Teaching-oriented Universities Research Articles

Digital Inequalities and Student Engagement in Higher Education

During the COVID-19 pandemic, education systems worldwide were forced to shut down and transition to online learning. While distance learning and digital technology offer a practical solution to mitigate the negative effects of university closure, there is also a risk of exacerbating the pre-existing digital disparities by reducing opportunities for those from less privileged backgrounds. China, as one of the first education systems to experience system-wide closure during the COVID-19 crisis, adopted emergency online learning, following a policy entitled Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning. In the past three years, we have witnessed a growing number of studies on students’ online learning experiences. However, most of these studies have focused on a behavioural perspective which centres on student behaviour and effective institutional practices, thereby neglecting the exploration of broader sociocultural contexts that may influence student experiences. Moreover, the majority of empirical studies have laid particular emphasis on quantitative measures of student engagement through large-scale surveys, while very limited studies have explored in-depth factors that influence student engagement. This short paper offers a brief overview of an ongoing research project that focuses on exploring the day-to-day digital practice of students in two different types of universities in China. Adopting a digital ethnographic approach including visual methods, online observations, semi-structured interviews and comparative ethnographic analysis, this study aims to provide a detailed qualitative understanding of student experiences working with digital technologies in both research-oriented universities and teaching-oriented universities. Throughout the theoretical discussion of different approaches to digital inequalities, this paper hopes to stimulate thinking about the forms of the digital divide that might exist in higher education and ultimately contribute to both academic and policy debates on the subject. By exploring the different meanings of student engagement, this paper exhibits some of the challenges and issues relating to conceptualising and measuring student engagement in the digital age. It is hoped that this paper will bring insights into reframing and conceptualising student engagement from a socio-material perspective that moves away from the dominance of behavioural and quantitative studies. The finding of this study will contribute to providing a nuanced understanding of the relationship between initial socioeconomic inequalities, differences in student engagement and resulting inequalities in post-higher education, which will potentially inform future educational practitioners and scholars alike in developing effective strategies to enhance student learning experiences in the digital sphere.

Influence of School Administrators’ Transformational Leadership on the Innovation Ability of University Teachers

With the development of higher education, the improvement of teachers' innovation ability has become an important issue. This article aims to explore the impact of transformational leadership of school administrators on the innovative ability of college teachers. Through literature review and empirical research, we analyze the difficulties and challenges faced by school administrators in improving teachers' innovation capabilities and propose effective countermeasures. The results show that transformational leadership demonstrates significant value and positive impact in higher education. Its core characteristics include being visionary, inspiring, focusing on individual and team growth, and driving organizational change. Transformational leadership plays a role in stimulating teachers' innovative thinking, promoting organizational changes, creating a positive organizational culture, and establishing effective communication mechanisms, which effectively promotes the improvement of university teachers' innovative capabilities. The composition of teachers' innovative ability involves three aspects: teaching, scientific research and practice, and is affected by multiple factors such as individuals, organizations and society. In order to improve teachers' innovation ability, these factors need to be comprehensively considered and targeted measures and support need to be adopted. There are differences in the perception and identification of transformational leadership among university teachers, which may be related to factors such as personal background, organizational culture and external environment. Strengthening communication and exchanges with teachers, establishing a fair and transparent incentive mechanism and evaluation system, providing sufficient resources and support, and advocating an open and inclusive organizational culture are key measures to enhance perception and recognition. In different subject areas and types of universities, the application of transformational leadership needs to be tailored to local conditions. Develop targeted change strategies based on the different characteristics of science and engineering, humanities and social sciences, and the differences between research-oriented and teaching-oriented universities. Finally, transformational leadership has a positive impact on teachers’ professional development, including promoting professional growth, increasing career satisfaction, and increasing intention to stay. However, during implementation, attention should be paid to possible differences in effects due to differences in context and conditions. Therefore, higher education institutions should strengthen the cultivation and introduction of transformational leadership to help teachers achieve better development and satisfaction at different levels.

Chinese university EFL learners’ English for General Academic Purposes: relationships between target needs and self-efficacy

To prepare university students for better participation in global academic activities and address learners’ needs for greater proficiency in academic English, English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) courses are provided in many Chinese universities. This study investigates the characteristics of and relationships between university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ target needs and self-efficacy in China’s EGAP context. With a sample of 1340 EFL learners from four Chinese universities, the results indicated high levels of target needs but low levels of self-efficacy of EGAP among the Chinese university EFL learners. Students at a research-oriented university demonstrated higher levels of target needs and self-efficacy than their counterparts at teaching-oriented universities. Medical students demonstrated higher levels of lacks and wants than students in other majors. Structural equation modelling analysis showed positive relationships between Chinese learners’ necessities and self-efficacy in EGAP. Learners’ lacks had significantly negative relationships with self-efficacy, while their wants had inconsistent relationships with the five dimensions of self-efficacy. The findings deepen our understanding of learners’ target needs and have implications for enhancing learners’ self-efficacy in the EGAP context.

Unsettling Experiences: Factors That Discourage International Students From Desiring Research and Teaching Careers

It is estimated that one-third of students completing their doctoral study in the United States are international. This is notable because the higher education socialization processes for international students are uniquely challenging, yet little scholarship has addressed how these challenges influence doctoral students’ pursuits of faculty careers. Employing multi-institutional data from the U.S. research-intensive universities, this study examined how interpersonal socialization difficulties (based in linguistic challenges, cultural differences, and identity-based bias/discrimination) with peers, faculty, and staff were associated with declined interest in pursuing faculty positions at research-oriented universities and teaching-oriented universities. The results indicated that international doctoral students who experienced interpersonal challenges due to cultural conflicts were more likely to lose interest in faculty positions. U.S. higher education is recommended to help both international doctoral students and people around them to minimize communication difficulties of cultural differences to retain international talents who can be future international faculty.

외국인 교원의 채용과 역할 수행 과정에서 나타난 디커플링 연구

This study has been conducted to examine the decoupling patterns and causes of universities in the process of hiring international academics and performing their roles. To address this questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 international, Korean academics and staffs working at research-oriented universities, teaching-oriented universities, and universities that focus on both teaching and research. As a result of the analysis, the pattern of decoupling was different depending on the mission of the university. In research-oriented universities, 1) emphasis on the symbolic role of the internationalization, 2) alienation in the decision-making process, and 3) preference for international academics for window dressing have appeared. On the other hand, in teaching-oriented universities, 1) preference for international academics in contract positions to meet the full-time academics’ retention rate, and 2) cost-saving recruitment that did not consider actual role performance in the face of financial difficulties have been observed. In the case of universities that focus on both teaching and research, 1) the quantitative emphasis on research performance and 2) the visibility of international academics were emphasized, showing the similar decoupling pattern to research-oriented universities.
 Through the analysis, factors that promote and reduce the expression of decoupling have been found. The promoters were 1) the global university rankings which are used as a mean to change the fixed higher education hierarchy, 2) government university evaluation indicators and 3) the need to manage the attraction of international students. On the other hand, factors that suppress the development of decoupling are 1) strong institutional entrepreneurs, 2) the governance of a new organization that does not have a fixed hierarchical relationship, 3) securing a critical mass that international academics can normally perform, and 4) a long-term leadership.

“What motivates me?” Motivation to conduct research of academics in teaching-oriented universities in China

Academics and universities pursue research productivity. The question of how to encourage quality research becomes essential for promoting the progress of knowledge, research management of universities, and career development of academics. Research motivation to conduct quality research has not yet been well addressed in the existing literature. This study adopted constructivist grounded theory to explore the research motivations of academics in tourism and hospitality in teaching-oriented universities. The findings from 32 semi-structured interviews from 16 universities in Mainland China (hereafter known as China) revealed the dynamics of research activities. This study expanded self-determination theory on research motivation scale (RMS). The axis of research motivations was constructed, with 11 subscales of research motivations, including “puzzle,” “vision,” “mission,” “metrics,” “weapon,” “ribbon,” “stage,” “gold,” “think tank,” “air” and “catalyst.”

Exploring Sustainable Measurements of Academic Research: How Do Faculty Members in Teaching-Oriented Universities of China Evaluate Good Research in Tourism and Hospitality?

Academic research contributes to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) of teaching-oriented universities in many ways, such as providing quality education, promoting the healthy and diverse development of academia, and satisfying the sustainable career development of faculty. In essence, research can facilitate knowledge advancement, dissemination, and innovation, while existing metrics are outcome-based, quantitatively measured, and have methodological and invalidity problems in achieving these orientations. This exploratory study adopted a qualitative research approach guided by constructivist grounded theory to explore the fundamental question of how to evaluate good research in tourism and hospitality. By conducting 32 in-depth interviews with full-time faculty members in 16 teaching-oriented universities in mainland China, the perceptions of good research were captured. The perceived measurements that evaluate good research were interpreted, including counting publications and research projects, citation analysis and peer review, contribution to teaching, contribution to societal service and industrial interaction, and building research teams. Finally, this study provided discussions about the orientations of academic research as well as authorships in research evaluation from the perspective of HEI sustainability.

The Finnish Academic Profession’s Divided Opportunities in Management and Governance

Finnish higher education consists of research-oriented universities and teaching-oriented universities of applied sciences, and both sectors have a role in research, development and innovation. This paper focuses on governance and management at the institutional and academic unit levels, based on responses to several questions in the APIKS survey regarding the influence of academics, performance targets of academic units and the influence of academics in decision making and workload. Institutions in both sectors of Finnish higher education emphasise strategies and are heavily reliant on public funding. Both sectors also have an orientation to strong performance management.

Ways To Succeed At Different Types Of Universities

The Russian academic sector can be characterized by university differentiation, which leads to differentiation of their goals and priorities. Governmental policies have stimulated the formation of a group of leading research universities. Different aims of universities mean there are different incentives for faculty. This paper estimates the “success” of Russian faculty in contemporary conditions. We measure success as the difference between an individual’s wage and the average university wage. We find that research-oriented universities pay great attention to the top journals, while for teaching-oriented universities journal rankings are of less importance – they need journals to be foreign. Time spent on teaching is not significant in teaching-oriented universities, while in research-oriented universities it is. Comparing the success of faculty in case they changed university shows that people from research-oriented universities could be more successful at teaching-oriented universities than their colleagues, while faculty of teaching-oriented universities would not be attractive employees for research-oriented universities.

Identifying and Overcoming Barriers to Integrating Sustainability across the Curriculum at a Teaching-Oriented University

This research collects and analyzes student and faculty knowledge and perceptions toward sustainability education at a predominately undergraduate, teaching-oriented university. In-depth, qualitative methods distinguish low- and high-knowledge student and faculty cohorts, identify perceived barriers to sustainability education in each cohort, and recognize strategies to overcome the barriers identified by each cohort. Data collected from recorded and transcribed semi-structured interviews of student and faculty subjects underwent analysis via repeated readings to uncover key themes. Results required developing metrics for student and faculty sustainability knowledge and attitudes across disciplines, determining discipline-specific gaps in sustainability knowledge and differences in attitudes, and relating implementation barriers to general or specific knowledge gaps and attitudes. Findings identified low and high levels of sustainability knowledge within the student and faculty subject population and revealed barriers in pursuing interdisciplinary sustainability curricula across disciplines and among both students and faculty at the study university. Overall, higher sustainability knowledge participants tend to identify barriers related to institutional accountability while lower sustainability knowledge participants tend to identify barriers related to personal responsibility. Distributing barriers and solutions along a continuum from personal responsibility to educational institution responsibility reveals more recognition of barriers at the personal level and more solutions proposed at the institutional level. This result may reflect a common tendency to deny personal responsibility when addressing sustainability challenges.

Exploring the factors of pursuing a master’s degree in South Korea

The aim of this study is to explore the various factors involved in pursuing a master’s degree for university graduates in South Korea. After reviewing theoretical frameworks, including human and social capital theories, an analytical model was constructed to examine the different academic and economic factors involved in pursuing a master’s degree, considering different institutional backgrounds. The data used were collected from the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey conducted by the Korean Employment Information Service. We obtained the data from 11,960 respondents who graduated from university in 2013. Descriptive statistics and logistics regression were used in the analysis. The results show that gender, age and family socioeconomic status affected students’ decision to pursue a master’s degree. In addition, academic background factors, such as discipline, satisfaction with undergraduate study and intrinsic motivation for the choice of major, had positive effects on enrolment in master’s degrees. However, active participation in the job search process during undergraduate study had negative effects on the decision. Students in research universities in major cities were more likely to pursue a master’s degree than those in teaching-oriented universities in local provinces. This study has implications for the motivations, demands and career paths of postgraduate students taking master’s degrees.

Driving Factors for Converting Teaching-Oriented Universities Into Entrepreneurial Universities

In order to accelerate economic growth, many countries have developed and implemented different programs and mechanisms. Benefiting universities' knowledge production and human capacity are one of those mechanisms and therefore entrepreneurial universities, in particular, are considered as a strategic factor in order to realize this target. While in many advanced economies, mainly in Europe and United States, entrepreneurial universities have been established over the years, but this has not been realized in emerging economies. Against this background and the activities found in Turkey, this article sheds light on the current state of Turkish universities regarding their development into entrepreneurial universities. Main findings show that existence of IP policy and TTO is driving factors for entrepreneurial universities. In addition, IP awareness activities in the campus, novelty search and using patent during academic promotion motivates universities to become more entrepreneurial.

Highlighting the Humanistic Spirit in the Age of Globalization: Humanities Education in China

The essay first describes the Chinese intellectual condition in the age of globalization and the necessity of liberal arts or humanities education, and then deals with the function of humanities education in China’s institutions of higher learning with Tsinghua University as the particular case. Since current Chinese universities are divided into three types: (1) research universities; (2) teaching-research universities; and (3) teaching-oriented universities, liberal arts education always plays an important part in students’ comprehensive schooling although in most of the research universities priority is given to science and technology. As China has a long tradition of humanities education, even long before the establishment of those Western type universities, offering humanities education to all the university students as a major educational task has never changed. Even during the Cultural Revolution when all the universities stopped teaching and research work, students and faculty members were still educated with Mao’s instructions. Along with the rapid development of Chinese economy, traditional humanities are suffering more or less. But the author argues that no matter how rapidly the Chinese economy has been developing and how well Chinese people are pursuing the so-called Chinese Dream, it is necessary to pay attention to the humanities and to offer humanities education to young students. The author also offers his reconstruction of Neo-Confucianism as an alternative discourse to various postmodern discourses in the new framework of global culture.

Herding Cats? Management and University Performance

Using a tried and tested measure of management practices that has been shown to predict firm performance, we survey nearly 250 departments across 100+ UK universities. We find large differences in management scores across universities and that departments in older, research-intensive universities score higher than departments in newer, more teaching-oriented universities. We also find that management matters in universities. The scores, particularly with respect to provision of incentives for staff recruitment, retention and promotion are correlated with both teaching and research performance conditional on resources and past performance. Moreover, this relationship holds for all universities, not just research-intensive ones.

Becoming a Scholar: Everything I Needed to Know I Learned on Sabbatical

<p>This manuscript discusses matters of professional development for tenured business professors at teaching-oriented universities. These faculty members are at particular risk of a career plateau accompanied by diminished productivity and satisfaction. Employing autoethnographic methods, the author reflects on his personal experience and posits initiatives for career revitalization.</p>

The Importance of Digitization in Teaching-Oriented University and College Libraries

An increasing number of university and college libraries have started digitization programs and there are good reasons why they are doing so. First, we are in the middle of revolutionary change as to how ideas get published and distributed. Over 50 percent of scholarly publishing has gone digital and over 20 percent has gone open access. Governments worldwide are beginning to require tax-supported research be published in open access venues. Secondly, it is imperative that they increase their Archives’ digital presence. Preserving institutional histories is currently being lost because of the entirely digital way academic staff now communicate and many archives continue to preserve only paper records. While all non-research-oriented institutions of higher education do produce some scholarship, they should also consider what local information their schools create that could also be published and made available digitally worldwide. Librarians are perfectly placed in our society to know quality research materials so we need to be a part of new publishing solutions. It’s wise to step up now, create new initiatives to be a part of the new information provision scene. It may just help to save the library as an educational institution and center for institutional historical preservation.

Implementation of Increased Scholarship in a Unionized Teaching-Oriented University

Implementation of Increased Scholarship in a Unionized Teaching-Oriented University

Students' Views of Academic Aural/Oral Skills: A Comparative Needs Analysis

In this study, 768 ESL students at three different tertiary institutions—a community college, a teaching-oriented university, and a research-oriented university—responded to a survey (adapted from Ferris & Tagg, 1996a, 1996b) about their college instructors' requirements regarding listening and speaking skills, their own difficulties in meeting those requirements, and the relative importance of seven selected academic aural/oral skills or tasks. A subsample (n = 476) of the students' survey responses was then compared with those of 206 instructors at the same institutions to assess the degree of agreement between the two groups of informants. The findings showed statistically significant differences in the students' responses across several contextual and student demographic variables. In addition, the students' and professors' responses differed dramatically on most survey items as well as in the aural/oral skills rankings. The study therefore raises implications not only for listening and speaking instruction but also for the interpretation of needs analysis data.

Quantitative Atfiitudes Questionnaire: Instrument Development and Validation

This article reports on the development and validation of the Quantitative Attitudes Questionnaire (QAQ), a 20-item instrument measuring graduate students' attitudes toward quantitative research methodology. The QAQ was developed in a sample of 90 graduate students in education and was cross validated in 3 additional samples of similar size. The QAQ was found to correlate positively with quantitative exams and self-reported GRE-Math scores, and to differentiate doctoral versus master's students and students from research-versus teaching-oriented universities.

Academic Oral Communication Needs of EAP Learners: What Subject-Matter Instructors Actually Require

One of the most vital steps in needs analysis for English for academic purposes (EAP) is to describe the expectations and requirements of instructors at a variety of institutions and across a range of contexts. Though much work has been done in identifying academic literacy tasks, little attention has been thus far paid to describing the listening and speaking tasks required by instructors in academic settings. To examine and describe these expectations and requirements, we surveyed over 900 professors at four different institutions: a community college, a public teaching-oriented university, a public research-oriented university, and a private university. The results demonstrated that instructors' requirements vary across academic discipline, type of institution, and class size. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses also indicated that U.S. instructors' lecturing styles are becoming less formal and more interactive and that this trend places new expectations upon the students. The implications for EAP teaching are that genre-specific listening/speaking courses and tasks may be necessary and that EAP teachers need to prepare students for comprehension of and participation in a variety of lecture/discussion formats.