A Study Of The Presidents' Competency Of Higher Vocational Colleges

The development of higher vocational colleges greatly influences the realization of the strategic target to build China into a powerful educated country.To run higher vocational colleges efficiently,it is indispensable to strengthen the scientific level of administration.How to refer the Competency Theory to consolidate the selection,employment and evaluation of the higher vocational college presidents during the course of improving scientific administration,so that to enhance the professional development of college presidents and to improve the educational and teaching quality,is an important subject that we should face.Firstly,this study puts forward the definition of "Higher Vocational College Presidential Competency" on the basis of analyzing the generation and development of various competency concepts and explaining the responsibilities and functions of higher vocational colleges,that is "the degree that the individual meeting the presidents' position requirements of Higher Vocational Colleges." It constitutes a serial of interior detailed and organically unified elements,including both the explicit knowledge and talents and the implicit attitude and motivation.It is a unity of individual behavioral performance and personality traits,which has close relation to the work performance of higher vocational presidents.Secondly,this study shows the success and failure experiences of the college presidents in their career,and explores the presidents' understanding and thinking of their position through behavior event interviewing(BEI)to 16 higher vocational college presidents in the sample regions.It aims to mine and refine the explicit and implicit key traits of higher vocational college presidents by using interview data analysis and expert consultation,and tries to construct a new Competency Gestalt Model for higher vocational college presidents,which is a combination of "Qualified Higher Vocational College Presidents' Competency Model" and "Excellent Higher Vocational College Presidents' Competency Model." The former is the basic requirements that a higher vocational college president should possess to qualify the presidential position.It includes 11 competent traits,like Overall Viewpoints Sense,Decision-Making Power,Talents Cultivation,Job Dedication,Aggressiveness,Exemplarity,Confidence,Open-Mindedness,Cohesiveness,Innovation Consciousness and People-Orientation,etc.The latter is the improved condition based on the former.It also includes 11 traits,such as Professional Knowledge,Strategic Thinking,Target Management,Public Relations Ability,Systematic Thought,Analytic Judgment,Action Power,Responsibility,Influence,Critical Thought,Achievement-Orientation and so on.Compared with the ordinary university presidents,both of them should possess "Responsibility","Strategic Thinking"(or Strategic Planning and Vision Ability)and "Target Management" ability.And they should acquire certain "Decision-Making Power" and "Action Power"(Executive Capacity)in their work,and emphasize on "Talents Cultivation" and be"Open-Mindedness." Meanwhile,they should be equipped with "Innovation Consciousness" and "Pioneering&Innovative Ability" facing the fierce competition.The difference between them is also clear.An ordinary university president focusing on cultivating academic talents should have "profound education thoughts" and certain "academic authority," which can be effective for them to carry out work.Although higher vocational colleges regain attention and gets some development under the background of China's Reform and Opening Policy,it is short in history and limited by many conditions,so a higher vocational college principal targeting at the leaping and scientific development of the college should acquire the psychological traits like "Job Dedication," "Aggressiveness" and "Confidence" first.Then they should be exemplary,using their unique "Cohesiveness" and "Influence" and basing on their "Overall Viewpoint" and "Systematic Thought" to make "Analytic Judgment" and carry out work.Meanwhile,they should be "People-Oriented" and unite the masses of teachers and students.All of these can help the principal to achieve the special career of higher vocational education.Thirdly,this study verifies the reliability and validity of the Competency "Gestalt Model" for higher vocational college presidents by using self-made Higher Vocational College Presidents' Competency Testing Questionnaire.The Exploratory Factor Analysis on the returned 93(165 were issued)questionnaires to higher vocational college presidents in the eastern coastal areas including Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces gets 4 common factors:Professional Quality,Motivation Talents,Management and Human communication.The survey shows that there is a basic agreement between the connotative components of the above 4 common factors and the competency traits included in the Competency Gestalt Model,which implicates the good quality of the constructed model.The inspection results of the Empirical Validity and Cluster Analysis also prove this conclusion.The classification consistency of the interview text codes and the credibility of Coding Content Analysis show the effectiveness of the Competency "Gestalt Model" for higher vocational college presidents,too.One of the important aims of this study is to put Competency Theory into presidential management practice.Although the realization of selecting college presidents on the basis of Competency Theory must rely on building a modern university system suited to China's national conditions and on the farther reform of the management system,it doesn't hinder the preliminary discussion of the theoretical possibility and the operational conceivement of the practice.Presidential selection of higher vocational colleges based on competency has some characteristics,like a high agreement between the selection criterion and position requirements,a quiet consistence between selection aims and organizational prospect.The selection process is effective to select adequate and potential personnel to work as a president.Its key links include defining specific position,making job analysis based on competency,releasing selection announcement,preliminary examination,testing,background investigation,selection discussion,etc.To achieve the ideal selection effect,paying more attention to Plan-Making,strengthening process-management,and providing assurance support are needed.Especially,the design of behavioral interview is of vital importance,which needs logical choosing of core factors under test,scientific setting of the corresponding behavioral questions and the relevant indicators,and at the same time effectively playing the role of the expert team is also needed.