What Contributes More to the Ranking of HEIs?: Comparative Analysis of Ranking Parameters of India Rankings 2021 in Overall Category using Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient

Abstract:

This study conducts correlation amongst five broad categories of parameters of top 100 ranked institutions in the Overall category of India Rankings 2021 to identify their relative significance. This includes i) inter-correlation; ii) intra-correlation; and iii) year-to-year correlation between ranks and scores of institutions as well as long-term correlation at intervals of five years, i.e. 2017 and 2021. The correlation analysis reveals that while RP (Pearson r = 0.9098), PR (Pearson r = 0.8941), TLR (Pearson r = 0.7118) and GO (Pearson r = 0.5330) are four major categories of parameters that have good to strong correlation with the total overall score as well as with each other, parameters under O & I correlate strongly with each other but neither total score of O &I nor score of its parameters correlate with total Overall score. Year-to-year correlation between ranking of institutions as well as correlation at intervals of five years is near perfect, which reaffirms consistency and reliability of ranking methodology. Based on intra- and inter-correlation analysis conducted on raw data (rather than on its weighted score), the study identifies 12 parameters that have the highest number of correlations with total TLR, RP, GO, PR as well as total overall score with value of Pearson’s r ranging between 0.2500 to 0.9900. These 12 parameters can potentially constitute a compact and coherent set of ranking indicators on which HEIs can focus and ranking agencies may consider regrouping and redistributing weightage to these 12 indicators.

Keywords: Correlation Analysis, Correlation Coefficient, India Rankings, National Institutional Ranking Framework, Ranking indicators, Ranking parameters, University ranking.