The perceptions of accounting professors with respect to the present and desired importance of various factors considered in promotion and tenure decisions at major universities was investigated in the Journal of Accounting Education (Spring 1983). One hundred fifteen professors at universities with accredited doctoral programs responded to a mailed questionnaire. The questionnaire asked the professors to rate (1) the actual importance placed on 20 factors in the promotion and tenure decisions at their universities and (2) how they believe the factors should be weighted. Responses were obtained on a five-point scale ranging from "no importance" to "extreme importance." The resulting ratings were averaged and converted to the rankings shown in the next table. Calculate Spearman's rank correlation coefficient for the data and carefully interpret its value in the context of the problem.
