CORRELATIONAL INFERENCES FROM TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION 2017 WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKING

Abstract

Purpose- If knowledge is a strategic commodity as asserted by so many scholars then the amount and the quality of service provided by the universities are to be assessed in a variety of ways. The general aim of this study is to extract some information from the available evidence about tertiary education. The purpose in operational terms is to make use of data published by Times Higher Education (THE) 2016-17 World University Rankings, and United Nations Development Program (UNDP).   Methodology- Pearson correlation is the statistical method used to make inferences. The variables correlated are the measures taken by Times Higher Education in 2016-17.  Namely, these are Teaching, Research, Citations and International Outlook. Some Human Development Indicators (HDI) are the variables used as benchmarking criteria taken from Human Development Report 2014 published by UNDP. These are HDI-2012, Research and Development Expenditure, Educational Expenditures, PISA-2012 Scores.  Findings- The computations yields mostly positive high correlations between pairs of variables mentioned above. General Educational Expenditure seems to be the variable correlated not so significantly with the others.  Conclusion- The present report displays results in conformity with the expectations. Conclusions are valid for the countries in general and for Turkey in particular separately as well as for the whole bunch of universities. The author hopes to collect critical and complementary comments in return.