The Graduate School
National Research Council's
Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs, 2009
Background
The National Research Council (NRC), the operational arm of the National Academies, periodically conducts surveys to assess the quality and characteristics of the nation’s research-doctorate programs. Previous reports were released in 1983 and 1995, with the next report scheduled for release in fall 2009. This NRC study aims to provide a more comprehensive assessment of doctoral programs than is currently available. When released, the data will provide benchmarking information to the university and give prospective graduate students another source of information when selecting the best program to meet their individual needs. The University of Texas at Austin participates in the study by compiling data for eligible programs and encouraging faculty participation in the surveys. A total of 57 UT Austin programs were included in this most recent study.
Methodology
The 2009 NRC study is different than previous reputation-based reports, and will be the most comprehensive study to date, with over 5000 doctoral programs in 61 fields from 222 institutions participating in the survey. The study consists of three parts:
- the collection of quantitative data through questionnaires administered to institutions, programs, faculty, and (in a few selected areas) to students who have been admitted to candidacy
- the collection of additional program data on publications, citations, and dissertation keywords, etc., and
- the design and construction of a methodology for program ratings using the collected data
The 2009 NRC survey is focused on collecting large amounts of data on 20 variables which were perturbed to account for the anticipated error, "standardized", and then weighted using faculty-defined, area-specific weights (also with an estimate of the error) to determine a range of ratings and rankings for each program. Due to the complexity of the study, the NRC has released a guide to their methodology prior to the release of the results. We anticipate the full report and data to be released later this fall.
To aid our faculty and administration in understanding the scope of this project, we have prepared a summary of the process and methodology used by the NRC, along with some examples taken from the NRC Guide, in the following presentation:
NRC Assessment of (some) Research Doctoral Programs in the U.S. (.pdf)
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UT-Austin's response for this effort is coordinated by the Graduate School and the Office of Information Management and Analysis. Dr. Marvin Hackert, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, is the Institutional Coordinator for the NRC study and may be contacted at (512) 232-3604 or m.hackert@mail.utexas.edu for questions. For more information see the NRC Web site.