Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Fulbright Visiting Scholar, University of Malaya
I was at a great meeting in Taipei Taiwan sponsored by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan and got an interesting perspective on university rankings and student social mobility. The presentations at the meeting were drafts of forthcoming book chapters so the material was up to date. The authors came from several nations, and brought several perspectives to the table.
Most of the material was focused on college rankings; especially in Taiwan and in the People's Republic of China. The critical metric of ranking was seen by the chapter authors to be research publications in a particular collection of journals with a high citation index. This is a classic ranking metric for many ranking groups.
And I ask "What about students?"
There are a lot of unquestioned assumptions in using faculty publications as a university ranking metric. The relationship between research and teaching is zero: "A meta-analysis of 58 studies demonstrates that the relationship is zero." (Hattie & March, 1996). However, the publication metric reflects a particular vision of the university, often promulgated by faculty members who work at highly ranked institutions based on research publications in selected journals. Faculty at high ranked universities set the ranking criteria. I trust the reader to see the issue of the reproduction of hierarchies of prestige here.
Is the purpose of the university research for publication?
or
Is the purpose of the university to student learning?
We are discussing prestige here. Never forget that prestige is a social construct, a manufactured idea, and there is no reality behind it. A small group of people at a small number of universities have decided that number of publications in certain journals is central to ranking, thus tipping the idea of prestige university in the direction of a research university. (And no, I am not jealous, my citations, h-index, and i10-index are just fine, and my most cited publication is from this blog, not from a high prestige journal. Also, I am a at the end of my career with good academic credentials and a teaching award.)
And I ask "What about students?"
A few of the authors at the conference discussed social mobility and access as topics of interest for evaluation and accreditation. To clarify, social mobility in that context was about economic mobility, about getting a higher paid job after graduation. Access is gaining admissions to a university. In hallway discussions these authors noted that you cannot have both high ranking and social mobility as central to the vision of the university. Access, and success, or a focus on students, is not possible when there is a high focus on research for publication. Faculty time is a zero-sum game, and the more time spent on research means the less time spent on teaching.
I can hear the answer from the ranking team members: "Well, we can have two types of universities, Research and Teaching." and I hear in their silence that research universities will be seen as better, as higher prestige, than teaching universities.
And I ask "What about students?"
tl;dr publication based rankings are not compatible with student learning based rankings
Fulbright Visiting Scholar, University of Malaya
I was at a great meeting in Taipei Taiwan sponsored by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan and got an interesting perspective on university rankings and student social mobility. The presentations at the meeting were drafts of forthcoming book chapters so the material was up to date. The authors came from several nations, and brought several perspectives to the table.
Most of the material was focused on college rankings; especially in Taiwan and in the People's Republic of China. The critical metric of ranking was seen by the chapter authors to be research publications in a particular collection of journals with a high citation index. This is a classic ranking metric for many ranking groups.
And I ask "What about students?"
There are a lot of unquestioned assumptions in using faculty publications as a university ranking metric. The relationship between research and teaching is zero: "A meta-analysis of 58 studies demonstrates that the relationship is zero." (Hattie & March, 1996). However, the publication metric reflects a particular vision of the university, often promulgated by faculty members who work at highly ranked institutions based on research publications in selected journals. Faculty at high ranked universities set the ranking criteria. I trust the reader to see the issue of the reproduction of hierarchies of prestige here.
Is the purpose of the university research for publication?
or
Is the purpose of the university to student learning?
We are discussing prestige here. Never forget that prestige is a social construct, a manufactured idea, and there is no reality behind it. A small group of people at a small number of universities have decided that number of publications in certain journals is central to ranking, thus tipping the idea of prestige university in the direction of a research university. (And no, I am not jealous, my citations, h-index, and i10-index are just fine, and my most cited publication is from this blog, not from a high prestige journal. Also, I am a at the end of my career with good academic credentials and a teaching award.)
And I ask "What about students?"
A few of the authors at the conference discussed social mobility and access as topics of interest for evaluation and accreditation. To clarify, social mobility in that context was about economic mobility, about getting a higher paid job after graduation. Access is gaining admissions to a university. In hallway discussions these authors noted that you cannot have both high ranking and social mobility as central to the vision of the university. Access, and success, or a focus on students, is not possible when there is a high focus on research for publication. Faculty time is a zero-sum game, and the more time spent on research means the less time spent on teaching.
I can hear the answer from the ranking team members: "Well, we can have two types of universities, Research and Teaching." and I hear in their silence that research universities will be seen as better, as higher prestige, than teaching universities.
And I ask "What about students?"
tl;dr publication based rankings are not compatible with student learning based rankings
