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University Distinction in Educational Research: An Exploratory Survey

R for the second time in a five-year period, an American Council on Education survey of graduate schools (Roose and Anderson, 1970) omitted education as a field of study. The survey obtained ratings of the quality of the graduate faculty in 36 areas of humanities, social, biological and physical sciences, and engineering. But omitted such professional fields as library science, nursing, medicine, social work, and education. The two surveys, though attacked on methodological grounds, were interesting, controversial, and perhaps useful. In the earlier survey, Cartter (1964) found very strong correlations of rated quality —effectiveness with such characteristics as faculty salaries, number of publications in nationally refereed journals, number of government fellowship recipients attracted, and library resources. According to Roose and Anderson, some students used the data in selecting graduate schools, while graduate deans reallocated financial support and other resources for departments, building up some secondrate programs and dropping weak ones. While a comparable survey of education is not currently feasible, an exploratory survey based on a modest poll of the American Educational Research Association membership is here reported. A random sample of 250 AERA members from the most recent Directory were sent a questionnaire in March 1971 containing the question: "In your area of professional interest, what three universities or colleges have been contributing the best educational research in their schools, colleges or departments of education during the past few years?" Within ten weeks, 173 (69.2 percent) questionnaires were returned; however 40 of these were not usable because of deaths, retirements, and a variety of other reasons (e.g.: "I am 12 years behind the field." "I'm in pure psych." "My professional interests are not represented in the AERA." "Only an indoctrinated provincial can answer the questions."). Thus, a total of 133 (52.3 percent) usable replies were returned; the comparable average figure for fields in the ACE study is 169, an average usable response rate of 75 percent. On another questionnaire item, the respondents indicated the single AERA division most representative of their professional interests. This permitted a breakdown of the nominations for the four larger divisions and for an aggregation of the newer divisions. Table 1 shows the resulting tabulations for the top 12 institutions. As for AERA Division rankings, Ohio State and Stanford (tied), Oregon, Berkeley, and Chicago lead in Division A, Administration. In Division B, Curriculum and Objectives, Stanford, Illinois, Harvard, and UCLA, in rank order, are the leading universities. In Division C, Instruction and Learning, Stanford has a strong lead over Illinois, Harvard, and Wisconsin. In Division D, Measurement and Research Methodology, Stanford and Illinois (tied), Harvard and Wisconsin (tied), Chicago, and UCLA comprise the leading cluster. There are too few ratings in the other four divisions, even when the nominations are combined, to establish a rank order.