Analysis Of American Research Universities' Undergraduate Education Reformation Since 1990s

The quality of undergraduate education highly influences the entire strength and total standard of a nation's science and technology. American research universities where many talents gather possess fine education resources and experimental equipments, and their students' quality is higher than the average. However, after the early 1980s, American society frequently criticizes those research universities for the decline of their undergraduate quality. According to the survey conducted by Carnegie Foundation Teaching Corporation of New York in 1994 about 125 research universities, compared with Western European developed countries, even developing countries such as China and India, undergraduate education in America do fall behind. The main causes can be illustrated as follows: First, the chronic phenomenon that universities concentrate more on research while less on teaching. Second, the fact those famous professors rarely offer courses to undergraduate students. Third, the humanities and science seriously separate. Fourth, the lack of communication between teaching and researching which makes it different for students to get the knowledge of the forward position and developing orientation in one's field. As a result of the problems above, a tide of educational reformation appeared in America research universities in 1990s.This reform is carried out on the aspects such as the target of talent-training, the design of courses, the teaching methods, and the management of teachers. The reformation tries to structure an undergraduate education system based on research, which cope with debate between wide learning and deep learning, focused on improving undergraduate education quality, apparently it will let students cultivated an international tendency. This reformation greatly strengthens the undergraduate education's position in the research universities. But there also left some problems, for example, the principle of the reformation is aimed at excellent students, ignoring the common students, and the compensatory education to school-switched students is deficient. By analyzing the reformation, we can come to these enlightening conclusions:First of all, we should timely adjust cultivation goal according to society development. Second, structure a better-organized education system. Third, form a people- orient course system. Fourth, setup a comprehensive system mixed with a variety of teaching method. Fifth, structure a rational evaluation system of education.The whole paper is divided into 5 sections.Section 1: introduce the reason why the author chooses such a topic and the recent research on American research-pattern universities' undergraduate education both in and off China since 1990s.Section 2: introduce the background of the reformation since 1990s.Section 3: introduce the main content of the reformation on the aspects of the target of talent training, the design of courses, the teaching methods, and the management of teachers.Section 4: expand the character and the influence of the reformation since 1990s.Section 5: expand the enlightenment of the reformation on Chinese higher education's development.