ASSESSING RESEARCH DOCTORATE – PROGRAMS A METHODOLOGY STUDY Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Charlotte V. Kuh, Editors Assisted by James A. Voytuk Committee to Examine the Methodology for the Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs Policy and Global Affairs Division THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. www.nap.edu THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001 NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance. This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health Award# N01-OD-4-2139, Task Order No. 107, received support from the evaluation set-aside Section 513, Public Health Act; the Na- tional Science Foundation Award# DGE-0125255; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant No. 2001- 6-10, and the United States Department of Agriculture Award# 43-3AEM-1-80054 (USDA-4454). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project. 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Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council. www.national-academies.org COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE THE METHODOLOGY FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH-DOCTORATE PROGRAMS JEREMIAH P. OSTRIKER, Committee Chair, Princeton University; Cambridge University, UK ELTON D. ABERLE, University of Wisconsin-Madison JOHN I. BRAUMAN, Stanford University GEORGE BUGLIARELLO, Polytechnic University WALTER COHEN, Cornell University JONATHAN COLE, Columbia University RONALD GRAHAM, University of California-San Diego PAUL W. HOLLAND, Educational Testing Service EARL LEWIS, University of Michigan JOAN F. LORDEN, University of North Carolina-Charlotte LOUIS MAHEU, University of Montréal LAWRENCE B. MARTIN, Stony Brook University MARESI NERAD, University of Washington FRANK SOLOMON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology CATHARINE R. STIMPSON, New York University Board on Higher Education and Workforce Liaison JOHN D. WILEY, University of Wisconsin-Madison NRC Staff CHARLOTTE KUH, Deputy Executive Director, Policy and Global Affairs Division, and Study Director PETER HENDERSON, Director, Board on Higher Education and Workforce JAMES VOYTUK, Senior Project Officer HERMAN ALVARADO, Research Associate TERESA BLAIR, Senior Project Assistant EDVIN HERNANDEZ, Program Associate ELAINE LAWSON, Program Officer ELIZABETH SCOTT, Office Assistant EVELYN SIMEON, Administrative Associate v PANEL ON TAXONOMY AND INTERDISCIPLINARITY WALTER COHEN, Panel Co-Chair, Cornell University FRANK SOLOMON, Panel Co-Chair, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ELTON D. ABERLE, University of Wisconsin-Madison RICHARD ATTIYEH, University of California-San Diego GEORGE BUGLIARELLO, Polytechnic University LEONARD K. PETERS, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University ROBERT F. JONES, Association of American Medical Colleges PANEL ON QUANTITATIVE MEASURES CATHARINE R. STIMPSON, Panel Chair, New York University RONALD GRAHAM, University of California-San Diego MARSHA KELMAN, University of Texas, Austin LAWRENCE B. MARTIN, Stony Brook University JEREMIAH P. OSTRIKER, Princeton University; Cambridge University, UK CHARLES E. PHELPS, University of Rochester PETER D. SYVERSON, Council of Graduate Schools PANEL ON REPUTATIONAL MEASURES AND DATA PRESENTATION JONATHAN COLE, Panel Co-Chair, Columbia University PAUL HOLLAND, Panel Co-Chair, Educational Testing Service JOHN BRAUMAN, Stanford University LOUIS MAHEU, University of Montréal LAWRENCE MARTIN, Stony Brook University DONALD B. RUBIN, Harvard University DAVID SCHMIDLY, Texas Tech University PANEL ON STUDENT PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES JOAN F. LORDEN, Panel Chair, University of North Carolina-Charlotte ADAM FAGEN, Harvard University GEORGE KUH, Indiana University, Bloomington EARL LEWIS, University of Michigan MARESI NERAD, University of Washington BRENDA RUSSELL, University of Illinois-Chicago SUSANNA RYAN, Indiana University, Bloomington vi Acknowledgments This study has benefited enormously from the advice of standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to countless students, faculty, administrators, and researchers the study charge. The review comments and draft manu- in government and industry who have sent us e-mail, espe- script remain confidential to protect the integrity of the cially concerning the taxonomy and our questionnaires. The deliberative process. Council of Graduate Schools, the National Association of We wish to thank the following individuals for their State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the National review of this report: Leslie Berlowitz, American Academy Academy of Sciences, the GREAT Group of the American of Arts and Sciences; Terrance Cooper, University of Association of Medical Colleges, and the Association of Tennessee; Nancy Diamond, Pennsylvania State University; American Universities all invited us to their meetings when Edward Hiler, Texas A&M University; Louis Lanzerotti, the study was in its early stages and helped us to formulate Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies; Edward Lazowska, the major issues the Committee needed to address. Nancy University of Washington; Brendan Maher, Harvard Uni- Diamond, Ron Ehrenberg, and the late Hugh Graham also versity; Risa Palm, University of North Carolina-Chapel were helpful to us in the early stages. Hill; C. Kumar Patel, Pranalytica, Inc.; Gerald Sonnenfeld, We owe an immense debt to our pilot site universities and Morehouse School of Medicine; Stephen Stigler, University their graduate deans, institutional researchers, and faculty of Chicago; Kathleen Taylor (Retired), General Motors who helped us differentiate between the desirable and the Corporation; E. Garrison Walters, Ohio Board of Regents; feasible. These are: Florida State University, Michigan State Pauline Yu, American Council of Learned Societies; and University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The University James Zuiches, Washington State University. of California-San Francisco, The University of Maryland, Although the reviewers listed above have provided many The University of Southern California, The University of constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Yale University. to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they We are grateful to the National Research Council Staff: see the final draft of the report before its release. The review Herman Alvarado, Teresa Blair, Edvin Hernandez, Evelyn of this report was overseen by Ronald Ehrenberg, Cornell Simeon, and Elizabeth Scott. They made our meetings run University, and Lyle Jones, University of North Carolina- smoothly, helped produce the report, and amassed the data Chapel Hill. Appointed by the National Research Council, without which the Committee would not have been able to they were responsible for making certain that an indepen- do its work. Irene Renda at Princeton University and dent examination of this report was carried out in accordance Jeanette Gilbert at the University of Cambridge also assisted with institutional procedures and that all review comments these efforts by ably supporting the Committee’s Chair. were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals content of this report rests entirely with the authoring com- chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, mittee and the institution. in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Finally, we wish to thank our funders: the National Insti- Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent tutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred review is to provide candid and critical comments that will P. Sloan Foundation, and the United States Department of assist the institution in making its published report as sound Agriculture. Without their support, both financial and con- as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional ceptual, this report would not have been written. vii Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 1 INTRODUCTION 9 2 HOW THE STUDY WAS CONDUCTED 15 3 TAXONOMY 19 4 QUANTITATIVE MEASURES 25 5 STUDENT EDUCATION AND OUTCOMES 31 6 REPUTATION AND DATA PRESENTATION 35 7 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 61 8 REFERENCES 65 9 APPENDIXES A Biographical Sketches: Committee and Panels 69 B Program-Initiation Consultation with Organizations 79 C Meetings and Participants 83 D Sample Questionnaires 105 Institutions 106 Programs 109 Faculty 114 Students Admitted-to-Candidacy Students 118 Five-Seven Years Post-Ph.D. Students 123 E Taxonomy of Fields and Their Subfields 129 F Fields for Ph.D.s Granted During 1996-2001 133 G Technical and Statistical Techniques Alternate Ways to Present Rankings: Random Halves and Bootstrap 137 Correlates of Reputation Analysis 146 ix