Rankings incite universities to distort or even falsify data, according to a new report from the European University Association.
The EUA report ‘Global University Rankings and their Impact’ lists documented examples of statistical manipulation by universities jockeying for position in the league tables.
In perhaps the most blatant case, over 100 students at a south-west London university were told to lie to improve their institution’s standing in the 2008 National Student Survey.
According to UK newspaper reports, two Kingston University psychology lecturers were secretly recorded urging undergraduates to give Kingston a glowing report. One of the lecturers told them their degrees would be “shit” unless Kingston did well.
Other examples include universities encouraging low-performing students to apply, even though they had no chance of success, to improve the institutions’ desirability ratings. Another strategy was to make it voluntary for applicants to reveal their selection test scores – assuming that only high performers would do so – to raise the average scores of applicants. (...)
John Ross
From:The Australian
June 23, 2011
The EUA report ‘Global University Rankings and their Impact’ lists documented examples of statistical manipulation by universities jockeying for position in the league tables.
In perhaps the most blatant case, over 100 students at a south-west London university were told to lie to improve their institution’s standing in the 2008 National Student Survey.
According to UK newspaper reports, two Kingston University psychology lecturers were secretly recorded urging undergraduates to give Kingston a glowing report. One of the lecturers told them their degrees would be “shit” unless Kingston did well.
Other examples include universities encouraging low-performing students to apply, even though they had no chance of success, to improve the institutions’ desirability ratings. Another strategy was to make it voluntary for applicants to reveal their selection test scores – assuming that only high performers would do so – to raise the average scores of applicants. (...)
John Ross
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