Thesis advisor: Philip G. Altbach / Liberal arts education is an emerging phenomenon in China. However, under the pressure of exam-oriented education, memorization, and lecture pedagogy, faculty, university administrators and policy makers have not embraced it whole-heartedly. Through qualitative methodology, this study explores the current thinking of Chinese policy makers, university administrators, and faculty members on liberal arts education and its challenges. A study of the perceptions of 96 Chinese government and university administrators and faculty members regarding liberal arts education through document analysis and interviews at three universities helps in comprehending the process of an initiative in educational policy in contemporary Chinese universities. This research analyzes Chinese policy making at the institutional and national levels on curriculum reform with particular emphasis on the role of education in shaping well-rounded global citizens, and it examines how the revival of liberal arts education in China would produce college graduates with the creativity, critical thinking, moral reasoning, innovation and cognitive complexity needed for social advancement and personal integration in a global context. This research also found that the revival of interest in liberal arts education in China demonstrated that government and universities have begun to realize that the current curricula, professional training, and narrowly specialized education fail to help students to be competent in a globalized economy, and liberal arts is valued in China, and will be more effective as politics, economy and society more developed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of students from China's Henan province regarding inequities they experience in the Chinese higher education system based solely on their geography. Henan students are required to score higher than students from other provinces on the Chinese National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) in order to apply for admission into Chinese top tier universities. Yet despite having higher scores than their peers from other provinces and meeting all admissions requirements, Henan students have little guarantee of admission. The study systematically reviews the history of the Chinese higher education system to contextualize the impact of current NCEE policies and procedures. The perceptions of six Henan students currently studying in the top tiered Chinese University were gathered using qualitative interviews and explored for commonalities and differences. The students’ responses reveal a range of feelings from anger to acceptance, and even gratitude for the ways the inequities impacted their lives. This work increases our understanding of the link between geography and access to Chinese top tiered university and the effects of that link on students from Henan province. / School of Education; / Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program for Education Leaders (IDPEL) / EdD; / Dissertation;

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In the light of growing concerns regarding the quality of higher education after a period of rapid expansion, in 2003, the Chinese government launched the Undergraduate Teaching Evaluation (UTE), the first nation-wide evaluation of universities. In 2008, the UTE was replaced by the Quality Project, which signalled a change in its quality assurance approach, with a move from evaluations to the issuing of awards. In order to investigate the impact of the two national quality assurance policies, along with the impact of two long-standing internal quality assurance mechanisms employed by universities - class observation and student evaluation of teachers - on teaching, the researcher adopted policy analysis and a case study approach. Three different universities in the same region were selected as cases. Semi-structured interviews with 56 heads of department and teachers across three departments at each university were conducted. National and university policy documents, as well as interview data, were analysed thematically in the light of concepts derived from the political sciences, namely Knoepfel et al.'s (2007; 2011) framework for policy analysis and Schneider and Ingram's (1990) classification of policy tools. University policies and interview data revealed the patterns of impact of these two quality assurance policies. Faced with the UTE inspection, universities shifted their focus from assuring the quality of teaching to achieving good results in the exercise and therefore engaging in 'game-playing'. In order to ensure good UTE results, universities even resorted to the manipulation of data. University policies resulting from the UTE required teachers to produce standardised documents and to follow particular procedures. The majority of interviewed teachers regarded the impact of the UTE with cynicism, seeing it as a waste of time and effort, an interference with academic freedom, and believing it had the effect of undermining ethics. However, some teachers reported as positive impact of the fact that the UTE helped to keep teachers disciplined, and that it provided an impetus for ensuring teaching quality. Interview data showed that the Quality Project awards only had an impact on the award winners, who perceived the incentives on offer to be substantial. These award winners considered the acknowledgement given by the awards and the information obtained through reflection and good examples as valuable impacts. However, the Quality Project awards did not have impact on non-award winners, i.e. the majority of teachers. This study revealed that in order to have impact the institutional practices of class observation and the student evaluation of teachers relied on a number of conditions being in place. These practices had impact when the stakes were high or when university teachers received valid and reliable feedback. Whilst high stakes were found to lead to mixed impact, valid and reliable feedback contributed to the improvement of teaching. This study contributes to the understanding of the impact of quality assurance policies and mechanisms on teaching in Chinese higher education, an area that has not yet been the subject of significant empirical research. Covering the two major quality assurance policies in recent years, and also the institutional mechanisms teachers face, this research was able to capture the interdependence between these policies. No such research has previously been conducted in the context of Chinese higher education. In regard to the theoretical aspect of the research, the empirical evidence that was collected and a comprehensive review of other empirical research enabled the development of an Impact Framework. The Impact Framework identified patterns in the impact of various quality assurance policy tools and revealed their inherent strengths and weaknesses. Hence, the Impact Framework can serve in the future as an important reference for policy-makers who are seeking to design and implement effective quality assurance policy tools.

In recent decades, China has stood out for its active social experiment with its state-market relations and educational reforms to build internationally competitive universities. Students, as recipients of and participants in these changes, showed stakeholder awareness, subjectivity, and agency in navigating the Chinese university system, but their influence on university decision-making was unclear. Informed by a theoretical framework that incorporated the study of higher education internationalization, the associated concepts of student engagement, and a social, cultural, and institutional examination of the global-local interactions, this study explored student engagement with institutional governance in Chinese universities. Grounded in an interpretivist perspective, the research employed qualitative methods to unpack students’ knowledge construction, referential framework, and constant negotiation. Research questions addressed action patterns, conceptual rationales, and the deciding powers in student engagement. This research provided a contextual analysis of policy practices, individual student experiences, and the possible impact on the international outlook of Chinese higher education. Findings pinpointed overarching power relations within the institutional foundations of Chinese university structures, as they were highly intertwined with the university’s political priorities to create a neutral and stable campus. This is evident in the monopoly of the Communist Youth League in student activities, the institutionalization of student leadership, and the daily supervision of student counsellors. While the students were invited to participate in the peripheral structure of university governance, this structure, in turn, assimilated student voices and dissolved student unrest in the process. In the meantime, the investigation found informal interactions inspired sporadic student actions in spaces with lower-level institutionalization to push against the administrative boundaries. Students demonstrated an exceptional understanding of university power relations and their ability to act purposefully and strategically. Despite substantive internationalization efforts of Chinese HEIs, the analysis did not suggest internationalization had a direct significant connection with student engagement in Chinese university governance. Nonetheless, Western influences on current student-university interactions were manifested in the use of instructional models, the increased use of the English language, and a vision shaped by external knowledge towards more progressive campuses. The significance of this thesis is both scholarly and practical. This study identified the realities of Chinese higher education and the paucity of academic discussion on the student experience in Chinese universities. This research responded to the challenge of accommodating an understanding of the non-Anglo-Saxon experience with student engagement in mainstream theories developed largely in Western contexts. For policymakers and educators, the thesis highlighted the under-explored political dimensions of internationalization and the conditions for meaningful learning and engagement. / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to assess the status of institutional stakeholders’ perceptions and application of shared governance on an American higher education campus and a counterpart in China and determine if there were differences among the groups of stakeholders both within and between the institutions. Significant differences were found among the four categories of participants at the Chinese institution. For the General Acceptance dimension of the Perceptions of Shared Governance Inventory (PSGI) the Chinese staff members reported significantly higher scores than all the other three categories. For the Implementation dimension, staff members and the students scored significantly higher than the administrators and the faculty members. For the two dimensions of the Application of Shared Governance Inventory (ASGI), administrators reported significantly higher scores than the other categories. At the participating American university, a significant difference was found between the students and the administrators in the General Acceptance dimension. Comparisons between the American institution and the Chinese institution found that the Chinese faculty members scored significantly higher than Americans in the General Acceptance dimension, but the American faculty members scored significantly higher in both the General Acceptance and the Implementation dimensions. Chinese staff members and the Chinese students scored significantly higher than Americans in both the General Acceptance and the Implementation dimensions, but the American staff members and the American students scored significantly higher in both the General Acceptance and the Implementation dimensions. Also, years of service plays a significant role in two Chinese groups.

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