Research On The Relationship Between Faculty’s Social Capital And Teaching Performance In Border Ethnic Minority Regions

China is a united nation with multi-ethnic minorities, the fundamental task of whose border ethnic minority institutions is to cultivate high-level talents for the ethnic minority areas. Faculty is the main body of the development of higher education institutions (HEIs), and faculty’s teaching performance is a key factor to measure quality of colleges and universities. Along with the process of higher education massification in China, colleges and universities are faced with the problem of teaching quality "dilution". As a result, to enhance teaching quality, much attention has been focused on promoting faculty development through emphasizing teaching performance. Policymakers and stake-holders of higher education have been advocating improving teaching performance through enhancing faculty’s knowledge level by education and training from the perspective of human capital. However, unintentionally, the technological and instrumental rationality of human capital have shaped faculty into utilitarian "economic man". Interpersonal relationship among faculty members have been deteriorated in competition, and more and more conflicts and problems have occurred. Such intensifying utilitarianism may harm faculty’s teaching performance. Administers at colleges and universities emphasize to facilitate faculty’s teaching involvement by ways of establishing teaching evaluation mechanism to enhance teaching performance from the perspective of evaluation theories. However, studies show that teaching evaluation haven’t produced substantial positive results, but have brought negative effects to faculty development. Educational researchers, on the other hand, advocate to establish faculty community to facilitate career development and further promote teaching performance from the sociology of education perspectives. As a term originated from sociology, faculty social capital refers to the total of the effective social resources, imbedded in the social network of a faculty member, which he/she is able to invest, obtain, utilize, and finally meet the teaching expectation.,. Faculty’s social capital in border ethnic minority regions not only influences their teaching performance, more importantly, the faculty social capital originated in the social bond and mutual trust among faculty members from diverse ethnic groups manifests their social network connection and psychological perception in the multi-cultural context of higher education institution, which will directly and profoundly influence faculty’s inner world and social conduct, and further lead to different teaching performances. In this context, based on the actual needs of higher education institutions in China’s border ethnic minority regions, this research employs social capital theory and performance theory to examine the relationship between faculty social capital and teaching performance. The study aims to explore how to enhance faculty teaching quality in the multi-cultural context of China.Few previous studies have investigated the relationship between faculty social capital and teaching performance in border ethnic minority institutions. Based on the classical literatures at home and abroad, according to the relevant research results of social capital theory, and in combination with the characteristics of the multi-cultural context of HEIs in China’s border ethnic minority regions and the urgent problem of faculty teaching faced by the HEIs, explore the goal orientation of HEIs teachers’ social capital generate, conditions, vehicle, path and mechanism, and allowing for the dialectical principle of external cause and internal cause, this study explored the mechanism of action and impact of every elements of faculty social capital on teaching performance. Drawing from previous studies at home and abroad, this research extracted and refined the dimensions of faculty social capital-external cause and teaching performance-result, defined teaching efficacy and teaching knowledge acquisition as the intervening variables after analyzing motivational psychology and social exchange theory, constructed the conceptual model of the impact of social capital on teaching performance border ethnic minority institutions encompassing independent variable-faculty social capital, intervening variables-teaching efficacy and teaching knowledge acquisition, dependent variable-teaching performance, and the path of the corresponding relationship, and proposed twenty research hypothesis from such four aspects as faculty social capital and teaching knowledge acquisition, faculty social capital and teaching efficacy, teaching knowledge acquisition and teaching performance, teaching efficacy and teaching performance.Through designing and analysis of the questionnaire, on the basis of empirical research, the study further explored the mechanism of action and impact of every elements of faculty social capital on teaching performance so as to test the conceptual model and research hypothesis, justify and clarify the corresponding relationship between faculty social capital and teaching performance in border ethnic minority institutions. The research process mainly consists of three parts. First, the explorative factors analysis of pre-test were conducted, after analyzing credibility and dependability, the measuring options screened and formal questionnaire constructed. After the formal questionnaire survey,431 valid sampling data were collected, which come from faculty of Han people and ethnic minority in six colleges and universities at Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, confirmative factors analysis employed to test the structure of the questionnaire. Second, structure formula model was applied to justify the theory model and relevant research hypothesis. Third, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted to the basic information of the interviewees.Conclusions drawn from the above empirical and theoretical study are:First, China’faculty social capital in HEIs in the border ethnic minority regions is mainly made up of structural social capital and relational resources social capital, which can be effectively measured in great detail by five sub-dimensional scales. Second, faculty teaching efficacy and teaching knowledge acquisition are the internal causes and influence factors of teaching performance, serving as the intervening variables between faculty social capital and teaching performance. Third, faculty social capital has positive but indirect impact on teaching performance. More specifically, the impacting path is that faculty social capital had impact on and promoted teaching performance through forming of teaching efficacy and completion of teaching knowledge acquisition, i.e., external cause-social capital exerted greater influences to the result-teaching performance via external cause-teaching efficacy and teaching knowledge. Fourth, dimensions of faculty social capital had obvious and positive influence on teaching performance via intervening variables, yet the degree of influence varies.Compared to results from previous research, the theoretical contributions of this study are:First, thoroughly explained basic structure and elements of faculty social capital in border ethnic minority institutions, greatly developed researches on social capital theory applied to construction of teaching ability at colleges and universities. Second, developed researches influence factors of faculty teaching performance, identified teaching efficacy and teaching knowledge acquisition as the intervening variables between faculty social capital and teaching performance, unveiled the black-box along the impact process of faculty social capital on teaching performance, enriched researches on enhancing impact of faculty social capital on teaching performance in border ethnic minority institutions based on social capital theory. Third, verified the effect of faculty social capital on teaching performance in border ethnic minority institutions from the micro-level, enriched researches on individual social capital and microscopic effectiveness. The revelations of this study on practice through theoretical and empirical analysis:First, faculty social capital in border ethnic minority institutions provided new entry point and thinking to teaching administration at colleges and universities. Second, provided theoretical guidance for faculty in border ethnic minority institutions to self-diagnose and turn the relation resources into social capital to promote teaching performance. Third, it is fundamental guarantee to create nice teaching environment of cooperation and exchange for bettering faculty teaching performance in border ethnic minority institutions. Fourth, it is the only way to construct faculty learning community team for enhancing faculty teaching ability in border ethnic minority institutions.This study employed scientific and standardized research methodology to explore the correlative relationship between faculty social capital and teaching performance, yet it is subjected to some limitations. Subsequent researches may be conducted from the following aspects:First, based on the above conclusion that factors of faculty social capital had different impact on teaching performance, the reason of the differences can be explored through comparative research on factors of faculty social capital. Second, more practical and suitable measurement scales for faculty teaching performance in border ethnic minority institutions can be more scientifically developed. Third, more systematically theoretical and empirical exploration and research can be conducted on guarantee mechanism of faculty social capital in the multicultural context of border ethnic minority institutions, genuinely making it as useful supplements to teaching administrative system at colleges and universities. Fourth, thorough and deeper exploration on correlative relation between faculty and teaching performance can be conducted to raise entire teaching quality at colleges and universities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.