After years of pilot projects, my country's doctoral enrollment system has undergone tremendous changes. "Double first-class" colleges and universities have basically changed from "examination system" to "application-assessment system", and other colleges and universities are also undergoing transformation. In the future, all the enrollment of doctoral students will be changed to the "application-assessment system" just around the corner.
It is normal for both support and opposition to coexist for a system change. However, for the old problems left over by the old system and the problems that may arise from the new system, it is necessary to make sufficient judgments and take practical and effective preventive measures before the new system can play a real role.
In my opinion, in the transition from the "examination system" to the "application-assessment system", the following issues deserve great attention, and corresponding measures need to be introduced to fill the loopholes that may arise when the new system is implemented.
"Application-assessment system" is not "application-examination system"
First of all, it needs to be clear that the current "application-assessment system" transformed from the "examination system" is different from the "application-examination system" in foreign countries.
At present, most of the world's higher education adopts the "application-review system", that is, applicants apply to schools and submit materials, and then they can wait for the admission notice.
From the school’s point of view, by reviewing these materials, it is basically possible to judge whether a person is suitable for a Ph.D. and whether he is suitable for studying in our school, but everything depends on the applicant’s personal statement, and it is natural to be fooled or even deceived. Therefore, foreign colleges and universities attach great importance to recommendation letters. A heavy recommendation letter from a heavyweight scholar can basically determine the applicant's academic destiny.
Generally speaking, the most popular method in foreign countries is to admit doctoral students by almost "blind review".
Our current admission method combines the traditional "examination system" with the foreign "audit system" to form an "application-assessment system" that is in the middle. The materials submitted by applicants to the schools they apply for are the same as those submitted abroad. On the basis of reviewing the materials, the school selects those who meet the requirements and allows them to enter the re-examination. The re-examination is divided into a written test and an interview. The written test re-tests the professional foundation; the interview focuses on comprehensive quality, professional ability, and academic potential. In recent years, some colleges and universities have canceled professional written examinations, but have increased the weight of interviews. Finally, colleges and universities give rankings based on the above comprehensive scores, and make admission decisions according to the order of scores.
It can be seen from this that on the one hand, our current method avoids the drawbacks of partial listening and partial trust in candidates, and adding various examinations can find out the basic level of students; on the other hand, this reform has nothing to do with the previous examination system. Substantial difference. Judging from the investment in manpower and material resources of colleges and universities, the workload of all parties has not been reduced.
New system weakens mentorship
In the criticism of the "application-assessment system", some voices believe that the discretion of the tutor is too large, and nearly 80% of the tutors admit that they have autonomy in the admissions process. To this end, some candidates worry that this may affect the fairness of admissions.
I don't know where this data came from, where is the "autonomy" that these mentors recognize? If this investigation is true, the candidates' concerns will naturally be established, and there are reasons to suspect that the current "application-assessment system" has major flaws.
But from the designer's point of view, one of the essence of the "application-assessment system" is to systematically weaken the dominance of tutors, and the reality seems to have achieved this goal.
With the transition from the "examination system" to the "application-assessment system", most of the colleges and universities I know have changed from the "tutor system" to the "tutor group system", that is, 3-5 doctoral tutors form a professional direction. The Admissions and Guidance Team is responsible for both the admissions work and the training of candidates after they enter the school.
This is very different from the "tutorial system" in the past, where the tutor selects candidates, writes questions, and corrects the papers, interviews with the tutor as the main factor, and finally determines the recruits, and the tutor is responsible for the whole process of training. Under the "tutor group system", all members of the tutor group review the candidates' materials and jointly score the candidates; during the re-examination, if there is a professional written test, most of the questions from the test question bank are selected, and the tutor may not participate in the judgment. During the professional interview, 3 to 5 experts in the re-examination will each give their own points, and finally the ranking will be ranked according to the average score. In this process, the mentor is only one member of the mentor group.
It is precisely because of this design that the mentor's dominance has been severely weakened. It should be said that this is conducive to fairness, justice and openness in admissions.
Of course, if you want to select 1~2 candidates from 2~3 or even more candidates, the tutor still has the control. In the case that the scores of many candidates are almost the same, the final choice is made by the tutor. As long as the admission procedure is not violated, this should belong to the leadership that the tutor should have.
However, it must be stated that from the perspective of system design, it is impossible for any tutor to use his so-called "dominance" to abandon the top-ranked candidates and admit the lower-ranked candidates unless he cheats, because all the information All are public.
Review conditions should be treated equally
As mentioned above, the first level of the "application-assessment system" is to review the materials. Generally speaking, as long as the materials meet the requirements, most applicants can pass this level and enter the re-examination stage.
According to my personal experience and observation, there are three main groups of candidates for doctoral candidates. One is in-service college teachers, most of whom have graduated with a bachelor’s or master’s degree for many years and hope to improve their academic level through doctoral studies, and some are based on the special requirements of colleges and universities; second, fresh undergraduates or graduate students; third, after graduation, they want to return to colleges and universities Teaching, or want to achieve personal ideals through a Ph.D.
However, a real contradiction is that, on the one hand, colleges and universities are encouraging teachers to pursue doctoral studies, which is more prominent in local colleges and universities; Admission of Ph.D. students from fresh master's graduates.
As we all know, the number of doctoral students admitted by the current supervisor is extremely limited, and it is not bad to admit one doctoral student every year on average. If the admission of direct doctoral students or fresh graduates is restricted, the possibility of in-service teachers in colleges and universities being admitted will naturally be greatly reduced, or even lost. The reality is that our system is developing in a direction that favors direct Ph.D. students and recent graduates.
However, I also noticed that when reviewing materials, the corresponding regulations and examination content are more beneficial to college teachers. Because the scientific research topics, published academic papers, published academic works, etc. obtained by college teachers are exactly what most direct Ph.D students and fresh graduates lack. Therefore, judging from the review materials, it is difficult for direct Ph.D. students and fresh graduates to compete with college teachers, which forms a contradiction.
In my opinion, the system design should treat all candidates equally. Excellent college teachers should not be excluded because of the limited number of places, nor should we be unable to find potential outstanding fresh graduates because of the design of the assessment system.
Scholars should take their letters of recommendation seriously
In the "application-assessment system", there is an essential but often overlooked link, that is, the expert recommendation letter.
Expert recommendation letters are all made by candidates looking for experts themselves. After they are written, experts will send them to the schools they apply for, or they can be directly submitted by candidates together with relevant materials. As far as I know, with the exception of a few scholars, most scholars hold a loving, supportive and tolerant attitude towards writing recommendation letters. Therefore, the recommendation letter is full of good words, adding oil and vinegar, and downplaying some issues or even avoiding them.
In recent years, in order to increase the credibility of recommendation letters and learn from foreign experience, some colleges and universities have provided a range for candidates' intelligence level, thinking ability, academic level, cooperation spirit, etc., and asked experts to give the candidates' location. For example, if the candidate is in the top 2%, the candidate is an excellent talent, if it is in the top 5%, it is very good. For this division, the most common recommendation by scholars is that candidates are in the top 2% or top 5% of each item. This makes it feel fake.
At present, there are generally three aspects to the problem of recommendation letters from experts and scholars. The first is generality, which is not very targeted, and even its recommendation letters can be applied to all outstanding candidates; the second is the same, the comments seem to be good words, but they are not helpful for the reviewer to understand the students; finally, it is sloppy. , Many recommendation letters are not written by experts themselves, and some are even directly ghostwritten by students, signed and endorsed by experts.
In fact, reading recommendation letters is also a test for experts and scholars. For them, even if the recommenders are hyped, the reviewers can generally judge the authenticity of the expert's words based on the applicant's academic performance and candidate experience.
When reviewing materials abroad, because they attach great importance to the weight of recommendation letters, they have a certain degree of recognition or recognition. For example, it is generally possible to distinguish which letters of recommendation the scholar may have to write for some reason. Even between the lines, you can see the helplessness of scholars, and then make correct judgments on applicants. The more recommendation letters from big-name experts, the more cautious colleges and universities are.
Although recommendation letters recommend others, they are also letters of credit of scholars themselves, and they are responsible for their personal academic reputation.
Can't ignore the situation that someone can't read it
Doctoral education is the highest level in higher education, and it is also the most difficult and difficult talent training level. To this end, the admissions of doctoral students must be strict in procedures, but also have someone in their eyes, and take all the materials of candidates seriously. From the interview performance of candidates, it is necessary to observe whether they have academic potential and enthusiasm, but also whether they have the concept and practice of contributing to society and the world through scientific research.
In talent cultivation, everyone is eager to cultivate outstanding talents, but all kinds of talent cultivation may also fail. We are eager to succeed, but we must also realize that compared with undergraduate and master students, the success rate of doctoral talent training may be the lowest.
At present, the design idea of the doctoral training system is to require everyone who enters the doctoral program to not only graduate on time, but also to complete the academic requirements with high quality and high level. In most colleges and universities, in addition to completing the graduation thesis, doctoral students also have the task of academic publication in high-level journals. Correspondingly, in recent years, many universities have extended the study and research period of doctoral students from the past three years to four years.
The problem with this line of thinking is that the system is designed to allow students to graduate on time. For example, although it is stipulated that doctoral students can graduate within 6 to 8 years, but more than 4 years is a delayed graduation, and the tutors who have delayed more graduates will be suspended.
Also, ignoring cases where someone might not be able to read it. For example, some students are unable to complete the tasks prescribed by the academic after their doctoral studies, and even have mental problems because of this. For another example, in view of the current admissions procedures, the tutors do not fully understand the students, which leads to the tutors discovering that the students may not be suitable for academic studies only after they have completed their Ph.D. But the reality is that mentors have no choice but to continue to instruct or even force students to do research.
At the same time, as long as the doctoral student fails to graduate on time, most of the responsibility rests with the supervisor. If for various reasons, students simply drop out of school, it will have an impact on the tutor, but in the end it is the students who suffer. Therefore, this in turn prompts the supervisor to develop the mentality of "as long as the student graduates successfully, everything will be fine", which further reduces the level of doctoral training.
The current popular "application-assessment system" will increase the unfamiliarity of tutors with students, and the proportion of students who find themselves unsuitable or unwilling to engage in academics will also increase after Ph.D. To this end, we need to target those who cannot graduate due to various reasons. In addition to stipulating that they can graduate with a master’s degree, we must also find ways to provide more exit channels and establish a normal exit mechanism, so that the “application-assessment” can be achieved. system” took root.
(Original title: "The "Application-Assessment System" for Doctoral Students Should Have an Effective Exit Mechanism". The author Guo Yingjian is a professor at Renmin University of China. This article is a key project of the National Social Science Fund "Reform and Reconstruction of my country's Higher Foreign Language Education System in the New Era" "Research" (Project Approval Number: 21AYY016) Phased Results)
It is normal for both support and opposition to coexist for a system change. However, for the old problems left over by the old system and the problems that may arise from the new system, it is necessary to make sufficient judgments and take practical and effective preventive measures before the new system can play a real role.
In my opinion, in the transition from the "examination system" to the "application-assessment system", the following issues deserve great attention, and corresponding measures need to be introduced to fill the loopholes that may arise when the new system is implemented.
"Application-assessment system" is not "application-examination system"
First of all, it needs to be clear that the current "application-assessment system" transformed from the "examination system" is different from the "application-examination system" in foreign countries.
At present, most of the world's higher education adopts the "application-review system", that is, applicants apply to schools and submit materials, and then they can wait for the admission notice.
From the school’s point of view, by reviewing these materials, it is basically possible to judge whether a person is suitable for a Ph.D. and whether he is suitable for studying in our school, but everything depends on the applicant’s personal statement, and it is natural to be fooled or even deceived. Therefore, foreign colleges and universities attach great importance to recommendation letters. A heavy recommendation letter from a heavyweight scholar can basically determine the applicant's academic destiny.
Generally speaking, the most popular method in foreign countries is to admit doctoral students by almost "blind review".
Our current admission method combines the traditional "examination system" with the foreign "audit system" to form an "application-assessment system" that is in the middle. The materials submitted by applicants to the schools they apply for are the same as those submitted abroad. On the basis of reviewing the materials, the school selects those who meet the requirements and allows them to enter the re-examination. The re-examination is divided into a written test and an interview. The written test re-tests the professional foundation; the interview focuses on comprehensive quality, professional ability, and academic potential. In recent years, some colleges and universities have canceled professional written examinations, but have increased the weight of interviews. Finally, colleges and universities give rankings based on the above comprehensive scores, and make admission decisions according to the order of scores.
It can be seen from this that on the one hand, our current method avoids the drawbacks of partial listening and partial trust in candidates, and adding various examinations can find out the basic level of students; on the other hand, this reform has nothing to do with the previous examination system. Substantial difference. Judging from the investment in manpower and material resources of colleges and universities, the workload of all parties has not been reduced.
New system weakens mentorship
In the criticism of the "application-assessment system", some voices believe that the discretion of the tutor is too large, and nearly 80% of the tutors admit that they have autonomy in the admissions process. To this end, some candidates worry that this may affect the fairness of admissions.
I don't know where this data came from, where is the "autonomy" that these mentors recognize? If this investigation is true, the candidates' concerns will naturally be established, and there are reasons to suspect that the current "application-assessment system" has major flaws.
But from the designer's point of view, one of the essence of the "application-assessment system" is to systematically weaken the dominance of tutors, and the reality seems to have achieved this goal.
With the transition from the "examination system" to the "application-assessment system", most of the colleges and universities I know have changed from the "tutor system" to the "tutor group system", that is, 3-5 doctoral tutors form a professional direction. The Admissions and Guidance Team is responsible for both the admissions work and the training of candidates after they enter the school.
This is very different from the "tutorial system" in the past, where the tutor selects candidates, writes questions, and corrects the papers, interviews with the tutor as the main factor, and finally determines the recruits, and the tutor is responsible for the whole process of training. Under the "tutor group system", all members of the tutor group review the candidates' materials and jointly score the candidates; during the re-examination, if there is a professional written test, most of the questions from the test question bank are selected, and the tutor may not participate in the judgment. During the professional interview, 3 to 5 experts in the re-examination will each give their own points, and finally the ranking will be ranked according to the average score. In this process, the mentor is only one member of the mentor group.
It is precisely because of this design that the mentor's dominance has been severely weakened. It should be said that this is conducive to fairness, justice and openness in admissions.
Of course, if you want to select 1~2 candidates from 2~3 or even more candidates, the tutor still has the control. In the case that the scores of many candidates are almost the same, the final choice is made by the tutor. As long as the admission procedure is not violated, this should belong to the leadership that the tutor should have.
However, it must be stated that from the perspective of system design, it is impossible for any tutor to use his so-called "dominance" to abandon the top-ranked candidates and admit the lower-ranked candidates unless he cheats, because all the information All are public.
Review conditions should be treated equally
As mentioned above, the first level of the "application-assessment system" is to review the materials. Generally speaking, as long as the materials meet the requirements, most applicants can pass this level and enter the re-examination stage.
According to my personal experience and observation, there are three main groups of candidates for doctoral candidates. One is in-service college teachers, most of whom have graduated with a bachelor’s or master’s degree for many years and hope to improve their academic level through doctoral studies, and some are based on the special requirements of colleges and universities; second, fresh undergraduates or graduate students; third, after graduation, they want to return to colleges and universities Teaching, or want to achieve personal ideals through a Ph.D.
However, a real contradiction is that, on the one hand, colleges and universities are encouraging teachers to pursue doctoral studies, which is more prominent in local colleges and universities; Admission of Ph.D. students from fresh master's graduates.
As we all know, the number of doctoral students admitted by the current supervisor is extremely limited, and it is not bad to admit one doctoral student every year on average. If the admission of direct doctoral students or fresh graduates is restricted, the possibility of in-service teachers in colleges and universities being admitted will naturally be greatly reduced, or even lost. The reality is that our system is developing in a direction that favors direct Ph.D. students and recent graduates.
However, I also noticed that when reviewing materials, the corresponding regulations and examination content are more beneficial to college teachers. Because the scientific research topics, published academic papers, published academic works, etc. obtained by college teachers are exactly what most direct Ph.D students and fresh graduates lack. Therefore, judging from the review materials, it is difficult for direct Ph.D. students and fresh graduates to compete with college teachers, which forms a contradiction.
In my opinion, the system design should treat all candidates equally. Excellent college teachers should not be excluded because of the limited number of places, nor should we be unable to find potential outstanding fresh graduates because of the design of the assessment system.
Scholars should take their letters of recommendation seriously
In the "application-assessment system", there is an essential but often overlooked link, that is, the expert recommendation letter.
Expert recommendation letters are all made by candidates looking for experts themselves. After they are written, experts will send them to the schools they apply for, or they can be directly submitted by candidates together with relevant materials. As far as I know, with the exception of a few scholars, most scholars hold a loving, supportive and tolerant attitude towards writing recommendation letters. Therefore, the recommendation letter is full of good words, adding oil and vinegar, and downplaying some issues or even avoiding them.
In recent years, in order to increase the credibility of recommendation letters and learn from foreign experience, some colleges and universities have provided a range for candidates' intelligence level, thinking ability, academic level, cooperation spirit, etc., and asked experts to give the candidates' location. For example, if the candidate is in the top 2%, the candidate is an excellent talent, if it is in the top 5%, it is very good. For this division, the most common recommendation by scholars is that candidates are in the top 2% or top 5% of each item. This makes it feel fake.
At present, there are generally three aspects to the problem of recommendation letters from experts and scholars. The first is generality, which is not very targeted, and even its recommendation letters can be applied to all outstanding candidates; the second is the same, the comments seem to be good words, but they are not helpful for the reviewer to understand the students; finally, it is sloppy. , Many recommendation letters are not written by experts themselves, and some are even directly ghostwritten by students, signed and endorsed by experts.
In fact, reading recommendation letters is also a test for experts and scholars. For them, even if the recommenders are hyped, the reviewers can generally judge the authenticity of the expert's words based on the applicant's academic performance and candidate experience.
When reviewing materials abroad, because they attach great importance to the weight of recommendation letters, they have a certain degree of recognition or recognition. For example, it is generally possible to distinguish which letters of recommendation the scholar may have to write for some reason. Even between the lines, you can see the helplessness of scholars, and then make correct judgments on applicants. The more recommendation letters from big-name experts, the more cautious colleges and universities are.
Although recommendation letters recommend others, they are also letters of credit of scholars themselves, and they are responsible for their personal academic reputation.
Can't ignore the situation that someone can't read it
Doctoral education is the highest level in higher education, and it is also the most difficult and difficult talent training level. To this end, the admissions of doctoral students must be strict in procedures, but also have someone in their eyes, and take all the materials of candidates seriously. From the interview performance of candidates, it is necessary to observe whether they have academic potential and enthusiasm, but also whether they have the concept and practice of contributing to society and the world through scientific research.
In talent cultivation, everyone is eager to cultivate outstanding talents, but all kinds of talent cultivation may also fail. We are eager to succeed, but we must also realize that compared with undergraduate and master students, the success rate of doctoral talent training may be the lowest.
At present, the design idea of the doctoral training system is to require everyone who enters the doctoral program to not only graduate on time, but also to complete the academic requirements with high quality and high level. In most colleges and universities, in addition to completing the graduation thesis, doctoral students also have the task of academic publication in high-level journals. Correspondingly, in recent years, many universities have extended the study and research period of doctoral students from the past three years to four years.
The problem with this line of thinking is that the system is designed to allow students to graduate on time. For example, although it is stipulated that doctoral students can graduate within 6 to 8 years, but more than 4 years is a delayed graduation, and the tutors who have delayed more graduates will be suspended.
Also, ignoring cases where someone might not be able to read it. For example, some students are unable to complete the tasks prescribed by the academic after their doctoral studies, and even have mental problems because of this. For another example, in view of the current admissions procedures, the tutors do not fully understand the students, which leads to the tutors discovering that the students may not be suitable for academic studies only after they have completed their Ph.D. But the reality is that mentors have no choice but to continue to instruct or even force students to do research.
At the same time, as long as the doctoral student fails to graduate on time, most of the responsibility rests with the supervisor. If for various reasons, students simply drop out of school, it will have an impact on the tutor, but in the end it is the students who suffer. Therefore, this in turn prompts the supervisor to develop the mentality of "as long as the student graduates successfully, everything will be fine", which further reduces the level of doctoral training.
The current popular "application-assessment system" will increase the unfamiliarity of tutors with students, and the proportion of students who find themselves unsuitable or unwilling to engage in academics will also increase after Ph.D. To this end, we need to target those who cannot graduate due to various reasons. In addition to stipulating that they can graduate with a master’s degree, we must also find ways to provide more exit channels and establish a normal exit mechanism, so that the “application-assessment” can be achieved. system” took root.
(Original title: "The "Application-Assessment System" for Doctoral Students Should Have an Effective Exit Mechanism". The author Guo Yingjian is a professor at Renmin University of China. This article is a key project of the National Social Science Fund "Reform and Reconstruction of my country's Higher Foreign Language Education System in the New Era" "Research" (Project Approval Number: 21AYY016) Phased Results)
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