The College of Education's doctoral programs in kinesiology have been ranked 14th in the nation in a new evaluation recently released by the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education (AAKPE). Ph.D. programs in the department of kinesiology include research-focused specializations in exercise science (biomechanics, exercise physiology, exercise psychology, and measurement and evaluation), physical education (pedagogy and motor behavior) and sport studies. The degrees prepare individuals for careers in universities, government, private industry or the health professions. There are about 35 kinesiology doctoral students at any given time. The AAKPE has been working on developing a method for accurately ranking doctoral programs in the field for the past decade. It identified 61 institutions with doctoral programs of which 32 participated in the evaluation. Criteria for the rankings included faculty indices (66 percent) such as productivity (research publications, books, presentations), funding (external, internal), and visibility (editorial boards, number of AAKPE Fellows, other Fellow status) and student indices 34 percent) such as graduate assistant support, student quality (GRE verbal, quantitative), employment (postdocs, employment in the field), and admissions (selectivity, yield). Data included in the evaluation was from 2000-04. The AAKPE plans to continue evaluation of doctoral programs on 5-year intervals.

A full-length paper on the rankings was published by Human Kinetics in the February 2006 issue of QUEST. [View file]

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