Research On The Incentive Dilemma Of Teachers In China’s Double First-class Universities

In recent years,a series of issues related to the survival and development of university teachers have received more attention,such as incentive policies for teachers and factors affecting teachers’ scientific research performance.Based on the relevant theory and policy system background,this study focuses on the realistic incentive dilemma of double first-class university teachers.Based on the carding and analysis of the research results and referring to the existing research of relevant scholars,the results show that there are also problems of Incentive dislocation,Incentive absence and Incentive offside for university teachers in China.Incentive dislocation refers to the dislocation of basic incentives and performance incentives for teachers in universities.Incentive absence is manifested in the absence of long-term incentives for teachers and the absence of contextual performance.Incentive offside refers to the differentiated incentive policies given by universities to teachers at different levels.The research selects panel data of 36 double-class universities from 2014 to 2018.The basic expenditures of higher education in the final financial expenditure accounts are used as the proxy variable of the basic incentives for teachers,and the project expenditures are used as the proxy variable of the performance incentives.Using STATA to construct fixed-effects and random-effects models for regression analysis,combined with interviews with 10 double first-class university teachers,the core concerns are as follows:（1）What impact does the dislocation of incentives have on teachers’ short-term scientific research quantity,output quality,and the school’s ARWU ranking level?（2）What impact will the absence of incentives have on teachers’ mid-and long-term scientific research quantity,output quality,and the school’s ARWU ranking level?What impact does the absence of contextual performance have on teachers’ internal and external motivations and attitudes toward teaching and research?（3）What impact does the offside of incentives have on teachers’ teaching and scientific research? Based on data analysis and interviews,we obtained the following conclusions.Firstly,regarding the dislocation of incentives:（1）Although the improvement of basic incentives and performance incentives for teachers by universities is conducive to the significant increase in the number of SSCI and SCI papers published by teachers in the short term,and it also helps to improve the ranking of universities in ARWU,but the effect of basic incentives is better.At the same time,the improvement of basic incentives is also conducive to the improvement of the quality of teachers’ scientific research output.By improving the basic incentives,the number of SSCI papers published by teachers in the first two districts has increased.Secondly,regarding the absence of incentives:（1）If universities focus on long-term incentives for teachers,improving the level of basic incentives and performance incentives will also help teachers to increase the number of SSCI and SCI papers published in the medium and long term,and the quality of scientific research will be improved,especially the number of SSCI journal articles published in the first two districts has a positive effect;（2）The current contextual performance of college teachers is in a marginalized position,which is not easy to quantify,and the ambiguity that overlaps with task performance,and the society that the teacher profession is given expectation and other characteristics make the absence of contextual performance rationalized,and the absence of contextual performance will reduce the enthusiasm and commitment of teachers.Finally,about the offside of incentives:（1）Incentive offside will have a certain negative impact on teachers’ teaching and research,causing some teachers to reduce their investment in teaching.Under high scientific research pressure,they may conform to the current assessment system.Driven by external motives,the pursuit of a short and fast scientific research model is unable to concentrate on academic research to carry out more valuable research.With the research results,combined with the actual situation of the current field of my country’s universities,this research proposes the following policy recommendations from the macro government and meso-level universities.From the government level:（1）The government should play a macro-control function to appropriately increase the proportion of basic expenditures for colleges and universities,especially the proportion of personnel expenditures;（2）Adjust higher education fee policies,Deepen the reform of the credit system;（3）Deepen the evaluation system of college teachers and weaken the connection between the project system and teacher development.From the university level:（1）Give full play to the strengths of universities and colleges,encourage each department to increase career income and other income,and expand the overall market;（2）Play the role of middle-level government and balance the faculty income gap between departments;（3）Clarify the basics salary and performance salary ratio,gradually forming a flat salary structure;（4）Improve the internal management system and pay attention to the contextual performance of teachers;（5）Appropriately extend the evaluation and salary adjustment cycle for teachers to reduce the pressure of teachers’ research work;（6）Gradually weaken the effectiveness of various honorary titles and alleviate the phenomenon of different pay for the same post.