Leadership, Student Effort, and Departmental Program Quality: An Exploration of Quality across Levels of Analysis

This study explores the relationship between quality at the individual and departmental levels in a sample of master’s degree programs in four disciplines across a state system of public universities. The authors used two independent measures of departmental quality at the individual level: (1) how faculty rated the quality of their leaders, and (2) how students rated the quality of their educational experience. The departmental measure of quality was based on the reports of external reviewers who assessed overall departmental program quality. Correlations between levels were not statistically significant, suggesting that quality at the individual level is different from quality at the departmental level. The authors explore possible explanations for the difference and some implications of the results.