Are You Satisfied PhD Education and Faculty Taste

Authors: Emory Morrison Elizabeth Rudd Joseph Picciano Maresi Nerad

Publish Date: 2010/09/24

Volume: 52, Issue: 1, Pages: 24-46

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Abstract

This paper empirically evaluates Caplow and McGee’s The academic marketplace 1958 model of academia as a prestige value system PVS by testing several hypotheses about the relationship between prestige of faculty appointment and job satisfaction Using logistic regression models to predict satisfaction with several job domains in a sample of more than 1000 recent social science PhD graduates who hold tenuretrack or tenured faculty positions we find that the relationship between prestige of faculty appointment and job satisfaction is modified by PhD program prestige Graduates of high prestige PhD programs value prestige more highly and graduates of low prestige programs value salary more highly We explain our findings by incorporating reference group theory and a theory of taste formation into our model of the academic PVS which identifies PhD programs as sites of socialization to different tastes for prestige a process of cultural transmission in addition to their well recognized role in transmission of human and social capital We discuss practical and theoretical implications of our findings in relation to efforts to measure PhD program quality and to understand the structure of academic labor marketsOur measure of prestige of the institution where the faculty member works is not an exact replication of the US News and World Report USNWR rankings The USNWR rankings would be a valid measure of institutional prestige insofar as the concept of prestige is merely the intersubjective perception of a status order by significant others Wilson 1966 The USNWR rankings are an attempt to formalize such a concept However the USNWR rankings do not suffice for a measure that is comparable for all undergraduate degree granting institutions across the US The problem with using US News rankings to construct a unidimensional measure is that rankings are constructed and reported within region and within college type We cannot use the USNWR rankings to compare institutions classified in the southern region with those classified in the western region nor can we compare rankings of selective colleges with those of national universitiesInstead of using the USNWR rankings an OLS model using USNWR is generated to predict student test scores—the 75th percentile score for both the SAT and for the ACT and the 25th percentile score for both the SAT and the ACT Test scores are the data element from the USNWR that are most strongly linked to the concept of student selectivity—which is at the heart of the dimension of prestige that Gieger 2002 singles out as a critical element of prestige The independent variables used to predict test scores in this model included classification akin to Carnegie class region tier of ranking the peer assessment the graduation rate acceptance rate and percent of freshmen in the top quarter of their high school class Models explained from 86 of the variation in first quartile SAT scores to 71 of the variation in third quartile ACT scores Most importantly the models enabled the prediction of test scores where none were reported for example the first quartile ACT scores among freshmen in a university that relies exclusively on SAT scores for admission Each of the four predicted data points were converted into zscores and averaged Thus each institution rated by USNWR in 2005 was assigned a single measure on a continuous scale that reflects the selectivity of its student body These scores are used to measure the prestige of the employing institutions for the SS5 respondents

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