Statistical assessment of peer opinions in higher education rankings: The case of US engineering graduate programs
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
ISSN: 2050-7003
Article publication date: 2 April 2019
Issue publication date: 18 June 2019
Abstract
Purpose
Unlike many other quantitative characteristics used to determine higher education rankings, opinion-based peer assessment scores and the factors that may influence them are not well understood. Using peer scores of US colleges of engineering as reported annually in US News and World Report (USNews) rankings, the purpose of this paper is to provide some insights into peer assessments by statistically identifying factors that influence them.
Design/methodology/approach
With highly detailed data, a random parameters linear regression is estimated to statistically identify the factors determining a college of engineering’s average USNews peer assessment score.
Findings
The findings show that a wide variety of college- and university-specific attributes influence average peer impressions of a university’s college of engineering including the size of the faculty, the quality of admitted students and the quality of the faculty measured by their citation data and other factors.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates that average peer assessment scores can be readily and accurately predicted with observable data on the college of engineering and the university as a whole. In addition, the individual parameter estimates from the statistical modeling in this paper provide insights as to how specific college and university attributes can help guide policies to improve an individual college’s average peer assessment scores and its overall ranking.
Keywords
Citation
Ghiasi, A., Fountas, G., Anastasopoulos, P. and Mannering, F. (2019), "Statistical assessment of peer opinions in higher education rankings: The case of US engineering graduate programs", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 481-492. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-09-2018-0196
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited