Comparative higher education: potentials and limits
Comparative higher education: potentials and limits
复制标题
比较高等教育：潜力与局限性
DOI：
10.1007/bf00133257
复制
发表时间：
1996
期刊：
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
U. Teichler
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
U. Teichler
高等教育研究是一个以广泛学科为基础的以目标为重点的领域。体制基础往往是不稳固和多样化的。尽管高等教育的研究受到了公众的广泛关注，但各种特征，特别是学者和反思性实践者之间的模糊界限，导致了相当大的紧张局势。近年来，欧洲高等教育研究者对高等教育比较研究的兴趣有所增加。由于它在概念上和方法上可能要求很高，而且富有成果，日益增长的兴趣可以促进加强共同特征和提高质量。然而，很少有比较研究设计代表了一个理想的类型，设置一个明确定义的假设进行测试的研究议程，如果他们这样做，研究大多是过于简单化，由于忽视了复杂的背景。相反，大多数比较项目是探索性的，在提供意想不到的洞察力方面最富有成效。此外，比较研究面临着许多实际问题。昂贵的研究似乎只有在解决当前政治关注的问题时才能获得足够的资金。语言障碍和实地知识的局限往往导致信息提供不足。国际合作研究团队往往是脆弱的，由于，除其他外，异质性的思想流派，螺旋上升的成本和不同的工作方式。作者认为，比较研究的高等教育是最富有成效的破坏概念推理的基础上狭隘的经验，他们是一个金矿的概念重建的早期阶段。它们对于理解由共同的国际趋势、基于比较观察的改革、日益增长的跨国活动和高等教育中的部分超国家一体化所形成的现实是不可或缺的。比较项目如果基于半结构化的研究设计，即分析各种概念方法在解释现象方面的优势，研究人员系统地处理项目可能产生需要重新调整最初概念框架的令人惊讶的信息这一事实，则在理论上和方法上最有前途。
Research on higher education is an object-focussed area based on a broad range of disciplines. The institutional base is often shaky and diverse. Various characteristics, notably the blurred distinction between the scholar and the reflective practitioner, contribute to considerable tensions, though research on higher education enjoys substantial public attention.Interest in comparative research on higher education grew in recent years and was reinforced by the community of higher education researchers in Europe. As it can be conceptually and methodologically demanding and fruitful, the growing interest could serve as a stimulus for enhancing a common identity and a growing quality. However, few comparative research designs represent the ideal type of setting a research agenda of clearly defined hypotheses to be tested, and if they do so, the study mostly turns out to be too simplistic due to disregard of the complex context. Rather, most comparative projects are exploratory and most productive in providing unexpected insight.In addition, comparative research faces many problems of a practical nature. Costly research seems to be granted sufficient funds only if it addresses issues of current political concern. Language barriers and limits of field knowledge often lead to a poor provision of information. International collaborative research teams tend to be vulnerable due to, among others, a heterogeneity of schools of thoughts, spiralling costs and different work styles.The author argues that comparative studies on higher education are most fruitful in destroying conceptual reasoning based on narrow experience; they are a gold mine for the early stages of conceptual restructuring. They are indispensible for understanding a reality shaped by common international trends, reforms based on comparative observation, growing trans-national activities and partial supra-national integration in higher education. Comparative projects can be regarded as theoretically and methodologically most promising if they are based on a semi-structured research design, whereby the strengths of various conceptual approaches in explaining the phenomena are analysed and the researchers systematically deal with the fact that the project is likely to generate surprising information requiring to restructure the initial conceptual framework.