Research output in Australian university research centres in economics

During the 1980's, there has been considerable concentration of research resources into Centres of Excellence within higher education, in the belief that greater research output per capita would result. This article tests this belief for Australian university-based research centres in economics, recognizing that the conclusions may not be applicable to other disciplines.Using a method which assigns points to publications according to the quality of the journal in which they appear, the research output of staff in six research centres was compared with that of lecturers in teaching departments of economics. Research centre staff were estimated to have 75 per cent greater time per head to carry out research. For the period 1974–78 and 1979–83 respectively, research output per capita in the research centres was 75 and 59 per cent greater than that of teaching departments. When time is taken into account, then, the evidence does not support the belief that research centres in economics are more productive. In the Australian context, it may be noted, there is little qualitative difference in the research produced by research centres and that of teaching departments.     

大学教育研究机构的主要任务是进行院校研究

以单个院校的实际问题为研究对象,以改进管理实践为目的,具有自我研究、咨询研究、行动研究为特征的院校研究,应该成为多数大学教育研究机构的主要任务。为此,要明确大学发展过程是一个创造过程;决策者和研究者都要转变观念、提高认识;通过制度设计,使院校研究活动“组织化”。     

Commercialization of research: a case study of Australian universities

Research commercialization is a crucial aspect of technological innovation and is a complex socio‐economic and technological process. This paper explores the commercialization of university research, drawing on an empirical study of the development of research commercialization by Australian universities. The study addresses three main research questions: (i) What are the recent major policy changes affecting the commercialization of university research in Australia? (ii) How much have Australian universities done in research commercialization over the past few years? (iii) What are the key barriers to the achievement of higher levels of commercialization in university research? The findings of this study show that there are two fundamental issues that universities have to address: (i) adequate financial support from governments, industries, and other stakeholders; and (ii) effective innovation management with academic entrepreneurship. Because the issues and problems covered in this study are common to many countries, the study has international applications and provides policymakers and practitioners with valuable information to assist them in the development of organizational strategies in the commercialization of innovative university research.     

Changing the culture: The governance of the Australian pre-millennial university

Australian universities have undergone considerable reform in the past decade. What is seen as the 'unkindest cut of all' has been a more conservative federal government's substantial economic cut-backs in higher education from 1996 onwards. They have precipitated profound changes in its culture as the university becomes privatised, marketised, globalised and increasingly student-driven. In these shifts, the deregulated higher education sector is operating out of a 'busnocratic' rationality where choice and positional advantage are integral to market logic. This paper explores how universities are responding rapidly to fiscal stringency through the adoption of tactics and strategies which appropriate the operation of business for the governance of university culture     

The student-centered research university

After definition and explanation of the concept of the student-centered research university, the idea of the student-centered course is explained. Finally, faculty concerns about this model are discussed.These remarks were first presented at the Academic Affairs Faculty Symposium at the University of Georgia in 1994.Gershon Vincow is the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Syracuse University. He received the Ph.D. from Columbia University in Chemistry, also the field of his M.A. and A.B. degrees. He has taught and conducted research in physical chemistry, and his current particular interest is issues of renewal in higher education with emphasis on student-centered and learning-centered approaches.     

Transition from school: A review of Australian research

With rising rates of unemployment amongst young people in Australia as in other industrialised countries, considerable research has been undertaken on the transition from school: nearly 500 studies have been done in the past five years. This paper reviews them.The assumption of most researchers is that the major transition from school is to work. Other transitions, such as from adolescence to adulthood, are relatively neglected. Although the issue is approached from four main disciplinary standpoints — educational, psychological, social and economic — the theoretical assumptions and practical conclusions can be put in the two categories of supply and demand. Supply is preparing young people for roles, on the assumption that better preparation will not only raise employability, but might also call jobs into being. Demand can mean creating new jobs in the private and public sectors, developing new forms of cooperative employment, or reallocating the jobs which already exist through work-sharing, more part-time work, early retirement for older people or rewarding some groups to refrain from wage employment.The impression is that policy is not led by research, but that research is stimulated by policy and action. The roles of research indeed are mainly design, monitoring and evaluation. Four gaps in research in Australia are identified: better social book-keeping, longitudinal studies, rigorous case-studies and policy analysis.     

Administrative service and research performance: A study of chemistry department heads

This study explores the effect of administrative service as department chair on the scholarly careers of academic chemists through an analysis of their publication and doctoral student productivity records over a two-decade period. A longitudinal experimental design is employed with a control group of academic chemists who have not served in an administrative capacity throughout the equivalent time period. The results of the study indicate no significant difference in the publication and doctoral student productivity levels of the experimental and control groups. These results suggest that universities have been successful in attracting and retaining the services of productive scholars as department heads and that such service does not diminish their long-term scholarly productivity.Presented at the 24th Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Fort Worth, Tex., May 1984.     

工科研究型大学博士生培养质量问题研究——基于博士学位论文价值感的实证分析

博士生对博士学位论文的价值感是影响博士学位论文质量的要因。本研究对典型工科研究型A大学的博士生进行随机抽样,调查了他们对其博士学位论文的价值感,用多元回归分析方法对影响博士学位论文价值感的主要因素做了实证研究。研究发现工科博士生的年龄、研究兴趣、未来发展方向、课题关联度、导师指导满意度等因素对其博士学位论文的价值感存在显著影响,基于以上结论提出了针对博士学位论文质量提高和改进的建议。     

创业型大学:研究型大学的挑战和机遇

2 0世纪下半叶 ,部分研究型大学奋起创新创业 ,造就了一种全新的大学模式 :创业型大学。创业型大学以提高国家竞争力、生产率以及国家和民族的创业创新精神为己任 ,以提高国家和地区的经济实力和水平为目标。创业型大学的这种“社会服务”改造和提升了大学第三功能的形式与内容 ,也改造了传统研究型大学的精神和面貌     

The professional development of Australian university teachers: An act of faith?

Teaching is the major professional activity of academic staff in Australian universities. Much disquiet about the quality of this teaching has been expressed by governments, committees of enquiry, students and by academics. There have been several attempts to improve the quality of university teaching, all of which have been considerable acts of faith. The persistence of disquiet, however, suggests that past efforts to improve the quality of university teaching have not been completely successful. An analysis of universities as organizations, of the characteristics of academic staff, and of the change process in universities leads to a number of conclusions about why past attempts to improve teaching may not have been as successful as hoped. First, the problem of improving teaching is extraordinarily complex. Complexity is inherent in the organizational character of universities and in the characteristics of academic staff and their work. Second, the attempts made to deal with the teaching problem are novel: the major responses to improving teaching did not come until the early-mid 1970s. Third, there was - and still is - a weak theoretical and knowledge base for action and, finally, the focus on developing individuals may not have been the best focus for teaching improvement strategies.     

大学生学习自由与高校学分制教学管理制度改革探析

本文从保障学生学习自由权出发,认为保障大学生学习自由是高校教学管理制度改革的应有理念,反省高校教学管理制度中存在的制约学习自由的缺陷,提出高校学分制教学管理制度完善的具体措施。     

多校区大学管理研究

我国的多校区大学是在当前深化高等教育体制改革的过程中形成的 ,具有不同于国外多校区大学模式的特殊性。我国的多校区大学管理面临着一些基本问题 ,如实质性融合、集权与分权、组织成员对大学组织目标的认同、改善学科布局等。立足于我国高等教育改革实际对这些问题进行研究 ,具有重要的理论意义和现实意义     

Beyond teaching practice: Exploring individual determinants of student performance on a research skills module

The purpose of this study was to identify the extent to which intrinsic student factors such as cognitive learning style, learning strategies, motivation and statistics anxiety, as well as certain demographic factors, predict performance on a research design and analysis course (RDAIIA) in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, with a view to developing future interventions for improving student performance. Using a sample of eighty students, it was established that the factors most predictive of RDA performance were secondary school performance (p < 0.0001) and age (p = 0.0106). Excluding demographic factors, self-efficacy (p < 0.0001), help-seeking (p = 0.0531) and a reflective learning style (p = 0.0071) were also found to be predictive. Performance also differed between students who had completed Mathematics on the higher grade in secondary school and those who had completed standard grade (p = 0.016). These findings present both possible directions and substantial challenges for future performance-intervention strategies.     

大学英语教学的多元性研究

随着整个社会的不断发展,对大学英语教学的时代要求也在不断转变,对于高校英语教育的教学成果只会随着时间的推移要求变得越来越高。高校的英语教学也随着中国整体教育体制的变革而有所调整,本文就从高校英语教学的多样性入手,探讨大学英语多样性教学的现状以及多样性教学的重要性,分析多样性教学在大学英语教学领域能取得的实际效果。     

Causal attribution of performance in university examinations: A Filipino investigation

Causal attributions for success and failure at a forthcoming examination by 246 Filipino college freshmen, 64 male and 182 female, are examined. Although there is no data with which to compare the results of this study, it would appear that these young Filipinos generally possessed adaptive patterns of attribution. They ascribed possible success somewhat more to internal rather than external sources but attributed possible failure almost equally to these factors. Luck was perceived as being only of relatively minor importance. Internal success attribution was found to correlate significantly with satisfaction with success in three out of four cases. Effort attribution correlated significantly with the students' ratings of how hard they had tried. Contrary to U.S. research, the female respondents if anything possessed more adaptive patterns of attribution than their male peers. It is suggested that this has been a neglected area of cross-cultural research but one that should be of concern to all developing countries.     

Cosmopolitan tensions: religious diversity in an Australian university

This paper examines ideas of cosmopolitanism, particularly social theorists’ interests in a cosmopolitan ‘disposition’, to consider how religiously diverse students experience campus life in a multi-faith Australian university. We draw on data from focus-group interviews conducted with students from Muslim, Christian, Spiritual, and Atheist student-groups to contribute empirical insights into theoretical debates about cosmopolitanism. We show how students understand religious relations in a university campus in multiple ways; moving back and forth between relations of religious openness and tension in different institutional scenarios. In light of these findings, we reflect on the possibilities of fostering ‘cosmopolitan religiosity’ in higher-education settings and demonstrate the limits of a liberal multicultural approach to religious diversity.     

Changes in academic research performance over time: A study of institutional accumulative advantage

This study examines changes in institutional research performance over time by analyzing data from four national surveys of the American professoriate conducted between 1969 and 1988. To assess whether groups of institutions may be accumulating advantage relative to others, research activities are compared across five Carnegie institution types. Weights are created to adjust for sampling differences and research output measures are standardized to adjust for variation by discipline. Findings show an overall strengthening of research emphasis reflected by a stronger orientation toward research (more faculty holding Ph.D.'s and having a primary interest in research) and higher research output (grant and publication performance). While Research-I universities have retained their initial (1969) advantage, they have not accumulated more. Meanwhile, Doctoral-Granting-I universities have gained strength relative to Research-II institutions. Research at Comprehensive-I was also up, but at a slower rate than the other Carnegie groups.     

大学教师参与学院治理过程中的问题及策略研究——基于A大学的个案研究

学院治理是大学治理的前提和基础.大学教师作为人才培养、科学研究和文化传承创新的中流砥柱,参与学院治理能够增强决策的科学性和有效性.本研究运用扎根理论方法,以A大学为研究对象深入挖掘教师参与学院治理过程中存在的问题.研究发现,现有规章制度体系不完善、治理组织结构与运行机制不健全、教师参与动力不足、治理文化缺失是大学教师参与学院治理过程中面临的主要问题.基于此,本研究提出构建完善的学院治理制度体系,优化学院治理组织结构与机制,激发教师参与动力,营造协同共治的治理文化氛围等建议.