An Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States Engineering (1982) / Chapter Skim
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I. Origins of Study and Selection of Programs
I. Origins of Study and Selection of Programs
Pages 1-12
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During the past two decades increasing attention has been given to describing and measuring the quality of programs in graduate education. It is evident that the assessment of graduate programs is highly important for university administrators and faculty, for employers in industrial and government laboratories, for graduate students and prospective graduate students, for policymakers in state and national 1
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The widespread criticisms of ratings in graduate education were carefully considered in the planning of this study. At the outset consideration was given to whether a national assessment of graduate programs should be undertaken at this time and, if so, what methods should be employed.
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Accreditation, conducted through nongovernmental institutional and specialized agencies, provides a major means for meeting those needs.3 Although formal accreditation procedures play an important role in higher education, many university administrators do not view such procedures as an adequate means of assessing program quality. Other efforts are being made by universities to evaluate their programs in graduate education.
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J Andersen, A Rating of Graduate Programs, American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., 1970.
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. All the attempts to change higher education will ultimately be strangled by the "legitimate" evaluative processes that have already programmed a single set of responses from the start.9 A number of other criticisms have been leveled at reputational rankings of graduate programs.~° First, such studies inherently reflect perceptions that may be several years out of date and do not take into account recent changes in a program.
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Rather than repeat such ratings, many members of the graduate community have voiced a preference for developing ways to assess the quality of graduate programs that would be more comprehensive, sensitive to the different program purposes, and appropriate for use at any time by individual departments or universities.~ Several attempts have been made to go beyond the reputational assessment. Clark, Harnett, and Baird, in a pilot study 2 of graduate programs in chemistry, history, and psychology, identified as many as 30 possible measures significant for assessing the quality of graduate education.
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the desire to stimulate continuing emphasis on quality in graduate education, the need for current evaluations that take into account the many changes that have occurred in programs since the Roose-Andersen study, and (4) the value of extending the range of measures used in evaluative studies of graduate programs.
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In its deliberations the planning committee carefully considered the criticisms of the Roose-Andersen study and other national assessments. Particular attention was paid to the feasibility of compiling a variety of specific measures (e.g., faculty publication records, quality of students, program resources)
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Early in the planning stage it was recognized that some important areas of graduate education would have to be left out of the study. Limited financial resources required that efforts be concentrated on a total of no more than about 30 disciplines in the biological sciences, engineering, humanities, mathematical and physical sciences, and social sciences.
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Differences in field definitions account for discrepancies between the ETS and NRC data. 2The ETS data may include some individuals from computer science departments who earned doctorates in the field of electrical engineering and consequently are not included in the NRC data.
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In the engineering disciplines the following numbers of FY1976-78 doctoral awards were required to satisfy the first criterion (above) : Chemical Engineering -- 5 or more doctorates Civil Engineering -- 6 or more doctorates Electrical Engineering -- 7 or more doctorates Mechanical Engineering -- 7 or more doctorates A list of the nominated programs at each institution was then sent to a designated individual {usually the graduate dean)
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The number of programs evaluated ranges from 91 in electrical engineering to 74 in civil engineering. Although the final determination of whether a program should be included in the assessment was left in the hands of the institutional coordinator, it is entirely possible that a few programs meeting the criteria for inclusion in the assessment were overlooked by the coordinators.
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