All Posts Tagged With: "reputational survey"

Movers and shakers in education rank universities on their performance

University-bound students are keen to learn as much as possible before deciding which university to attend, quizzing those who may have an opinion worth listening to. Take those opinions and multiply them hundreds of times over and you have the idea behind Maclean’s reputational survey. What do those whose professions put them in a position to form opinions—both about how well universities are meeting the needs of students and how ready their graduates are to embark on successful careers—really think?

To find out what the professionals think about the state of post-secondary education in Canada, Maclean’s solicited the opinion of nearly 12,000 individuals across the country, asking for their views on quality, innovation and leadership at Canadian universities. Those surveyed included university officials at each ranked institution, high school principals and guidance counsellors from every province and territory, the heads of a wide variety of national and regional organizations, plus CEOs and recruiters at corporations large and small.

Respondents were asked to rate Canada’s universities in three categories: Highest Quality, Most Innovative, and Leaders of Tomorrow, the results of which can be found in our newsstand issue, available today. Best Overall (left) represents the sum of the scores for all three categories. Again this year, the University of Waterloo placed first overall among 48 universities on the national reputational ranking, a position the school has successfully captured every year but three during the past 19 years of ranking. Meanwhile, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT)—founded in 2003 and being ranked for the first time this year—made a strong showing for a young university, placing 30th overall.

The reputational survey has a regional as well as a national component that divides the country into four key areas: the western provinces, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. All respondents completed a national survey; university officials, principals and guidance counsellors also completed regional ones, allowing them the opportunity to focus on the region they know best. The national and regional surveys are combined to produce the final results. The survey form reminds participants that Maclean’s does not expect them to be familiar with every university, and that we are asking them to provide their views only on those universities about which they have an informed opinion.

The reputational survey achieved an overall response rate of 7.5 per cent. Broken out by groups, the response rates were: 26.3 per cent for university officials; 4.9 per cent for high school principals and guidance counsellors; 6.1 per cent for CEOs, corporate recruiters and heads of organizations.