Abstract: In the last decade, various ranking evaluation of higher education quality has emerged, causing a lot of controversy. In philosophy methodology, the controversy over the evaluation of higher education quality is influenced by the naturalistic positivism and the humanistic anti-positivism. The confrontation of the popular "two cultures" in the west in the middle of the 20th century basically reflects the interaction between the two academic cultures. In order to understand and guide the evaluation of higher education correctly, it's essential to understand the basic functions and core concepts of higher education, and study the relationship between knowledge innovation, dissemination and transfer in modern universities. In addition, it's important to master the mechanism of "the research-teaching-study nexus" as a double helix group in modern research universities, and seek to build a higher-level talent-cultivating system, together with a scientific evaluation of higher education quality with Chinese characteristics.

Key words: evaluation of the higher education quality, the research-teaching-study nexus, double helix group, talent-cultivating system