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Thomas C. Skalak

Thomas C. Skalak

Contact Us

P.O. Box 400301
Charlottesville, VA 22904

Phone:
434-924-3606
Fax:
434-924-3667
Email:
vpresearch@virginia.edu

National Research Council: Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs

 

Approximately every 10 years, the National Research Council (NRC), part of the National Academies, conducts an assessment of research-doctorate programs in the United States. The purpose of the assessment is to “help universities improve the quality of [doctoral] programs through benchmarking; provide potential students and the public with accessible, readily available information on doctoral programs nationwide; and enhance the nation's overall research capacity.”1

The last NRC assessment was conducted in 1993 and released in 1995.  The resulting rankings were based on peer assessment of faculty quality.  The 2006 assessment is significantly more data-driven than the previous study.  Institutions, doctoral programs, faculty, and students completed separate questionnaires that solicited various data elements (e.g. time-to-degree, student financial support) not included in the previous assessment.  As a result, meaningful comparisons between the two assessments are not possible. 

More than 5,000 programs in 61 fields at 222 institutions participated in the assessment.  Thirty-nine U.Va. doctoral programs participated in the assessment. More than 800 U.Va. faculty received questionnaires with 88 percent responding. In addition, more than 300 U.Va. doctoral students received questionnaires, with 73 percent responding.

The University believes the NRC assessment is important in that it will provide a significant amount of publicly-available information about U.Va. graduate programs and those across the United States.


Helpful Links

 

1. See http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/index.html.
2. Ostriker, J.P. & Kuh, C.V. (2003).  Assessing research-doctorate programs: A methodology study. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, p. 3.