U.S. News’s “Expert Opinion (20 percent, down from 22.5 percent in 2018)” surveyed nearly 24,400 counselors at public, private and parochial high schools. but the high school counselor assessment survey is weighted at only 5 percent (down from 7.5 percent in 2018) while the peer assessment survey is weighted at much higher 15 percent for National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges; 20 percent for Regional Universities and Colleges (down from 22.5 percent in 2018). Of the 4,589 academics who were sent questionnaires, only 35.5 percent responded. This response rate is down from the 40.4 percent response rate in spring 2017 and the 39 percent response rate to the surveys conducted in spring 2016.
WSJ/THE’s “Engagement (20%)” replaces U.S. News’s “Expert Opinion (20%)”.
Decades of research has found that the best way to truly understand teaching quality at an institution – how well it manages to inform, inspire and challenge students – is through capturing what is known as “student engagement”. This was described by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker in 2011 as “the extent to which students immerse themselves in the intellectual and social life of their college – and a major component of engagement is the quality of a student’s contacts with faculty”.
WSJ/THE has captured student engagement across the US through its US Student Survey, carried out in partnership with two leading market research providers. For 2017 and 2018, we gathered the views of almost 200,000 current college and university students on a range of issues relating directly to their experience at college.
Students answer 12 core questions about their experience that are either multiple choice or on a scale from zero to 10, and also provide background information about themselves. The survey was conducted online and respondents were recruited by research firm Streetbees using social media, facilitated, in part, by student representatives at individual schools. We also worked with participating institutions who distributed the survey to random samples of their own students. Respondents were verified as students of their reported college using their email address. We used an aggregated group of respondents from both years (2017 and 2018 surveys). At least 50 responses in the 2018 survey were required for a university to be included.