Abstract
On the basis of its own hypotheses and analysis of foreign studies, the author determines how the informational and motivational functions of rankings have impact on Russian universities' student choice. The analysis of the rankings position of universities and some of their key performance indicators (the foreign students number, the quality of applicants) showed there is not any direct correlation between them. According to the author, in order to maximize the effectiveness of rankings, it is necessary to improve the ranking methodology, to develop universities' decision-making processes based on the rankings results, and to create customer culture on the rankings results using.
TopBackground
Studies targeted at comparative analysis of the impact of rankings on higher education show that, there are many things in common in the way people in different countries react to rankings, make management decisions and act on them.
Governments exploit the motivational function of rankings to promote universities in the world education market, making them more competitive and seeking to achieve recognition of the national educational system abroad, ensuring them with appropriate funding. E. Hazelkorn underlines exclusively motivational function of rankings which play the role of social accountability, compelling universities to stick to and adopt the best practices, and based on the researcher’s empirical study in Germany, Japan and Austria, there is an opinion that rankings serve as both overt or covert factors causing changes in the higher education system (Hazelkorn, 2009).
With respect to universities, the informational function of rankings is expressed, on the one hand, in providing information base for the universities themselves in identifying the best practices, and on the other hand, a university position in ranking enables the stakeholders to ascertain this university potential as a possible partner.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Ranking of the HSE and RIA Novosti: Ranking of Russian higher education institutions based on the average Unified State Test score of enrolled students conducted by Higher School of Economics and Novosti Russian Information Agency.
Monitoring of Efficiency of Higher Education Institutions: (Conducted by The Ministry of Education and Science of Russia) The annual monitoring of HEIs implies the evaluation of HEIs based on a list of the key performance indicators, such as the Unified State Test score of enrolled students, graduates’ employment, scientific results, international activity, financial sustainability, and academic staff salaries.
National Ranking of Universities (Interfax Agency): A special project of the information agency “interfax,” created with the support of The Ministry of Education and Science of Russia to develop and test new mechanisms of an independent assessment of Russian universities.
Unified State Test (Edinyi Gosudarstvennyi Eksamen): High school final and University entrance exam taken upon completion of 11 th grade in Russia.
Universities’ Ranking: A listing which compares universities by various combinations of various factors.