John P Stevens Highschool Americas Best Graduate Schools by US News Content Analysis

If you choose to conduct a content analysis of professional training sites, you will need to choose a profession with ranked schools in the publication America’s Best Graduate Schools by U.S. News and World Report.

• From the list of schools, you will be comparing schools of high, medium, and low status.
• Use the rankings to select two schools of high status (top 20), two schools of low status (bottom 20), and two schools of medium status (in the middle).
• Gather what information you can about theses schools from the magazine.
• Next, go to each professional program’s website and gather information about the schools.
• Provide each website address in your write-up as a separate list or in your bibliography.
• On the website, look for information about admissions requirements,
• program requirements to graduate,
• the curriculum/courses offered,
• the presentation of the program (what are its specialties, what does it offer, what are its advantages, how is it special),
• and any information about the profession itself (e.g. work settings, future outlook).
• Compare the six schools based on status.
  • Do the high status schools present themselves differently than the low or medium status schools?
  • Are the low status schools different than the high and medium? Etc.
  • Are there discernible differences in curriculum, requirements and information provided?
  • Are there any status cues given on the website (are they telling you they are high status, low status, etc.)?
  • Describe any other interesting comparisons you find.
  • As a last step, compare your content analysis to the information about the profession given in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
  • Does the Handbook’s portrait of the profession match what you see on the training site web pages? If there are differences, discuss possible causes.