Improving MCDM University Rankings through Statistical Validation Using Spearman’s Correlation and THE Benchmark

Abstract

The evaluation of higher education institutions is a critical field for informing data-driven policy and institutional benchmarking. A key problem in this area is the lack of transparency and consistency in university rankings, particularly when using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods such as MABAC and MAIRCA, with limited research on how weighting techniques affect the reliability and alignment of these rankings with international standards like the Times Higher Education (THE) Rankings. This study proposes the use of MABAC and MAIRCA methods combined with two weighting techniques—Rank Order Centroid (ROC) and Rank Sum (RS)—to assess 20 top Indonesian universities based on five performance indicators: research quality, research environment, teaching, industry, and international outlook. Spearman’s rank correlation is used to compare the MCDM-generated rankings with THE Rankings 2025. The study contributes empirical evidence on the impact of weighting schemes on the consistency and reliability of university rankings and demonstrates that the MAIRCA-ROC method achieves the highest agreement with THE Rankings, with a correlation coefficient of 0.8135 and a p-value of 0.00001. These results validate the use of MCDM methods in higher education evaluation and emphasize the importance of selecting appropriate weighting techniques to develop transparent and robust ranking frameworks that support evidence-based policy decisions.