Study On The Effect Of Student-Faculty Interaction Upon The Quality Of Undergraduate Education

The quality of higher education is becoming the core problem of governments andthe society, with the advance of globalization. Undergraduate education is thecornerstone of higher education, so its quality arouses more attention. But they aredifficult problems as to what is the definition of the quality of undergraduate education,how to evaluate the quality of undergraduate education and what are the factorsaffecting the quality of undergraduate education. All the same, as a social activity,education is essentially a kind of positive Student-Faculty Interaction (SFI) to promoteindividual development. The successful education is based on spiritual communication.Therefore, SFI is a compass to reflect the level of undergraduate education and a key toinfluence the quality of undergraduate education. Tsinghua University research groupdid the undergraduate education study survey to confirm above judgements by using thetool of National Survey of Student Engagement-China (NSSE-China).Based on the connotation and characteristics of the theory of SFI, this studyanalyzes the condition of domestic SFI and the influence about SFI on undergraduateeducation by using the data of Z University which attended2011NSSE-China surveyand the national means which were published by Tsinghua University research group.1) Based on questionnaires of Tsinghua University “National Survey of StudentEngagement-China2011”(NSSE-China2011), five indicators are selected.They are academic achievement, awards, deep learning, educational gains andcampus satisfaction which reflect and characterize the quality of undergraduateeducation.2) The data of SFI which comes from NSSE-China2011presents the frequencyand degree of undergraduate education about domestic universities anddescribe the reality of SFI effectively. At the same time, compared domesticuniversities,“985” universities and Z University with American data of NSSE,this study finds the gap between domestic universities and Americanuniversities on SFI.3) Taking Z University as a case, it makes the correlated analysis on the fivequality indicators, and finds that SFI has significant positive correlation withthe five quality indicators. Besides, it not only shows the graphic descriptionabout the positive correlation but also confirms the basic conclusion that SFI reflects the quality of undergraduate education.4) Based on the significant effect of SFI on the quality of undergraduate educationand domestic universities SFI condition, especially Z University, it proposes toset up the spiritual communication and the concept of “To teach is to learn”, toenhance students’ autonomous learning abilities, to combine SFI in and out ofclassroom, to strengthen the SFI system construction to improve SFI and thequality of undergraduate education.