CHANGES to the SED 2012 QUESTIONNAIRE from the SED 2011 QUESTIONNAIRE

ATTACHMENT 2

CHANGES to the SED 2012 QUESTIONNAIRE from the SED 2011 QUESTIONNAIRE:

PART B - Postgraduation plans

SED11 SED12

Ques# Ques #

B4b. B4b. Postgraduation plan types. The description of the first response option was changed from “Non-postdoc employment” to “Employment (other than military service).”

Rationale for change. This question was split into multiple parts for the SED 2010 and SED 2011 survey rounds, first to ask (in item B4) if the respondent’s plan was for a “postdoc or further training” or “employment.” B4b is only asked of respondents who indicated that their post-graduation plan type was “employment” as opposed to “postdoc.” Item B4b from the SED 2011 questionnaire is as follows:

B4b.What best describes the nature of your employment?

Mark (X) one

1

SKIP TO B6

Non-“Postdoc” employment

2 Military service

3 Other Employment - Specify

Analysis of responses to this item show that a large proportion of respondents are choosing category 3, “Other Employment – Specify.” However, the verbatim information many respondents provide in the “Specify” box indicates that category 1 (“Non-postdoc employment”) would have been a more appropriate response. Therefore, it appears the description for option 1 may be difficult for many respondents to understand. The following change to the SED 2012 questionnaire will make the first category more explicit:

B4b.What best describes the nature of your employment?

Mark (X) one

1

SKIP TO B6

Employment (other than military service)

2 Military service

3 Other Employment - Specify

FIELD OF STUDY

Every two years the Federal Sponsors of the Survey of Earned Doctorates meet to evaluate the taxonomy of fields of study used in the SED, and to consider fields for addition to or deletion from the taxonomy. The survey contractor provides analytical support for this review, including tabulations of responses to the field of study questionnaire items and content analyses (followed by tabulations) of verbatim responses. Field of study responses not currently in the taxonomy but which appear in the verbatim responses of many respondents over the most recent three year period are considered “possible emerging fields” and become candidates for addition to the SED taxonomy. Fields of study currently in the taxonomy that are not selected by many respondents over the most recent three year period become candidates for deletion from the SED taxonomy. Additional information sources – including scans of university websites, reference to the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) taxonomy, and the Federal Sponsors’ subject-area expertise – are brought to bear on the decisions to add or delete particular fields of study.

As a result of the latest (December 2010) field of study review by the Federal Sponsors, the following fields of study have been added to the SED taxonomy:

Description of field of study	Field of study code
Behavioral Analysis	602
Bilingual and Multilingual Education	865
Education and Human Resource Studies/Development	806
Educational/Instructional Technology	812
Ethics	784
Film/Cinema/Video Studies	778
Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering	337
Health and Medical Psychology	614
Health Policy Analysis	217
Jewish/Judaic Studies and History	777
Latin American	750
Marine Biology and Biological Oceanography	152
Natural Resource/Environmental Economics (also in AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES)	665
Natural Resource/Environmental Economics (also in SOCIAL SCIENCES)	003
Rhetoric and Composition	737
Transportation and Highway Engineering	373

The Federal Sponsors identified one field to drop from the SED taxonomy:

Description of field of study Banking/Financial Support Services

Field of study code 905

The field of study review also led to the following changes to descriptions of fields of study currently in the SED taxonomy:

Description in SED 2011	Description in SED 2012	Field of study code
Environmental Health Engineering	Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering	336
Kinesiology/Exercise Science	Kinesiology/Exercise Physiology	222
Neurosciences	Neurosciences and Neurobiology	160
Psychological/Psychobiology Psychology	Neuropsychology/Physiological Psychology	627
Reading Education	Literacy and Reading Education	882
Theology/Religious Education *	Theology/Religious Education *	984

* The note on the description of the Theology/Religious Education field was changed to include a reference to the new Ethics field; the note now reads: (see also OTHER HUMANITIES/Religion/Religious Studies, Ethics)