Nearing world-class: Singapore’s two universities in QSWUR 2015/16

ABSTRACT

Many universities strive to become world-class and two of Singapore’s universities are almost there, being ranked 12th and 13th in the QSWUR 2015/16. This study looked into the details of indicator rankings and found that the two universities are comparable to those in the top 10 universities in the same ranking in practically all indicators with the exception of Citations. Further analysis of the data of the 58 highest ranking universities with complete data revealed discrepancies in the assigned and attained indicator weights. Moreover, the Academic and Citations categories were not able to be used in stepwise regression calculations. These indicate that the computed Overall result is not what the ranker intended it to be and needs re-interpretation. If rankings are not anchored in statistical ground, discussions on rankings are at the abstract and verbal level, similar to discourses on alchemy (faith) vis-a-vis chemistry (facts).

KEYWORDS:

• Academic excellence
• indicator weights
• regression analysis
• weight discrepancy
• world-class universities