A study of institutional policy-makers' perceptions of performance funding indicators for higher education in Korea and United States

The purposes of this study were to measure and analyze differences of the perceptions of policy-makers' ratings regarding selected performance indicators used in Korea and those in the United States. The study has three major objectives: (1) to determine the perceptions of institutional policy-makers' ratings; (2) to analyze the perceptions of policy-makers of institutions which have different characteristics, such as type, location, and size; and (3) to examine the relationship between the performance indicators and the effectiveness items for the performance funding of higher education.; The targeted population of institutional policy-makers in the study included 596 chiefs of basic offices or bureaus at all 161 colleges and universities in Korea. 359 usable questionnaires represented a return of about 60 percent of the 596 policy-makers that had been surveyed. Non-significant results of the Chi-square tests indicated the participants who responded were indeed representative of the targeted population.; The major findings of this study are as follows: (1) the institutional policy-makers evaluated most performance indicators used by the Ministry of Education in Korea, except the students per staff indicator, as appropriate; (2) the institutional policy-makers evaluated the performance indicators as slightly effective in achieving most purposes, except equity, in the performance funding; (3) the institutional policy-makers evaluated most performance indicators found in ten case states of the United Sates as appropriate regarding the application in the Korean context; (4) the size of the institution, and the type and location variable of the institution were the most significant predictors in accounting for differences in policy-makers' perceptions; (5) the results of regression analyses provided important information for using the performance indicators for the allocation of performance funds in Korea---the government may take into account the four performance indicator factors (policy inducement, research quality, education quality, and efficiency of management) for the Special Purpose Support Funds, while the government may consider the three performance indicator factors (policy inducement, education quality, and student aid) for the General Support Funds.