Methodological Mismatch?: Times Higher Education and Representation of Humanities Scholarship in Global University Rankings

Global university rankings have developed to become a prominent feature of the scholarly landscape as they provide means to measure, quantify and hierarchically organise higher education institutions (HEIs) across the globe. The ways in which such measurements take place are highly criticised and call for examination of what the rankings measure, their representativity and their reflexivity to the diverse nature of scholarly fields. This thesis examines the Times Higher Education University Ranking (THE) and its incorporation of the structure of the humanities scholarly field in its rankings. A literature review is conducted to establish three core features of humanities scholarship that must be accounted for in any meaningful representation of the field. This thesis concludes that despite THE’s methodological adjustments to different fields (subjects), it fails to meaningfully represent the distinct makeup of humanities scholarship by omission of these three core features in its...Show moreGlobal university rankings have developed to become a prominent feature of the scholarly landscape as they provide means to measure, quantify and hierarchically organise higher education institutions (HEIs) across the globe. The ways in which such measurements take place are highly criticised and call for examination of what the rankings measure, their representativity and their reflexivity to the diverse nature of scholarly fields. This thesis examines the Times Higher Education University Ranking (THE) and its incorporation of the structure of the humanities scholarly field in its rankings. A literature review is conducted to establish three core features of humanities scholarship that must be accounted for in any meaningful representation of the field. This thesis concludes that despite THE’s methodological adjustments to different fields (subjects), it fails to meaningfully represent the distinct makeup of humanities scholarship by omission of these three core features in its methodology. Means to rectify such shortcomings are proposed through the introduction of field-specific indicators and reevaluating the methodological composition producing THE’s overall score.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Methodological Mismatch? Times Higher Education and Representation of Humanities Scholarship in Global University Rankings