Research On The Application Of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Majors In Colleges And Universities

With the higher education transforming from the elite to mass education, China’s undergraduate liberal arts majors in colleges and universities have experienced rapid development. However, as their quantity and scale expand, the contradiction between undergraduate liberal arts talents training and social demands has been gradually highlighted. At present, it is an urgent and real problem to be solved for higher liberal education as to how to train undergraduate liberal arts talents who can adapt themselves to the economic and social development.Social demands for talents in type, level and quantity determine the talents training direction of higher education. According to social demands for liberal arts talents, the research proposes that on the premise of maintaining training a moderate amount of academic talents, we should persist in applied reform and development direction and strive to train applied undergraduate talents in terms of undergraduate liberal arts majors.With interviews and other research results combined, the research suggests that the application of undergraduate liberal arts majors refers to neither value application in a broad sense nor operational use in social production and life but refers to the capabilities of trained talents to have reasonable knowledge structure, strong practical work ability and good comprehensive quality and to solve specific practical problems in the economic and social development with related theory, knowledge and technical skills. Meanwhile, the research analyzes and summarizes the contemporary characteristics and concrete representation of the application of undergraduate liberal arts majors and their development history, major features and forming basis.After theoretical analysis and through research methods such as document analysis, in-depth interview, expert consultation and questionnaire survey, the research explores and constructs the application evaluation system for undergraduate liberal arts majors. Among them, each in-depth interview involves forty people, and each expert consultation involves five people. In order to obtain more solid basis, we issue300questionnaires regarding how to evaluate the application of liberal arts majors. The respondents involve three groups, including liberal arts graduates who have graduated for more than three years, liberal arts teachers and middle-and-high management staff in colleges and universities and middle-and-high management staff and business backbones in governmental agencies, enterprises, institutions and other employing units. The research believes that the application of undergraduate liberal arts majors can be evaluated from six first level latitudes (namely, employment difficulty, employment structure, employment quality, adaptation situation, development prospect and transfer capability), which include twenty second level latitudes such as the time when the first employment opportunity is obtained, the degree of correlation between the job and the major, the compensation and the welfare.According to the application evaluation system for undergraduate liberal arts majors, we make a preliminary questionnaire about the application status of undergraduate liberal arts majors and make a trial test on and a reliability and validity analysis of150samples. On that basis, the current application status of undergraduate liberal arts majors is tested through800questionnaires. On the basis of outcome evaluation and external evaluation principles, the research chooses liberal arts graduates who have worked for2-6years as respondents, and the respondents include all types of social organizations which can offer employment opportunities to liberal arts graduates as far as possible. According to the survey, the application degree of undergraduate liberal arts majors is smaller than that of science and engineering; the application degree of liberal arts majors of "211project" universities is higher relative to that of "985project" universities and general undergraduate colleges and is significantly higher than that of general undergraduate colleges; and it differs among eight different disciplines within liberal arts, in which history, law and philosophy have a lower application degree.According to the research, the reason lies in the fact that in terms of the application of undergraduate liberal arts majors, the colleges and universities have many problems. For instance, it is necessary to improve the discipline system, optimize the training process and teaching contents, promote teacher resources and intensify the evaluating function. Meanwhile, with regard to the internal administration mechanism, there are not yet the mechanism, model and system which are in favor of the mutual participation in talent training by other interested parties. In addition, the interested parties haven’t played their due role in talent training, which is another important reason resulting in the weak application of liberal arts majors.The application of liberal arts majors is restricted by various factors and therefore requires certain support. The research proposes that colleges and universities should undergo a comprehensive reform in terms of the liberal arts major system, the talent training process, the quality evaluating model, the contingent of teachers, the discipline construction and the internal administration system and mechanism in colleges and universities. Meanwhile, under the leadership of the government, talents training should be mainly implemented by employing units like companies and carried out by students actively, and other social organizations should also participate in it. In order to guarantee the effective participation in university talents training by different interested parties, according to the principles of sharing interests and responsibilities and complementing each other with advantages, the research proposes that it is necessary to construct a joint talent training mechanism by establishing and improving its institutional environment under the leadership of the government.