Research On Evaluation Index System In Educational Internationalization Of Shanxi Higher Educational Institutions

No one can deny that the higher education internationalization(HEI) has become a wide spread trend over the world. Not only because of the call of social, economical and cultural development, but also the requirement of HE itself is in order to achieve sustainable development. The HEI in Shanxi Province is still in its infancy. To catch up with the global and domestic pioneers, the “Opening” policy needs to be adopted by Shanxi HE institutions. It is vital to build up the access index system of internationalization(ISI) which specifically align with local context, which pushes the Shanxi HEI forward and levels up its competitive advantage. This research aims to build the ISI which specifically applicable to Shanxi context. It provides reference for the self-evaluation of Shanxi higher education institutions and also intends to offer solutions for issues during the HEI, which eventually leads to the sustainable development of socially, economically and culturally responsible HEI. This research contributes to the existing study of HEI by elaborating the evaluation system, which is beneficial to the HEI in Shanxi. What’s more, it also provides valuable insights for the further study on HEI localism and classification.Under the guidance of system theory and theory of higher education functions, this study employs the research method of literature analysis, comparative analysis, survey and mathmetical statistics. Through the analysis of current status and features of HEI in Shanxi,combined with the existing research and using Delphi method which is based on seeking experts’ opinions, this research forms the ISI which particularly fits the Shanxi context. Using the analytic hierarchy process(AHP), weights have been assigned to specific index according to the local reality. The nine first-level indexes include: strategy, organization, funding; employees and students international mobility;courses and teaching; scientific research; facilities and services; international cooperation; featured programs; institutional campus culture; internationalization achievement. This research also outlines twenty-eight second-level indexes and fourth-five third-level indexes. The identification and weight of indexes are all in line with the local situation of Shanxi. Finally, three local higher educational institutions were chosen to be evaluated of their internationalization performances through the method of Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation Model. Meanwhile the suggestions of improving Shanxi HEI have been put forward accordingly. There are two main contributions of thisresearch. First it focus on the Shanxi context which receives little attention in HEI. It has theoretical significance by elaborating the local ISI. Second, AHP has been exploited in setting the weight of each index, which has rarely been used in pervious researches.