| The U.S. News and World Report Survey of graduate engineering programs is structured around four areas and nine indicators. Area A addresses quality assessment, Area B addresses student selectivity, and Area C addresses faculty resources, lastly Area D addresses research activity. The nine indicators categorized under the areas are: peer assessment, recruiter assessment, mean GRE quantitative scores, acceptance rate, and student to faculty ration (both doctoral and masters), faculty in the National Academy of Engineering, doctoral degree awarded, total research expenditures, and average research expenditures per faculty member. Each area is weighted and each indicator given a percentage towards their final score. The U.S. News and World Report Survey has a tenuous relationship with deans of engineering programs; yet is considered the authority by many among institutions who compile data to determine program quality and rankings.;This study examines the perceptions of engineering deans in regards to the U.S. News and World Report Survey instrument, data collected, marketing budgets and the information the deans deem important, unimportant and what they would like to see included in the survey collection. This instrument provided an opportunity to the 198 deans, who participated in the 2011 U.S. News and World Report Survey, who in turn provided their perceptions and input into what the U.S. News and World Report Survey is currently using to access and rank quality engineering programs. Nine research questions guided this research study which focus on the perceptions of the deans in regards to weights, percentages, what areas and indicators they would leave in the survey and which they would leave out. The questions also address budgets and outcomes of funding put towards increasing survey ranking results. Analysis of the information returned indicate no significance between the U.S. News and World Report Survey and discord among the deans of engineering graduate programs. However, this research does reveal areas and indicators the deans of engineering would like removed, such as membership in the National Academy of Engineers, peer assessment review, and student selectivity, as well as, indicators deans would like to add when distributing the U.S. News and World Report Survey such as scholarly publications, distance education and research space. |
