The study focuses on the research performance of Double First-Class (DFC) universities in China. A theoretical framework based on economic theory and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method for a novel evaluation model is proposed. The model is performed on a sample of 41 participant DFC universities in China. Using data collected from these universities, it was found that there is no consistency between performance ranking, input ranking, and output ranking, with the best ranked universities far from the most efficient. These findings provide empirical evidence of DFC universities’ research performance situation and suggest strategies that the government can use to propel their sustainable development.
College students experience great stress due to many factors, such as an uncertain future, academic responsibilities, and pressures imposed by social communication. Many institutions of higher education are focusing on how to mediate stressful situations and increase the subjective well-being (SWB) of students to sustain a lifestyle focused on wellness. The online survey used for this study focused on testing an exploratory SWB model by implementing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) techniques. The participants were 470 college-aged students enrolled in seven different institutions in six cities across China. Findings yielded a good model fit (the Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual [SRMR] = .054) with the validity of manifest variables, reliability of the latent variables (LVs), and overall SWB model indicating moderate predictiveness (GoF R2 = .476) by the LVs. Additionally, all of the direct path coefficients and indirect path coefficients that consisted of four partial mediators and one full mediator yielded statistically significant results via bootstrapping. Furthermore, path coefficients for utilization of emotion to life satisfaction for the cognitive exercise group were significantly higher than for the non-cognitive exercise group. The findings illustrated a good model fit for an exploratory SWB model that can predict an individual’s SWB, and cognitive and non-cognitive exercises had different effects on the individuals’ SWB.
The study employs a narrative inquiry approach to probe a Chinese doctoral student’s identity construction experiences fraught with interruption and transformation. The longitudinal narratives gathered through participant entries in Evernote, a face-to-face life story interview, and researcher memos, have enabled a dynamic configuration of the intellectual, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions characterizing doctoral identity development. Using identity-trajectory as an analytical lens, the study highlights how individual agency is embodied and exercised in institutional, relational, and personal spaces where doctoral identity is formed and contested. Findings are episodically ordered as: beginning doctoral study with great expectations; conceptualizing the nature of becoming a doctoral student; forces that are disruptive to the development of the doctoral-researcher identity; the ongoing process of being mediated by socialization into an extended research community, socio- professional support, and agentic reflexivity over time. The study argues for using narrative inquiry to speak of and express the subtleties and continuities of doctoral students’ experiences. It also provides practical implications for action by supervisors and students in doctoral programs respectively.
This paper explores how the concept of social capital developed by Bourdieu and Coleman as well as the Chinese concept of guanxi (关系) or relationships facilitates students’ access to postgraduate education in a case study of a university in southeast China. The study comprises an initial survey of 381 first-year postgraduate students and a series of interviews with 30 participants. Social capital and guanxi inform analysis of the data. The results reveal that students from different social backgrounds employ different forms of social capital and guanxi networks in their decision-making about postgraduate education. They contribute to conceptualizations of how social capital is generated through guanxi in the Chinese educational context.
Chinese local undergraduate universities are in a process of transition into universities of applied sciences. Important aspects of this include strengthening cooperation between universities and industry, cultivating applied talent needed in industry, improving students’ employment rates, and promoting economic development. Internships are an important way to help students gain practical experience and deepen university-industry cooperation. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges of the existing internship process in an undergraduate university in China and give suggestions to improve internship quality. Qualitative data from 35 students and 12 administrators/faculty were collected at a local undergraduate university, H University (HU), in central China, which is currently undergoing the process of becoming a university of applied sciences. The findings of the study show issues with the university’s model, including communication between industry and university, internship evaluation, student guidance, and internship quality. Recommendations based on the literature are provided.
The practice of integrating songs into educational research is seen as an emerging phenomenon, focusing on students’ existential situation from the perspective of culture. This paper explores the connections between the songs selected and children’s life experiences in different periods between the 1950s and the present. There exist numerous songs involving the theme of schoolbags over the past 70 years. In 14 typical popular songs, the cultural implications of schoolbags roughly fall into four categories, namely political, emotional, playful, and visionary, each respectively reflecting different degrees of weight captured by the song originators. Accompanied by the diversity of musical rhythms and melodies, the musical images of schoolbags may vary in terms of phenomenology and schooling culture. The nature of schoolbags in songs keeps changing, closely related to the micro-political experiences of the singers. Therefore, as a teaching resource outside the classroom, popular songs exert a greater influence on students’ spiritual cultivation than formal knowledge.