Popularization Undergraduate Education In Improving The Quality Of American Higher Education

The research university of USA is regarded as "the best universities in the world".During the past one hundred years from their establishment,the research university had made preeminent contribution for economic development and politics requirements in USA.They were of great reputation and attracted a lot of students.But the quality of undergraduate education of the research unversity is on the decline during the period of post-mass-access higher education.The research university must improve the quality of undergraduate education because of the factors of the politics,economy,the development of the higher education and others.The purpose of the article was to probe into the period and measures of the research university who improve their quality of undergraduate education during the period of post-mass-access higher education and to probe into the rationality,feasibility and necessity and the factors of conditionality.First,the introduction clarified the background and meaning and methods of the research.Second,it defined three definitions: the period of post-mass-access higher education, research unversity and the quality of undergraduate education.lt concluded that the research university should keep the idea of elite quality during the period of post-mass-access higher education.The straight matter was divided into four parts.The first part probed into the imminence of the improvement of quality of undergraduate education in research unversity during the period of post-mass-access higher education.lt said first that undergraduate education of good quality in research unversity could not be quashed.Later it probed into the imminence of the improvement of quality because of the factors of pilitic, economy, the attention of people during the period of development of the higher education.The second part described the phenomenon of the decline of the undergraduate education quality first.Later it pointed out that the decline of the quality was resulted from the decline of the applicants quality,the faculty reward systems and the lack of finance.lt divided the period that the universities improved their quality into three phase in the beginningof the third part.Next,it described the four measures that the universities took.The measures were enhancing the teaching function of the research university,advocating inquiry-based learning,adopting multi-discipline curriculum and integrated curriculum,and regarding the informal teaching as the important part in the undergraduate education.In this part it not only described the items of the policy but also decribed some case.Afer calculating the number of universities who took the measures,it came to a conclution that the research university did not took the measures at large.So what they should do next was to extend the measures to all of their students.In the forth part of the article it probed into the feasibility from the theories of teacher specialization,construcivism,psychology,episteme,hidden curriculum and into the rationality from the reality condition of the research universities.Next, it probed into the necessity from the point of view of the current of higher education.Finally,the article pointed out that the rife implement of the measures would be cumbered by the attraction and pressure of the tenor system and the pressure of lack of finace.