The Influencing Mechanism Of Tutors And Postgraduates' Implicit Followership Theories On Postgraduates' Academic Expectations

With the promotion of the overall quality improvement project of higher education under the guidance of “world-class universities and world-class disciplines”construction,the strategic focus of postgraduate education in China has further changed from size growth to quality improvement.Scholars have explored the law of postgraduate education from different angles and have achieved many beneficial results.However,the existing researches still lack discussion on the dynamic system(such as academic expectations)of academic activities of postgraduates and its influencing factors(such as implicit followership theories),which is not conducive to a deep understanding of the laws of postgraduate education.In response to this problem,this study revealed the influencing mechanism of tutors and postgraduates' implicit followership theories on postgraduates' academic expectations from the perspective of tutors and postgraduates based on the study of self-fulfilling prophecy(teacher expectation effect)in the field of organizational behavior and education,combined with modern expectancy-value theory,self-validation theory,especially the latest research results of implicit followership theories.After summarizing the relevant literatures on implicit followership theories and expectation.this study constructed the influencing mechanism model of tutors' implicit followership theories on postgraduates' academic expectations and the influencing mechanism model of postgraduates' implicit followership theories on postgraduates' academic expectations and proposed research hypotheses based on the empirical research results and theoretical analysis at home and abroad.There is still a lack of measurement tools for the key variables in the above models.Therefore,this study followed strict procedures and conducted item analysis,exploratory factor analysis,confirmatory factor analysis and reliability validity test on various scales through multiple rounds of questionnaire survey,The Tutors' Implicit Followership Theories Scale,the Postgraduates' Implicit Followership Theories Scale developed in this study have good reliability and validity,providing localized measurement tools with field characteristics for the evaluation of tutors and postgraduates' implicit followership theories in China.The Postgraduates' Expectations Scale revised in this study,the Perceived Expectation Scale and the Tutors' Expectation Scale developed in this study have good reliability and validity,providing a systematic local measurement tool for the theoretical research of teacher expectation effect and the practice of postgraduate education.Thereafter,this study conducted a questionnaire survey on a 52-pair sample consisting of 52 tutors and 198 postgraduates(each pair includes 1 tutor and 3-6 postgraduates).The questionnaires for tutors included the Tutors' Implicit Followership Theories Scale,the Tutors' Expectation Scale,academic identity,guidance time and demographic information;the questionnaires for postgraduates included the Postgraduates' Implicit Followership Theories Scale,the Postgraduates' Expectations Scale,the Perceived Expectations Scale,the Advisory Working Alliance Inventory Scale and demographic information.Multi-level structural equation model was established by Mplus7.4.By testing the fitting index and path coefficient of the model,the influencing mechanism model of tutors' implicit followership theories on postgraduates' academic expectations and the influencing mechanism model of postgraduates' implicit followership theories on postgraduates' academic expectations were determined.Based on the analysis of the model,the main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Tutors' implicit followership theories influences postgraduates' academic expectations through tutors' expectations and perceived expectations.Among them,tutors' implicit followership theories is the stable and direct internal dependent variable of tutors' expectations.Tutors' implicit followership theories positively and indirectly(in order)influences postgraduates' expectations through tutors' expectations and perceived expectations.Perceived expectations play a full intermediary role between tutors' expectations and postgraduates' expectations.Tutor's academic identity and guidance time both act as a mediating moderator between tutors' expectations,perceived expectations and postgraduates' expectations.(2)Postgraduates' implicit followership theories not only affect postgraduates' expectations directly,but also indirectly affect postgraduates' expectations through teacher-student exchanges and perceived expectations.Among them,postgraduates' implicit followership theories is the stable and direct internal dependent variable of postgraduates' expectations.Perceived expectations play a partial intermediary role between postgraduates' implicit followership theories and postgraduates' expectations.Postgraduates' implicit followership theories positively and indirectly(in order)influences postgraduates' expectations through teacher-student exchanges and perceived expectations.Based on the above results,combined with the current situation of postgraduate education in China,we propose some management suggestions from the perspectives of universities,tutors and postgraduates.Universities can make some improvements in the enrollment,tutor management,curriculum provision,environment and monitoring system,Tutors can make some improvements in the selection of postgraduates,the training objectives and the mentoring,Postgraduates can make some efforts in the choice of the tutor and teacher-student exchanges.This dissertation contains 17 figures,47 tables and 170 references.