As the author over the past fifteen years of a number of perception studies reporting the views of educators and administrators about their instinctive assessment of graduate programs in library and information science, I am growing weary of seeing these results attacked for their failure to match the results of somebody's "research" findings. Perception reports make no claim to scientific validity. and the attempt to somehow state that they are "wrong" is not an exercise in beating a dead horse, but in beating a horse that does not exist.
As we all know, studies which attempt to "prove" what schools or individuals are more prestigious than others, regardless of what people think, have also been attacked and can be just as suspect. This is particularly true when the findings reported just happen to coincide with what the researcher would like to claim about himself or herself or about the institution.
What is significant about perception studies is that they presumably report what people believe, perhaps instinctively. That they act on the basis of these beliefs cannot be questionedin finding a school to attend, in selecting an employee. and in deciding funding priorities. Since this does occur, and since perception studies will continue to be done in both the professional and the public literature, it is important that they be done carefully. And that is all 1 have ever tried to claim.