Research On The Status Quo And Influencing Factors Of Alumni’ Alma Mater Identity In Yunnan Normal University

With the development of higher education in China,the resource of alumni has been significantly used in Chinese universities.The development of alumni associations could infinitely promote the progresses of the university.Moreover,as the beneficiaries of university education,the evaluation by alumni would highly reflect the achievements of the universities in culture development,quality of education and social justice.From the perspective of psychology,one of the most important reasons for the alumni to have deep feelings for their universities is the sense of identity.When the sense of identity emerge from the alumni,they tend to pay more attention to news that come from their Alma Mater,to express their love and to donate to the universities.This research applied mixed-method.Firstly,qualitative research methods have been applied to interview the alumni that graduated from Yunnan Normal university,as well as the researchers who had psychology education background.The interview results from the alumni and researchers have been used as the guideline of questionnaire designing.Secondly,convenience sampling method has been applied to collect data from 688 alumni as a pilot study.When the exploratory factor and project factor have been analyzed,the questionnaires names "Alumni Identification with Alma mater" and “Antefaciality of College Student Identification” have been used to test 1200 alumni that graduated from Yunnan normal university.After collecting questionnaires from 1179 alumni,T-test,Variance analysis and Nonparametric analysis of SPSS 18.0 were applied to analyze the data.The processes of analysis could assist the researcher to explore the current situation and affecting factors of the self-identification of alumni.Thirdly,case study has been used to organized in-depth interview with 25 alumni in Yunnan Normal university.The research results are as follows:1.The "Alumni Identification with Alma mater" questionnaire consists of 5 parts and 24 questions.The total score of the questionnaire is 120.The five partsincluding “supportive ",“protection”,“self-esteem and superiority",“emotional attachment” and “relationship”.The questionnaire in this research have good reliability and validity.The Cronbach’s alpha of the total questionnaire is 0.834,the Cronbach’s alpha of each part has range from 0.745 to 0.817.2.The alumni from Yunnan normal university have high level sense of identity.The relationship factor of alumni had the highest score.The self-esteem and superiority had the lowest score.3.The sense of identify among the participants have no significantly differences in six variables,these are gender,ethnicity,graduate year,study experience,and workplace.4.The sense of identify among the participants has significantly differences in occupation.The recognition score of alumni with the occupation of "soldier" was significantly higher than that of other occupations.The score of "superiority and pride" of alumni showed significant differences in different learning experiences.The score of superiority and pride of alumni with two learning experiences was significantly higher than that of alumni with one learning experience.5.The score of the "Alumni Identification with Alma mater" was significantly positively correlated with the six parts of the questionnaire on the “Antefaciality of College Student Identification”: campus environment and condition,university history,university spirit,social reputation,faculty strength,student friendship,and campus harvest.6.According to the analysis of case study and regression analysis,it can be seen that the well campus environment,perfect hardware facilities,long history,inherited patriotic tradition,good social reputation,strong faculty,harmonious and friendly campus interpersonal relationship and other factors make the alumni and Alma mater of Yunnan Normal University have a high sense of identity.7.The researcher offered some suggestion as follows:(1)enhancing the construction of campus infrastructure;(2)Strengthening the construction of campus culture;(3)promoting the construction of teachers;(4)Establishing a good socialreputation;(5)Building a social environment of positive interaction;(6)Enhancing the alumni’s sense of harvest on campus;(7)cultivating students’ alumni awareness;(8)Alumni work should be targeted.The researcher expect to provide some suggestions for the alumnus culture construction and alumnus management of Yunnan Normal University,provide reference for other universities to rationally develop and utilize alumnus resources,as well as to provide references to the other universities and some related researches.