高等教育研究的重新定位

Repurposing Higher Education Research

作为一种认识活动,高等教育研究可以生产知识也可以建构意义。无论致力于知识生产还是意义建构,高等教育研究的首要作用都在于对高等教育现象作出独到的解释并与其他学科的学者或公众分享。由于高等教育系统的“人为性”,高等教育研究成果对于高等教育实践的改进具有不确定性。实践中那些切实推动了高等教育改革和发展的观念或政策未必具有智识意义上的学术价值,而那些学术意义上的经典文本也未必都推动了高等教育改革和发展。基于此,对于高等教育研究的应用性不能忽视但也不宜高估,高等教育研究的根本目的在于深刻认识高等教育现象,并建构关于高等教育的知识体系和意义世界。

As a kind of cognitive activity,higher education research could produce knowledge and construct meaning.Whether committed to knowledge production or meaning construction,the primary role of higher education research is to make an original explanation of higher education phenomenon and share it with scholars of other disciplines or the public.In view of the“artificial nature”of the higher education system,the results of higher education research are uncertain for the improvement of higher education practice.In practice,those ideas or policies that have effectively promoted the reform and development of higher education may not have intellectual academic value,and those classic texts in the academic sense may not all promote the reform and development of higher education.Therefore,the applicability of higher education research could not be ignored,but it should not be overestimated.The fundamental purpose of higher education research is to deeply understand the phenomenon of higher education and construct the knowledge system and meaning world of higher education.