Research On The Core Knowledge Of Higher Education

As a discipline, the Science of Higher Education was established in1982, since then which has been developing rapidly. The increasing of master’s and doctor’s degree programs highlights the thriving vitality of the Science of the Higher Education. However, what the core knowledge of the higher education discipline is has not reached a consensus at present. The required readings contain the core knowledge of the discipline that the professional teachers think the students should master it. Therefore, to some extent, the required readings of the higher education discipline contain the vast majority of the core knowledge of this discipline. By analyzing the required readings listed by master’s degree programs, the present core knowledge of higher education discipline can be revealed, and it can contribute to make the degree quality evaluation standard of the higher education discipline and promote the construction of degree programs.The research problem of this paper is: What is the current core knowledge of the higher education discipline? What are the problems and deficiencies? The author collects61required readings’lists from the master training programs, course syllabus, and admission brochures of doctoral students of the higher education discipline’s master’s and doctor’s degree programs and takes them as the research samples. Through classifying and coding the required readings, the research framework is established by9primary themes and42secondary themes. Through the six dimensions-title, author, translator, press, publishing time and recommended frequency, the author analyzes the overall distribution and subject distribution of the required readings, and then identifies the secondary themes with3levels—’Mastery’,’Be familiar with’ and ’Understanding’. Finally, the author propounds some suggestions for the problems existing in the current core knowledge of the higher education discipline.Research results shows:The main parts of the core knowledge of the higher education discipline includes ’Idea of University’,’Science of Higher Education’,’Thoughts of Higher Education’,’Higher Education Management’,’Reform of Higher Education’,’Development of Higher Education’,’History of Chinese Higher Education’,’Comparative Higher Education’,’System of Higher Education’,’Curriculum and Teaching Theory of Higher Education’, meanwhile,’Laws and Regulations of Higher Education’,’Higher Education Policy’and ’Higher Education Finance’ are taking the second place in the core knowledge of the higher education discipline. The frequency of the required readings is relatively in a dispersed state; Domestic works have advantage in quantity, while a few foreign works win the high recognized degree.The author thinks, the understanding of the core knowledge of the higher education discipline needs further consensus. In the core knowledge framework of the higher education discipline, we need to pay more attention to and do more research on the knowledge of the ’Higher Education Research Methodology’,’The University Strategic Planning’,’Institutional Research’,’Quality of Higher Education’,’Higher Education Organization’,’Student Affairs Management’,’Psychology of University Education’,’Higher Education And Culture’and so on. We should strengthen the attention to applied knowledge, devoting to training this professional master graduate students as the high quality talents who meet their own development and social demands.The network is the main platform to collect samples of this research. Because of the update lag of the network, some latest updated information about the core knowledge of the higher education discipline from parts of higher education discipline’s master’ sand doctor’s degree programs will be missing. Therefore, the conclusion of this research is only as a reference.