Creation of a Turkish University League Based on the Contribution of their Economics Departments to Economics Education

Abstract

This study aims to measure the added value created by the economics departments of the universities in Turkey for students throughout their undergraduate education. For the analysis section, the minimum admission scores of the universities' economics departments for the years from 2000 to 2012 were used as input and the net average scores obtained in the economics tests of Public Personnel Selection Examination (PPSE) for the years from 2004 to 2016 were used as output. The data were normalized using the min-max method and the universities were ranked using the "Borda count" method. According to the results, Ankara University ranked the 1st, Hacettepe University the 2nd and Middle East Technical University the 3rd. The first six positions in the top ten ranking are held by the universities located in the capital, Ankara. This is attributed to various factors such as the long-established character of the universities in the capital city, availability and diversity of training courses and materials for PPSE, permanency of the academic staff, prevalence of standard daytime education in these universities, and the role of the capital as the seat of public institutions, resulting in greater motivation among students as they have more contact with senior government officials.