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Research On Indicators And Impact Of University Rankings

Posted on:2011-12-07Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y L XieFull Text:PDF
GTID:1117330338483886Subject:Management Science and Engineering
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University rankings have become a rapidly growing global phenomenon. Much research has been conducted on university ranking and its techniques; however, some critical concerns about ranking techniques and theories remain unresolved and require further study. This empirical study aims at further exploring indicator systems and the impact of university rankings, by using Resource Dependence Theory and Social Identity Theory.This dissertation is organized with a total of six chapters. After a systematic review of the global phenomenon of university ranking exercises and the existing literature, the first section of the dissertation investigates and analyses the indicator systems, based on a representative sample of 16 university rankings around the world. First, this study adopts a multidimensional statistical analysis to exam features of different indicators of different university rankings and to discuss a possibility and feasibility of a global indicator system. The indicators are grouped into four categories, namely, indicators comparable, fairly comparable, hardly comparable and incomparable at a global level. Second, this section analyses further on the applicability and validity of ranking indicators in evaluation and ranking exercises in different disciplines. The analysis is conducted in the disciplines of arts, humanities and social and behaviour sciences in the 16 sample university rankings. This section, through a systematic study on indicator systems, intends to provide evidence and references for further normative and scientific development of university rankings.The dissertation applies statistics methods to explore the numbers of citation of rankings by universities. The research finds statistically significant difference on the numbers of citation of university rankings by different universities in different countries and regions. However, in general, rankings are widely cited and used by world-class universities, especially those universities in the US and UK. The research also finds that the higher ranked universities are more likely to cite its ranking results on their official websites. Resource Dependence Theory and Social Identity Theory are adopted in the analysis.University rankings have attracted extensive attention worldwide and have great influence on higher education development worldwide; however, they are not perfect and some problems and concerns have remained unresolved. Those critical problems and concerns include methodological, indicator and theoretical issues. Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions and other related development have shown important improvement in university ranking exercises, that is, the indicator systems are increasingly reflecting the diversification of higher education system and the functions and features of higher education institutions.The significance and originality of this research lie in the following aspects. First, this research conducts a systematic classification and multidimensional analyses on ranking indicators, based on an extensive review on university rankings worldwide. It provides a conceptual framework for discussions on features and selection of university ranking indicators. Second, through exploring the features of university ranking indicators, this research conducts a classification of indicators from the 16 selected university rankings based on its international comparability. It provides comparability standards to ranking indicators. In addition, based on the above two points, this research explores applicability of indicators into different disciplines. It provides theoretical support and rationales for developing university rankings by disciplines. Last but not least, this study might be among the first research which measures the university ranking impact against its citation through large-scale quantitative analysis (about 500 universities and colleges).
Keywords/Search Tags:university ranking, ranking indicators, impact of rankings, global comparability, applicability of indicators into disciplines
PDF Full Text Request
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