Adv Physiol Educ. 2024 Feb 29. doi: 10.1152/advan.00126.2023. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
UK university undergraduate programs are compared by independent subject-specific rankings (Complete, Guardian, Times), based upon data from National Student Survey, Higher Education Statistics Agency, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, Research Excellence Framework, and the universities. The sports and exercise science program at University of Glasgow, has steadily risen to currently rank as the top UK program. This investigation aimed to identify the underlying factors that explain this. Therefore, we obtained underlying scores for entry standard, student satisfaction, research foundation, graduate prospects, staff-student ratio, expenditure/student, continuation, program support to students, and teaching quality from the ranking providers for years 2010-2024, and statistically modelled which factors significantly affected the rankings. We found that entry standard and graduate prospects strongly correlated significantly with ranking results. Principal component analysis indicated that a model of graduate prospects and entry standard explained 66.2% of the variance in ranking results. Multiple linear regression with all underlying factors included in the model indicated they explained 78% (R2=0.78) of the total variance, while stepwise elimination of insignificant factors identified graduate prospects as the sole factor that significantly affected outcome by explaining 71% (R2=0.71) of the variance. Therefore, the primary predictor of ranking success in UK university league tables for sports science is graduates’ professional success (graduate prospects).
PMID:38420665 | DOI:10.1152/advan.00126.2023
