++ 0 8 + + 2 . 0++ + 1.0++ . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * r = .91 C.O + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + '.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 Roose-Andersen Rating (1970) FIGURE 12.5 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--36 programs in German language ~ literature.

210 s . o++ + + + + 4 . 0++ + + + + Measure + .0++ 3 08 + 2.0+ 1 . O v . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ,0 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 Roose-Andersen Rating ( 1970) FIGURE 12.6 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--26 programs in linguistics.

211 s · o++ 4.0++ Measure + 3.0++ 0 8 + + + + + 2 . 0 ++ + + + + ; . O++ + C.O + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Roose-Ander sen Rat ing ( 197 0 ) r = .94 FIGURE 12.7 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--34 programs in music.

212 s. o++ + * * + * + * 4. 0++ * * + + * + * * + * * * 08 Measure + 3 . 0++ 2 . 0++ + 1 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * + + + * * * * + * + + * . O++ * r = . 86 * * 0.0 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 Roose-Andersen Rating ( 1970) FIGURE 12.8 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--58 programs in philosophy. 5.0

213 5.0++ + + 4. 0++ + + + + + Measure + 3.0++ 08 + + + + 2.0++ . 1. 0++ + + * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * r = .86 w.0 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5~0 Roose-Andersen Rating ( 1970 ) FIGURE 12.9 Mean rating of scholarly quality of faculty (measure 08) versus mean rating of faculty in the Roose-Andersen study--52 programs in Spanish language & literature.

214 English, German, and music the correlation coefficients are greater than .90. The lowest coefficient found is for programs in linguistics (.78~. The extraordinarily high correlations found in most of these disciplines may suggest to some readers that reputational standings of programs have changed very little in the last decade. However, dif- ferences are apparent for some institutions. Also, one must keep in mind that the correlations are based on the reputational ratings of only three-fourths of the programs evaluated in this assessment in these disciplines and do not take into account the emergence of many new programs that did not exist or were too small to be rated in the Roose-Andersen study. FUTURE STUDIES One of the most important objectives in undertaking this assess- ment was to test new measures not used extensively in past evaluations of graduate programs. Although the committee believes that it has been successful in this effort, much more needs to be done. First and foremost, studies of this kind should be extended to cover other types of programs and other disciplines not included in this effort. As a consequence of budgeting limitations, the committee had to restrict its study to 32 disciplines, selected on the basis of the number of doctorates awarded in each. Among those omitted were programs in Russian, which was included in the Roose-Andersen study; a multi- dimensional assessment of research-doctorate programs in this and many other important disciplines would be of value. Consideration should also be given to embarking on evaluations of programs offering other types of graduate and professional degrees. As a matter of fact, plans for including masters-degree programs in this assessment were originally contemplated, but because of a lack of available information about the resources and graduates of programs at the master's level, it was decided to focus on programs leading to the research doctorate. Perhaps the most debated issue the committee has had to address concerned which measures should be reported in this assessment. In fact, there is still disagreement among some of its members about the relative merits of certain measures, and the committee fully recognizes a need for more reliable and valid indices of the quality of graduate programs. First on a list of needs is more precise and meaningful information about the product of research-doctorate programs--the graduates. For example, what fraction of the program graduates have gone on to be productive scholars--either in the academic setting or outside the university environs? What fraction have gone on to become outstanding scholars--as measured by receipt of major prizes, member- ship in academies, and other such distinctions? How do program grad- uates compare with regard to their publication records? Also desired might be measures of the quality of the students applying for admittance to a graduate program {e.g., Graduate Record Examination scores, undergraduate grade point averages). If reliable data of this sort were made available, they might provide a useful index of the

215 reputational standings of programs, from the perspective of graduate students. A number of alternative measures relevant to the quality of pro- gram faculty were considered by the committee but not included in the assessment because of the associated difficulties and costs of compil- ing the necessary data. For example, what fraction of the program faculty were invited to present papers at national meetings? What fraction had been elected to prestigious organizations/groups in their field? What fraction had received senior fellowships and other awards of distinction? In addition, it would be highly desirable to compile information about research awards received by faculty members in humanities programs.

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