大学学术文化与大学学术生产力

大学学术文化包括大学的学科文化与院校文化两个部分,前者是学者的专业忠诚形成之源,后者是大学内部相对稳定而独特的社会心理环境。它们构成大学学术的“生产力场”,具有目标导向、激励和凝聚以及软约束等功能。但是,大学学术文化的浮躁与功利、管理文化与学术文化的冲突,却带来了优良大学学术文化的缺失与薄弱。大学应树立学术至上、自由宽松、团结协作和公平竞争的学术文化,有效促进大学学术生产力的发展。     

Social support,academic adversity and academic buoyancy: a person-centred analysis and implications for academic outcomes

The present study employed person-centred analyses that enabled identification of groups of students separated on the basis of their perceptions of social support (home and community), academic support, academic adversity and academic buoyancy. Among a sample of 249 young people, including many from high-needs communities, cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups of students: the thriver, supported struggler and at-risk struggler. We compared the three groups on their academic motivation. Analyses revealed significant differences between groups in adaptive motivation outcomes, but no differences in impeding or maladaptive motivation outcomes. Combined, the results speak to the importance of support and academic buoyancy for positive student outcomes.     

A three-phase examination of academic comparative optimism and perceived academic control

Early academic perceptions are critical to undergraduate students' success in college. This 3-phase study examined stability of and links between academic comparative optimism (ACO; positive expectations about future performance) and perceived academic control (PAC; sense of influence over academic outcomes) among 68 undergraduate students. ACO and PAC were assessed at the start, midway through, and at the end of a semester and a cross-lagged panel analysis tested which academic perception better predicted the other. We also examined early ACO and PAC as predictors of later achievement. Students' ACO and PAC were fairly stable throughout the semester. Regression analyses (controlling for course load, prior achievement, and prior ACO or PAC) indicated ACO predicted PAC more so than the reverse, suggesting students may boost their PAC via optimistic social comparisons. Early ACO predicted later performance. Implications for enhancing ACO and PAC early in the academic year are discussed.     

Researcher-led academic development

In this study, members of a higher education department explore their research activity and how it influences their practice as academic developers in a research-led institution. While the research activities of the team members appear diverse, they are all underpinned by a shared set of professional values to provide an anchor for these activities. Research-as-pedagogy and the relationship between the discourses of research and teaching are explored using Bernstein’s knowledge structures. The authors conclude that differences in research focus (horizontal discourse) provide dynamism across a department and that stability is provided through the underpinning core values inherent in the vertical discourse.     

Promoting academic satisfaction and performance: Building academic resilience through coping strategies

The aim of this article is twofold: (a) to validate the psychometric properties of the Academic Resilience Scale (AR‐S) in a Spanish university context; and (b) to test a model where different coping strategies are antecedents of AR, and where academic satisfaction and performance are its consequences. The studies were conducted with 185 (study 1) and 780 (study 2) students. In study 1, the construct validity, reliability, and convergent and divergent validity of the AR‐S were analyzed. The hypothesized model (study 2) was tested using structural equation modeling. The results confirmed the good psychometric properties of the AR‐S in the Spanish context, providing evidence of its validity. Furthermore, the distinctive role of different coping strategies in resilience was confirmed, as well as the relationship between resilience and academic satisfaction. No direct relationship between resilience and performance was found, highlighting the full mediation of satisfaction.     

The Japanese academic profession

The historical background to the emergence of the Japanese system of higher education is described, attention being drawn to the link established between national aims and those of the university and to the system of gakubatsu (a form of patronage for graduates of a particular university). Post World War II expansion brought junior colleges (tanki-daigaku) into the sphere of higher education as well as universities (daigaku). Though formally and legally these classes of institution are equal they are in fact ranked according to the old system. Within universities there is also a ranking which is reinforced by gakubatsu. This ranking limits mobility in the academic profession; academic staff are likely to spend all their careers, undergraduate, postgraduate and as faculty members, at the same university. This system prevents Japanese scholars from taking posts abroad though it must also be pointed out that many Japanese academics go to great lengths to remain fully acquainted with western scholarship.     

Proficiency at academic studying

This article presents a hypothetical model, based largely on extant laboratory research, of (a) attributes of proficiency at academic studying, and (b) course features that should act to promote and support students' engagement in sustained self-directed learning. This ideal model is contrasted with normative study behavior as indexed by results from a recent survey of adolescents' study activities. Principles regarding the way in which course demands and supports act to inhibit study proficiency in academic settings are discussed.     

Re-integrating academic development and academic language and learning: a call to reason

This paper argues for the re-integration of academic development (AD) and a academic language and learning (ALL) practitioners in Australian higher education. This argument is made as universities aim to develop internationally recognised, inter-disciplinary and standards-based curricula against the backdrop of international comparative education (e.g., Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the Australian Qualifications Framework and a quality emphasis on English language standards (e.g., Tertiary Education Quality and Assessment Agency). Drawing on Rowland's argument that professional life in the academy has become fragmented across five fault lines ([2002]. Overcoming fragmentation in professional life: The challenge for academic development. Higher Education Quarterly, 56(1), 52–64), I propose a sixth: the pedagogical fault line between language and learning which I argue is institutionally manifest in the historical bifurcation of AD and ALL practitioners in the academy. This paper traces the historical separation of these two fields of practice in Australian higher education in order to disturb the present distinction and show how it is more an accident of history than the result of sound pedagogical decision-making. The paper argues that in the current educational context, it is timely to consider a re-integration of these two aspects of the academic field. It is suggested that such a move will create research and teaching connections that develop synergies in educational development that are able to work with language and learning simultaneously.     

Sustaining motivation and academic goals: The role of academic delay of gratification

This study examined college students' academic delay of gratification; that is, their preference for an immediately available option (e.g., go to a favorite concert the day before a test even though the student is not well-prepared) or a delayed alternative (e.g., stay home studying to get later a good grade in the course). Academic delay of gratification, its motivational determinants (i.e., importance, utility, interest, perceived cost of success, and social expectancy), and students' use of motivation regulation strategies were examined among students identified on the basis of their task-goal orientation, performance-approach-goal orientation, and performance-avoidance-goal orientation using a hierarchical cluster analysis (N = 102). The results supported the notion that academic delay of gratification and its motivational determinants differed as a function of goal orientation. Students in Cluster 1, the high task-goal oriented learners, are high in delay of gratification and have high motivation. Students in Cluster 2, labeled combined high task-high-performance approach, considered the delay of gratification's alternatives as important and useful while perceiving the nondelay alternatives as highly interested and socially beneficial. Students in Cluster 3 were low in all of the three goal orientations and reported low preference for delay of gratification. Academic delay of gratification was discussed in view of the macro-analytic model of Mischel's cognitive—affective personality system.     

Bilingualism and academic achievement

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort, this study examines the role that bilingualism plays in children's academic developmental trajectories during their early school years, with particular attention on the school environment (N = 16,380). Growth-curve results showed that despite starting with lower math scores in kindergarten, Mixed Bilingual children fully closed the math gap with their White English Monolingual peers by fifth grade. However, because non-English-Dominant Bilinguals and non-English Monolinguals started kindergarten with significantly lower reading and math scores compared to their English Monolingual peers, by fifth grade the former groups still had significantly lower scores. School-level factors explained about one third of the reductions in the differences in children's academic performance.     

The construction of academic time: sub/contracting academic labour in research

In 2009, the South African Department of Education extended tuition fee abolition to schools serving the poorest 60% of students, increased from 40% in 2007. This policy intends to increase access to and longevity in school for the poorest households by removing fees as a barrier and replacing private revenue with increased state funds. Despite this progressive expansion of fee-free schooling, the reported frequency of non-attendance attributable to school fees increased from 2008 to 2009, particularly among poor females and primary-aged children. This paper attempts to explain this phenomenon by presenting three constraints that hamper the potential benefits of fee abolition: (1) the rationalization of educational expenditures; (2) perverse incentives for schools to exclude non-paying children; and (3) the poor targeting mechanisms of fee abolition and government spending. As a result, we find significant lags in the implementation of fee elimination and that many poor households are still required to pay user fees. Several finance policy options are recommended for the South African schooling system. Data originate from South Africa’s National Treasury and General Household Survey.     

Gender equity in the academic labor market: an analysis of academic disciplines

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze the effect of human capital, structural characteristics of the discipline, and disciplinary labor market conditions on faculty salaries. Faculty in disciplines characterized by relatively low demand, high teaching loads, and low amounts of research funding earn less than do faculty in other disciplines. Additionally, even after controlling for an array of individual and disciplinary characteristics, women faculty members earn less than their male peers.     

Collaborative argumentation in academic education

The general purpose of this research is todiscover principles for the design ofeducational tasks that provoke collaborativeargumentation. The specific research questionconcentrates on the relationship betweenquestion asking and argumentation and isexamined in three different collaborativelearning tasks involving advanced universitystudents. These studies aim at providingcriteria for organising educational situationsthat elicit argumentation during which opinionschange and new knowledge is being created,within constraints (course duration, examcriteria, student expectations) set by currenthigher education. We discuss some factorsinfluencing argumentation (the role of thestudent, peer, tutor, task, instruction andmedium) and specific attention is paid toquestion asking. Then we report three studiesconducted at our educational department. Thesestudies involve comparable students, a similardomain, but differ in many other respects: themode of communication (oral, typewritten), thepresence of the tutor, instruction onargumentation and/or question asking, assignedtask goals (competition, consensus), and thetype of required outcome. Each study revealsprominence of different types of questions andquestion generation mechanisms. In addition,the relations found between question asking andargumentation change between studies. Incomparing and interpreting these studies, wediscuss results in the light of provokingcollaborative argumentation in regular academiclearning situations.     

Critique in academic disciplines and active learning of academic content

This article argues for increased theoretical specificity in the active learning process. Whereas constructivist learning emphasizes construction of meaning, the process articulated here complements meaning construction with disciplinary critique. This process is an implication of how disciplinary communities generate new knowledge claims, which is comprised by an interaction of roles – authors construct claims and peers critique them. Because disciplinary critique drives and shapes generation of knowledge claims, specialized features of these claims both justify and define their meaning. Here science is offered as an example, in which critique drives measurement of key concepts, thereby anchoring their meaning in operational definitions. The account of active learning proposed sheds new light on both historical and contemporary characterizations of active learning in terms of taking a critical stance toward content, in which the learner questions and challenges content. Thus students, rather than teachers, should actively challenge their emerging understanding of content.     

Game addiction and academic achievement

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between game addiction and academic achievement. The secondary aim was to adapt a self-report instrument to measure game addiction. Three hundred and seventy high school students participated in this study. Data were collected via an online questionnaire that included a brief explanation of the aim of the study, demographical questions, game addiction scale (GAS) and the grade point average of the current year. The GAS had two forms: (i) 21-item and (ii) 7-item. Game addiction and academic achievement were negatively correlated but this correlation was not supported by regression and structural equation modelling analyses. The present study primarily suggests that there may be a negative correlation between game addiction and academic achievement; however, this correlation may be qualified as negligible. In addition, the two forms of the GAS were adapted for Turkish language with reliability and validity to measure computer and video game addiction in adolescents as promising instruments.     

Frustrated academic writers

This paper aims to start a conversation about a common yet under-examined emotion experienced by academic writers worldwide: frustration. What is frustration, exactly? What are its causes and effects, its symptoms and its cures? Is frustration an impediment to writing or a motivational impetus? Can academic writers vanquish frustration, or must we merely learn to live with it? Mirroring rather than mastering the complexities of this multifaceted emotion, we have structured our inquiry as a multiple-entry maze where frustration unfolds beyond each threshold as uncharted terrain: a place of neurological explanations, playful etymological twists and metaphorical metamorphoses. The paper re-enacts our own collaborative journey through the maze, meditating on and modelling some of the frustration-easing strategies that we developed along the way.     

弘学术之独立品格

本文从学术人独立人格的塑造和学术机构独立法人资格的维护两个方面出发 ,阐述了保证学术活动的相对独立性的重要性和必要意义 ,指出 :维护学术独立的品格 ,是学术生命得以延续和发展的根本要求     

论学术生态视域下学术期刊的社会责任

学术期刊负有遏制学术不端行为的社会责任,对营造良好学术生态的形成具有重要的作用。学术期刊的社会责任主要表现在引领科学研究方向、实现研究成果的积极转化、促进学术界之间的交流、奖掖与培养学界新人等方面。为了有效发挥学术期刊的社会责任,需要加强学术期刊的制度化建设,提升编辑的个人素养,切实提高所发论文的质量;同时,在经费上,政府和所在单位对学术期刊应予以大力支持。