This article is from the public number: cultural aspect (ID: whzh_21bcr) , author: Tian Mei, LU Gen-book, the original title of” rush to the rescue of human life from hair thesis: who is distorted Research humanity? | Cultural Aspects

Recently, the issue of scientific research publication related to epidemic prevention and control has caused controversy. The Ministry of Science and Technology has issued a notice a few days ago, requiring all scientific research units and scientific researchers to carry heavy burdens and write thesis on the land of the motherland, > Apply scientific research results to epidemic prevention and control, and you should not focus on publishing your papers until epidemic prevention and control tasks are completed.

Through this turmoil, the humane significance of scientific research innovation, the assessment and evaluation of scientific research fields, and the distribution of benefits have become prominent again. This article believes that, with the formation of various scientific research quantification and assessment mechanisms, the academic culture of “publishing or going out” is becoming a prominent feature of domestic scientific research.

This culture and the scientific research system behind it, in addition to putting pressure on scientific researchers, further erode the healthy soil for scientific innovation and academic progress. Emphasis on scientific research output may sacrifice innovation, courage, diversity, and ultimately scientific progress and its humanitarian value. The article originally contained the “Fudan Education Forum” No. 5 of 2016, which only represents the author’s point of view.

Publishing or Outgoing: Issues Behind Publishing Academic Journal Papers

In the past 20 years, China has significantly increased its investment in scientific research. In order to obtain state funding, universities, especially research universities, generally require teachers to be in international academic journals, especially the Science Citation Index (SCI) and social science Citation index (SSCI) The number of publications in these journals is considered an important indicator of a university’s scientific research strength, and is also closely related to the ranking of universities.

With the introduction of various quantitative evaluation and assessment mechanisms by universities, The academic culture of “publish or go out” is quietly forming on the campus . The impact of this culture on young teachers is particularly pronounced. For these young teachers, the number of published papers determines their career development. In China, the pressure of university teachers to publish international academic journal articles, and the various effects of this pressure on the academic life of young teachers, have caused discussions among researchers in various fields.

However, empirical research on this has been very limited. In this research, a group of young teachers from a research university in western China is taken as the research object. Through qualitative research methods, they analyze how they evaluate the requirements of their colleges and universities to publish international academic journal papers.The impact of this requirement on their scientific research and life, the specific research issues are as follows:

1. What is the attitude of young teachers for publishing international academic journal articles?

2. How does the requirement to publish international academic journal articles affect the academic behavior and personal life of young teachers?

Publishing or losing: academic trends under the scientific research evaluation system

In the past ten years, the number of international academic journal articles published by Chinese scholars has increased rapidly. Data from the China Institute of Science and Technology Information show that in 2012, the number of international academic journal papers authored by universities in China reached 11.4 million, an increase of 11.8% over 2011.

In 2012, Chinese scholars published 193,733 SCI papers, ranking second in the world, second only to the United States, and more than four times the number of SCI papers published in 2002. In the same year, authors from relevant institutions in China published 187 papers in Cell, Nature, and Science, ranking the ninth in the world in the number of papers published in these three influential journals.

The rapid increase in the number of international academic journal articles published by Chinese scholars is mainly achieved by university teachers, because the number of publications in international academic journals has become an important indicator of university and subject evaluation. In the subject evaluation carried out by the Degree and Graduate Education Development Center of the Ministry of Education, the number and citation rate of academic papers published by a discipline in SCI and SSCI journals is one of the important evaluation criteria.

In the annual world university academic rankings published by Shanghai Jiaotong University, the number of papers published by a university in Science and Nature accounts for 20%, and the number of papers published in SCI and SSCI journals accounts for 20%. the weight of. Zhao Junfang and others analyzed all the S published by the 39 “985 Engineering” universities in China from 2001 to 2014.CI, EI and SSCI theses compare the international competitiveness of universities.

The number of articles in international index journals such as SCI and SSCI, as an “objective” indicator of high-level scientific research results, has had an important impact on the development of Chinese universities and research institutions.

In order to improve academic rankings, colleges and universities in our country have promoted teachers to increase the number of academic papers by adopting various evaluation and incentive policies. In research universities, hiring and promotion of teachers is increasingly dependent on the number of papers published in academically recognized journals.

Some universities also give teachers cash awards, housing benefits, and other allowances based on the number of papers they have published. The personnel policy that has attracted attention in recent years is the “tenure-track” mechanism employed by college teachers. The “Tenure-track” mechanism was piloted at Tsinghua University in 2003 and has been implemented in most of the “985 Project” universities and some “211 Project” universities including the universities in this case.

Although there are differences in specific content, the “Tenure-Track” mechanism implemented by universities generally adopts short-term contracts of 3-6 years for newly hired lecturers, and formulates clear and quantifiable performance targets such as the number of international academic journal papers. And evaluate the academic performance of newly hired lecturers according to the goals, and determine whether to continue to provide tenure to them after the contract expires. Under the employment system of “not rising or leaving”, the academic culture of “publish or go out” has quietly formed in universities.

Although some scholars believe that the quantitative evaluation of academic output “allows comparison and promotes competition” or that the “Tenure-track” mechanism “gives young scholars a relatively strong period of creativity … It makes … academic innovations “, but its negative impact has been widely reported worldwide (for example, Sweden, Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom) .

Under the academic culture of “publishing or going out”, the focus of teachers’ work often deviates from teaching activities and turns to academic paper output that can be “quantified and calculated.” Alvesson and Sandberg noted that in the field of management, only a surge in the number of papers was seen, but there was a serious lack of creative and innovative research findings. Adler and Harzing argue that relying solely on quantitative academic evaluation systems prevents researchers from delving into knowledge.

Bouchikhi and Kimberly noted, “Another negative effect of the “publish or out” academic culture is the emergence of more and more homogeneous research, that is, researchers tend to report research results consistent with the mainstream paradigm in order to increase the acceptance rate of the paper. Worse still, Scientific researchers may falsify data in order to publish papers. For example, Lawrence’s research confirms that overemphasizing the importance of the number of publications “often reduces the objectivity of the dissertation,” and ultimately “damages scientific practice Responsibilities of New Lecturer and Selection of Research Objects

This research was carried out at a research university in the western region. (see Table 1) in international academic journals.

By querying the school’s campus network teacher homepage, this study successfully invited 13 young teachers as interviewees. Respondents were selected based on the following criteria: ages 25 to 35, doctoral degree, and entry after 2012. This study used a questionnaire to obtain the background information of the respondents, including gender, age, department, title, and overseas education experience. (See Table 2) < / span>.

The main source of research data is “semi-structured interviews”,Each interview lasted 90 minutes to 120 minutes, and the interview recording was transcribed by the research assistant. According to the research questions, the interview data was coded and roughly classified, such as “attitude towards publication requirements”, “impact on publication requirements”, etc. Then, the interview text was repeatedly read and gradually classified. In the following, SEP1-7 is used to refer to 7 respondents in science and engineering disciplines, and HSSP1-6 is referred to in the humanities and social sciences.

Research pressure and behavior choices of scientific research system

(I) Publication pressure

In order to gain teacher faculty, respondents must publish a number of papers in designated journals within three years. During the interview, all interviewees stated that they were under great pressure:

Time is tight, it’s very tight. You think, 5 articles in 3 years, one article on average in half a year … (SEP1)

What do I think of this policy? I feel pressured … Think about it, it will take two or three months for the paper to be submitted for review, and the review process will take another two or three months, and then your paper may Rejected … (SEP2)

Social science teachers mentioned that there are different “ideology, paradigms, and discourse systems” in Chinese and foreign studies, increasing their difficulty and pressure in publishing papers in international academic journals:

Teachers of science and engineering are seamless from the point of view of dissertation. Our XX subject thesis may be written about some problematic things in Chinese society and politics. If you write in the style of domestic journal articles, and the papers written in this set of words, obviously international academic journals feel that you are playing against the cow.

If you go to the international academic periodThis is the taste of others in that market. If you write like a domestic journal article, we will not be interested. (HSSP5)

Writing in a second language obviously increases the pressure on teachers to publish. All teachers of science and engineering in this research have successfully published SCI papers during their doctoral period, and most of the respondents have already produced high-quality papers during the contract period. Even so, the interviewees admitted that English writing requires them to invest more time and energy:

My language has not arrived That level. A paper I have now has been changed five or six times, but every time I read it, I still feel dissatisfied and do not express what I want to express. (SEP7)

Publication of humanities and social sciences depends on language description and expression. Most of the teachers in the humanities and social sciences in this study have not yet successfully published international academic journal articles. For these interviewees, the task of writing and publishing international academic journal articles faces great language challenges:

Engineering dissertations are short. We want twenty or thirty pages, thirty or forty pages, thousands of words. (HSSP5)

It is difficult to write an English thesis directly. Translation is also very tiring. How uncomfortable you are to translate the case study, the words of the table are easily translated, the ones with 20,000 or 30,000 words, translated in the past …

In the case of a non-promote and go contract, all respondents believe it reflectsThis shows the efforts and determination of the universities to improve their rankings and impact first-class universities. In the interview, the interviewees, especially teachers with overseas study and work experience, pointed out that “publishing or leaving the world” is a universal worldwide academic and cultural phenomenon:

In [Singapore] XX colleges, associate professors will publish 30 SCI papers in six years, and they are also facing tremendous pressure. If no paper is published, leave. (SEP6)

My [United States] The tutor often calls students … forcing them to do experiments. He said that he must also report to the director of the center and submit the work process regularly so that he can get a tenure in three years. My friend told me that [in the American University] the new lecturers were all crazy. No difference. (SEP2)

[Publish or Get Out] is the status quo, as simple as that. No one can change, no country can change. (SEP7)

Nevertheless, teachers’ comments on the New Deal are mixed. Some teachers, especially science and engineering teachers, expressed a strong motivation for scientific research and writing. They called SCI papers “hard currency” and considered them to be not only a determining factor for obtaining tenure, but also a necessary condition for development in colleges and universities:

The minimum standards are not enough, I want to publish as many papers as possible. ThesisMore, the more advantageous the promotion in the future. (SEP3)

On the other hand, many teachers of the humanities and social sciences do not agree that publishing international academic journal articles is the only proof of their scientific research ability. The one-size-fits-all evaluation approach has been particularly criticized by participants in the public management discipline. In CU colleges, to gain tenure, new lecturers in public administration must publish SSCI journal papers. The following excerpt may be a little bit extreme, but it reflects that new lecturers in this discipline are facing greater contract pressure than teachers engaged in other soft science research:

NTU’s current standards An SSCI is equivalent to an [domestic] authoritative journal. [CU] is to encourage the former but not the latter … Some worship SSCI, and then say that this is better than the domestic [good], that is, the foreign monk is better This is the feeling of chanting. Why blindly worship SSCI? [Published] Domestic academic journal articles are killed. (HSSP6)

(II) The impact of publishing pressure

In the previous section, the interviewees’ views on CU’s new “Tenure-track” lecturer-based employment contract based on thesis publishing and their pressure to publish international academic journal papers were described. As the interviews progressed, other effects of the new policy gradually became apparent.

1. Quantity vs. Quality: Impaired Scientific Spirit

In order to obtain tenure, all respondents stated that they must first strive to meet the minimum publishing requirements set out in the contract. For example, teachers of the humanities and social sciences generally choose to publish CSSCI journal papers first; teachers of science and engineering are committed to publishing 5 SCI papers, and no one plans to submit papers to the SCI journals with the highest influence in this subject area.Or submit to three top journals (Science, Nature, and Cell). Faced with a three-year contract, respondents had to pursue rapid and immediate benefits:

I must guarantee the completion of the task of publishing Chinese papers before I think about publishing international papers … (HSSP4)

Considering school policies, I feel that to a certain extent we are forced to “get quick success. To publish a high-quality scientific paper, you need time to accumulate. It takes three, four, or even longer. (SEP7)

Respondents often refer to the method of “quick success and quick success” that meets the number of published papers, which is to organize the thesis from doctoral dissertations (such as HSSP1) . Although some interviewees must start a new study (such as SEP7) , on the whole, the quantitative assessment has consumed their attempts to explore research interests, develop The determination of long-term but more valuable research:

All the things I post now are sorted out from the doctoral dissertation. Something changed, and you asked me to start working again. I do n’t think it ’s realistic. (HSSP1)

Like me, without [PhD thesis] data, you have to start over. I usually do experiments and data for half a year, write for two months, then submit, and then do another experiment. I also want to do a bigger study, but it will take a year or two, or even longer. (SEP7)

In fact, all interviewees stated that they had to sacrifice the quality of scientific research to some extent:

If you don’t have such a quantitative evaluation, you can do scientific research at your own speed and at your own pace. Of course, we are willing to calm down and concentrate on doing something meaningful. We will definitely do that. But the reality is that we have to face the assessment. (SEP6)

For example, I have a good research and found that I could have written a good dissertation; but in fact, I had to disassemble the research findings and distribute five or six dissertations in order to meet the requirements of the school. So you only have quantity but no quality. This is a problem, it is a very real problem. (SEP1)

In order to publish academic papers in the shortest time, respondents tend to avoid niche research topics and methods. Innovation is important in the highly competitive scientific community; but high pressures prevent respondents from conducting more challenging research:

Considering the assessment system We can only focus on those hot research topics. If your research topic is too new and does not attract public attention, you will have a hard time publishing your paper. If you do not publish enough papers, you will be eliminated in a few years. (SEP4)

For researchers in the humanities and social sciences, in order to meet the requirements of publishing international academic journals, they need to adjust research topics according to the interests of the “Western”. Facing difficulties in writing in foreign languages, The interviewer also mentioned that he abandoned the qualitative research and turned to quantitative analysis with relatively low language requirements:

If your research question is to be published in an international academic journal, you must choose important issues that suit its taste. Because we are mainly studying the real China problem, this problem may be very important to domestic scholars. Westerners may think what this is. I am not interested. (HSSP5)

I prefer this kind of qualitative research. I have done a lot of in-depth case studies. Later, I have turned to … (HSSP5) < / p>

A more worrying question is whether heavy pressure will lead to manipulation and falsification of research data. In our interviews, two interviewees mentioned the way doctors at CU’s affiliated hospitals write and publish papers. It should be noted that there is no evidence in this research that the following excerpts do reflect the facts, but these excerpts echo recent news reports on scientific research misconduct and indicate that research under high pressure may lead to scientific research fraud:

My colleagues working in the hospital are more stressed than us. They are so busy treating patients, and they also have SCI papers for promotion titles. They do n’t have that time at all, so they have to take a more “effective” approach … (SEP7)

Many of their experiments are left to the company. …… How can this guarantee quality? You let companies do experiments. The company is profit-driven. Who knows whether the results obtained by these companies are true or fake? Remarks “> (SEP6)

(II) Marginalized non-scientific research work

To obtain tenure, interviewees’ contracts stipulate additional duties. In the field of humanities and social sciences, depending on the discipline, new lecturers need to complete classroom teaching tasks ranging from participating in teaching to 180 lessons per school year. Teachers of science and engineering have no classroom teaching requirements, but need to observe the classroom teaching and complete the teaching assistant job. Teaching and related work are generally considered to take up scientific research time, and teachers have insufficient motivation to engage in teaching-related work:

You need to change your homework, write comments, organize teaching, and classify students’ learning problems. After doing this, you will also have the test papers and rewrites. All these tasks are what we have to do.

We have no hard and fast rules for class. But there are hard rules for publishing your paper. Then an inevitable incentive for you under this system is that a rational person must be. Then I do n’t have a good class. I just talk about it. Just fine. But I have to pay close attention to scientific research. (HSSP3)

Although some teachers are still enthusiastic about teaching, the teachers interviewed believe that the new evaluation system does not encourage teachers to engage in teaching. Compared with writing and publishing academic papers, teaching work is difficult to quantify and difficult to represent the academic level of teachers. It is gradually marginalized in the daily work of interviewed teachers:

The old teacher I was scheduled to attend was very good. He understood our pressure. He said, “You can take time off when you’re busy. You don’t have to come every time.”

Our generation has developed this kind of publishing papers, and the inertia of thinking must be published. Publishing a paper is more rewarding than your teaching … You just need to meet the teaching standards. (HSSP4)

Good or bad teaching [School] It doesn’t matter, as long as there are no teaching accidents. I think so, it just depends on your scientific research. (HSSP1)

In addition to teaching tasks, the school / department also arranges some academic activities, administrative and logistical work for young teachers from time to time:

The school often invites some experts to give lectures. In order to give the face of the experts, we are required to attend. Sometimes the lecture has nothing to do with us, and we do not understand it at all. (SEP6)

The unions also send us jobs. Just like every year before the school hosted a sports meeting, the union came over and told us that young teachers must attend. (SEP7)

In addition, the term contract also requires new lecturers who have no overseas experience to study abroad for one year during the contract period. Respondents also question the necessity and actual value of the experience abroad. Faced with the pressure to publish papers, interviewees considered that various administrative and affairs work was “meaningless” “, Reducing the output of the paper,” should not be listed in the contract “ (SEP7) .

A school executive at a recent conference said, “Our goal is to give all school teachers at least one year of overseas experience in a few years.” I do n’t know why. To build a world-class university? I don’t think it is necessary at all. We have only three years to publish so many papers. [Go abroad] will definitely take some of our energy and time. (SEP1)

It is now mandatory. I don’t think it’s necessary … You can’t be sure that going abroad will be useful, and there will be personal improvement. (SEP3)

(Three) impact on life

In order to meet the requirements for publishing papers, interviewees stated that they work 10 to 15 hours a day and seven days a week. Previous studies have reported the relationship between overwork and subhealth. In our interviews, teachers repeatedly complained that they were tired, and “body fatigue” was a negative effect of high pressure on publishing academic papers:

Every weekend after class XX, I go home for dinner and then go back to the office to work. The time is too limited … so are my colleagues. We usually leave at twelve … (SEP4)

Reading a PhD is exhausting. By the time you get your postdoc, you are very, very tired. You need time to recover, but the current policy gives you no time to rest. To be honest I now