What do rankings measure? The U.S. news rankings and student experience at liberal arts colleges

Jeongeun Kim; Woo Jeong Shim

doi:10.1353/rhe.2019.0025

What do rankings measure? The U.S. news rankings and student experience at liberal arts colleges

Jeongeun Kim, Woo Jeong Shim

Educational Leadership and Innovation, Division of

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of college rankings, by investigating to what extent measurements employed by rankings are good proxies for evaluating educational practices at liberal arts colleges. Using a hierarchical linear modeling with data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and the U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) college rankings, we found that overall ranking scores did not predict students’ exposure to good practices, but scores on some measures had a limited yet significant association with students’ experiences of good practices at liberal arts colleges.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	933-964
Number of pages	32
Journal	Review of Higher Education
Volume	42
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2019.0025
State	Published - Mar 1 2019

Keywords

College rankings
Liberal arts education
Student experience
U.S. news rankings

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Education

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10.1353/rhe.2019.0025

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What do rankings measure? The U.S. news rankings and student experience at liberal arts colleges

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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