Research On The Professional Standards For Student Affairs Practitioners In American Universities

Student affairs practitioners,especially advisors,play an indispensable role in student work of colleges and universities all over the world.Higher requirements on the education quality of Higher Education Institutions in China,the emergence of student work assessment,and the demand for all-round development from students have raised the expectation for party and administrative leaders,the Communist Youth League leaders,and advisors in terms of their ethical,knowledge and skills level.In view of the fact that professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities play a crucial role in guiding,assessing,standardizing,supervising and improving the ethical level and competence level of practitioners,this study conducts a special study on the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities,in order to provide a new perspective and useful reference for the professional ethics standards and competency standards construction for ideological and political education teams,especially for advisors in colleges and universities in China.On the basis of summarizing the domestic and foreign literatures,this study firstly applies the historical analysis method to study the historical process of the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.Secondly,the literature analysis method is applied to explore the theoretical basis of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.Furthermore,the discourse analysis method is used to analyze the representative documents of the professional ethics and professional competence standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.Subsequently,the questionnaire survey method is applied to investigate the application status of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.Finally,using the comparative analysis method,this study studies the enlightenment of the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities to the construction of ideological and political education team,especially advisors,in Chinese universities.The main research contents and conclusions of this study are as follows:The first chapter is the introduction.This study expounds the subject background,research purpose,research significance,concept definition,main functions and guiding ideology of the researches in professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American colleges and universities.It selects the China National Knowledge Infrastructure,the Web of Science Core Collection database as the data source,takes Citespace as the analysis tool,carries out the keyword co-occurrence analysis,country(region)analysis,etc.,systematically and objectively sorts out domestic and foreign literature,identifies the popular subjects of relevant researches at home and abroad,and meticulously interprets the key documents found in the secondary search,so as to puts forward the existing research problems and development trends at home and abroad.On this basis,the research ideas,research methods and innovation points of this study are determined.The second chapter is the historical evolution of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.The development history of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities is closely related to the political structure,economic development status,higher education policy,and student affairs development process in the United States.This chapter examines from this historical background and historical conditions,and deeply understands and grasps the specific measures and future development trends of the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in the germination,exploration,development and maturity stages,to better understand the historical inevitability and historical significance of the professional standards for student affairs practitioners.The third chapter is the theoretical basis of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.This study studies the theoretical basis of the professional standards for student affairs practitioners from the perspectives of adult learning theory,especially Knowles' andragogy theory,Mezirow's transformational learning theory,and from the perspectives of career development stage theory and competency theory.The above theories answer the learning characteristics,learning motivation,learning steps and role transformation process of student affairs practitioners,how to determine the needs and problems of student affairs practitioners at different stages of career development,and how to scientifically formulate competency standards for each professional level.The fourth chapter analyzes the core content of professional ethical standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.This study analyzes the establishment process,mission,vision and influence of CAS,one of the main making subject of professional ethics standards for student affairs practitioners.This study explores the establishment basis of professional ethical standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities,which is composed of two complementary moral frameworks,that is,research ethics and general ethics of student affairs practitioners.Taking the two representative documents of <CAS Statement of Shared Ethical Principles > and < Statement of Ethical Principles and Standards> as examples,this study analyzes the core contents of its concept definition,basic structure,basic principles,and ethical indicators.At the same time,by comparing and analyzing the keywords of two documents through AntConc software,the purposes of the two documents are basically the same — building professional ethics principles and standards for practitioners and promoting student development and improve the quality of education;however,their focuses are different,in that CAS pays more attention to promoting the common ethical standards shared by student affairs practitioners,while ACPA focuses on the specific ethical standards for student affairs practitioners,with a greater emphasis on safeguarding students' rights and interests and development.In addition,the two ethical standards documents present the following characteristics: based on the same research basis and ethical principles,ethical standards are reified and operable,develop a wide range of subjects and regularly update,and the ethical standards are consistent with the competency standards,dual mechanism of self-discipline and group supervision.However,it should also be dialectically seen that these ethical standards have inherent limitations: they are the specific application and expansion of the core values of American society,with hidden political purposes to safeguard the interests of the ruling class;its maneuverability and effectiveness have yet to be explored.The fifth chapter analyzes the core content of the professional competency standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.In 2010,2015 and 2016,ACPA and NASPA jointly promulgated the <Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Practitioners>,<Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Educators>,<ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies Rubrics>,which makes the professional competency standards for student affairs practitioners increasingly perfect.This study firstly analyzes the establishment process,mission,vision,and influence of ACPA and NASPA.Taking the latest <ACPA/NASPA Professional Competencies Rubrics> issued in 2016 as an example,this chapter studies the members of the Joint Task Force on Professional Competencies,the main framework of the documents,the reasons and methods of utilizing competencies,10 competency areas and their secondary indicators.Meanwhile the AntConc software is used to analyze the word frequency,clusters and keywords of the document text,which objectively verifies the following points: the professional competency standard is the basis for practitioners to conduct assessments;the purpose of the assessment is to promote students' learning and development and practitioner development;the assessment content is the competency of practitioners including knowledge,skills,disposition,in which skills and ethics are highly concerned;the assessment process requires practitioners to identify with professional standards,and then know how to use it,and to develop appropriate indicators based on realities and job needs,thereby facilitating the assessment of development and access to data.This professional competency standard document shows the following characteristics: the subject area is definite,the hierarchy is clear,the participation subject is extensive,the resources are updated regularly,the national consciousness is highlight,and so on,also reveals the following shortcomings: it is a tool to improve the effectiveness of implicit citizenship education in colleges and universities,the internationalism needs to be strengthened,lacks of supporting operation guides and best practices,the competency standard type needs to be expanded.The sixth chapter is the application research of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities.This study uses Google Form(s)to develop a questionnaire to conduct online research to student affairs practitioners in American universities.To explore the application status of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities,such as practitioners' participation,familiarity,frequency of use,satisfaction,etc.,as well as the training and use status of professional standards by universities.Combined with SPSS 25.0 software,the correlation analysis and multivariate ordered logistic regression analysis are carried out to grasp the achievements of the professional standards: the professional standards for student affairs practitioners are authoritative;the degree of familiarity and the operating frequency become higher,the degree of identity to the professional standards by practitioners is enhanced,and the professional standards play a critical role in enhancing the professional level of practitioners and etc.At the same time,the following problems are found: the existing professional standards and their supporting resources need to be improved,the publicity and promotion of professional standards remain to be strengthened;the awareness of practitioners' participation and self-assessment need to be increased,and the training and use of professional standards by universities need to be improved.The seventh chapter focuses on the enlightenment of the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities to China.On the basis of the above research,this chapter compares and analyzes the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in China and the United States,and discusses the similarities between the two in terms of their background,content and functions,as well as the differences in values,formulation subject,basis of classification and ways of expression.Then,according to the experience of successful practices and weakness of professional standards for student affairs practitioners in American universities,this study summarizes the main problems in the professional standards for student affairs practitioners in Chinese universities: the value standard needs to be optimized,the self-assessment awareness needs to be improved,the lack of standard academic community,the main body of formulation is not inclusive enough,the standards need to be further specified,the level of their systematicness and operability need to be enhanced;the lack of supporting resources,and the use frequency of standards is low;the uniformity of standards need to be raised,and the updating frequency needs to be improved.Based on this,this study proposes the enlightenment to China: establish the values of development standard,enhance the self-assessment consciousness of practitioners;and form the research community of professional standards for practitioners,ensure the universality of the subjects of participation;adopt diversified research methods to enhance the systematization and operability of professional standards;develop supporting resources and teams,enhance the promotion and application of professional standards;emphasis on the consistency of competency standards and ethical standards,and regularly review and revise the standards.