UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Education and educational research from the College of Education at Penn State has been ranked No. 20 in "Best Global Universities," recently released by U.S. News and World Report. Within the global rankings, the college is No. 9 in the U.S.
According to the magazine, “Education and educational research spans the full spectrum of education, from theoretical to applied, and from nursery school to Ph.D. This category includes resources on pedagogy and methodology as well as on the history of education, reading, curriculum studies, education policy, and the sociology and economics of education, as well as the use of computers in the classroom. These are the world's top universities for education and educational research.”
“It’s wonderful to be recognized publicly for something we here in the College of Education at Penn State have known for a long time: that the quality of our research and scholarship — and by extension also our teaching — is comparable to the most elite institutions in the nation and the world,” said Dean Kim Lawless.
U.S. News made its calculations based on data from the Web of Science on academic research performance; various bibliometric measures including publications and citations; and indicators for global and regional reputation in each specific subject. Its data includes the five-year period from 2016 through 2020.
The College of Education was one of 182 education colleges that met the U.S. News threshold of 200 papers published to be included in the rankings.
Within its No. 20 ranking, the College of Education ranked No. 8 in education and educational research publications; No. 9 in education and educational research total citations; No. 10 in education and educational research number of publications that are among the 10% most cited; and No. 26 in education and educational research number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited.
“I’m delighted to see the productivity of the College of Education faculty being recognized in this manner,” said Greg Kelly, senior associate dean for research. “It’s particularly heartening to know that this ranking is based in bibliometric measures including publications and citations.”
Subject rankings for other subject fields at Penn State can be found here. Full details on how U.S. News calculated the rankings can be found here.