Abstract:

Higher education evaluation reform serves as a critical component in enhancing China’s comprehensive higher education capacity and establishing the nation as a global higher education powerhouse. Provincial governments’ policy reproduction during the formulation of evaluation reform policies significantly impacts local practices. Based on the machine learning method, a Doc2vec model was constructed to conduct quantitative calculations on the reproduction of higher education evaluation reform policy content in China’s provinces. Furthermore, Qualitative Comparative Analysis was employed to uncover the influence mechanisms of provincial governments’ policy reproduction in higher education evaluation reform. The research finds that the degree of policy reproduction in provincial higher education evaluation reforms remains generally low. Five high-reproduction configurations were identified, which can be further categorized into three pathways: pressure-driven, horizontal competition-driven, and autonomous optimization. Three low-reproduction configurations were identified, which can be further generalized into two distinct pathway typologies: resource-deficient type and pressure-alienated type. A comparative analysis of pathways with high and low reproduction reveals that the provincial government’s education fiscal input is the economic basis for the provincial government to promote the reproduction of policy content of higher education evaluation reform, and the comprehensive strength of provincial higher education is the realistic basis for the provincial government to promote the reproduction of policy content of higher education evaluation reform. There is a substitution effect between the provincial government’s education fiscal input and the attention allocation of the provincial government, both of which can respond positively to external pressure. When there is no external pressure, they have a synergistic effect with the comprehensive strength of provincial higher education development, and their coordination can effectively enhance the degree of policy content reproduction by provincial governments. Therefore, provincial governments should stimulate internal motivation, rationally allocate education fiscal input, and implement central policies in a way that suits local conditions. The central government should further strengthen supervision, inspection, and reward and punishment measures to better promote the implementation of relevant policies.

Key words: higher education evaluation reform policies, policy reproduction, machine learning, fsQCA