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What Do Rankings Measure? The U.S. News Rankings and Student Experience at Liberal Arts Colleges
- The Review of Higher Education
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 42, Number 3, Spring 2019
- pp. 933-964
- 10.1353/rhe.2019.0025
- Article
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Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of college rankings, by investigating to what extent measurements employed by rankings are good proxies for evaluating educational practices at liberal arts colleges. Using a hierarchical linear modeling with data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and the U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) college rankings, we found that overall ranking scores did not predict students' exposure to good practices, but scores on some measures had a limited yet significant association with students' experiences of good practices at liberal arts colleges.