US News & World Report’s rankings of America’s Best Colleges were released today. US News’ ranking criteria: …measures fall into seven broad categories: peer assessment; graduation and retention rate; faculty resources (for example, class size); student selectivity (for example, average admission test scores of incoming students); financial resources; alumni giving; and, only for national universities and liberal arts colleges, graduation rate performance. The indicators include both input measures, which reflect.. Read More
Object lesson in survey methodology
From PollingReport, a Harris Poll on the Origin of Human Life. This is an object lesson for all students who ever plan to use a survey or an interview to collect data: this is precisely why the phrasing of a question is vitally important. I’m not even referring to the religious or political issues involved here. What we have here is essentially the same question asked 3 times, with wildly.. Read More