I. Background of undergraduate education teaching evaluation

For undergraduate education and teaching, process evaluation is more important than result evaluation. The fundamental purpose of evaluation is to enable university cadres and teachers to always regard cultivating students' moral character as the fundamental task, and continuously improve the educators' realm, integrity, and ability. At present, the Outline of the Plan for Building a Strong Country in Education and the Three-Year Action Plan have provided us with direction, path, and goal. We must shoulder the mission entrusted by history, answer the people's demands, and lead and support the comprehensive construction of a modernized socialism with Chinese characteristics with a strong country in education, science and technology, and talents. Higher education has the inherent mission of integrating education, science and technology, and talents into a coordinated deployment and promotion. For this round of undergraduate education and teaching evaluation, literally speaking, the past "teaching evaluation" has been expanded to the current "education and teaching evaluation", in order to place the focus of evaluation on "educating people" and on the independent cultivation of high-level talents. Teaching is only one of the means and processes of educating people. The purpose of evaluation is to improve and enhance, achieving the effect of promoting construction, reform, management, and strengthening through evaluation. This round of education and teaching evaluation of high-level research universities has new emphases on evaluation content and methods, emphasizing "bottom-up, inside-out", cultural consciousness, quality awareness, and value pursuit, highlighting the diagnostic and leading nature of evaluation, aiming to lead research universities to explore the path of building world-class universities with Chinese characteristics, focusing on serving the construction of important talent centers and innovation highlands in the world. From the perspective of evaluation points, the first is to emphasize the comprehensive leadership of the Party in higher education, which is reflected in school work as implementing the principal responsibility system of the president under the leadership of the Party committee, whether the large ideological and political system combining ideological and political courses and curriculum ideological and political education is incorporated into the central work of Party organizations at all levels. The second is quality assurance system and capacity building, which is reflected in quality assurance concept, quality standards, quality assurance mechanism, quality culture, and quality assurance effect. The third is undergraduate education and teaching level, which mainly examines the ideological and political education of the school, the position of undergraduate education and teaching in school work, the quality of the teaching staff, student development and support system, excellent teaching, employment and innovation and entrepreneurship education. The fourth is comprehensive reform of undergraduate education and teaching, which provides a unique and valuable "self-portrait" of undergraduate comprehensive reform.

II. Workflow and Working Methods of Undergraduate Education Teaching Review and Evaluation

The overall idea of this round of evaluation is to guide research universities to focus on building world-class universities with Chinese characteristics and world-class standards, and cultivate top-notch innovative talents and interdisciplinary talents capable of undertaking the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, in accordance with the overall principles of "complete system, relaxation and burden reduction, and leaving blank space for incentives". The focus of the inspection is on the school's quality assurance capabilities in building world-class universities, first-class undergraduate education, first-class faculty, and first-class education platforms, cultivating top-notch innovative talents, strategically scarce talents, and serving the major strategic needs of the country. It also focuses on the quality, deep-seated problems, and effectiveness highlights in promoting comprehensive reforms in education and teaching.

Each school applying for evaluation will first conduct self-evaluation, and then undergo inspection, investigation, and evaluation by a panel of experts. Schools will conduct self-inspection on the implementation of their plans and measures based on their own standards, using both the yardstick of implementing the comprehensive leadership of the Party, guarding the ideological front, and doing a good job in ideological and political education, as well as the yardstick of their respective disciplines and professional development plans and needs. The former yardstick is rigid, while the latter is flexible and resilient, with more characteristics. This is a major feature of this round of evaluation. In order to minimize the interference with the normal work of the universities being evaluated, fully utilize digital resources and network advantages, and achieve the goal of improving evaluation efficiency, this round of evaluation has also undergone significant reforms in the workflow. Instead of the long evaluation time and large number of experts entering the school in the past, it is now divided into two stages: online and offline evaluation. The main time is spent on the two-week online evaluation stage, followed by a two-to-three-day on-site inspection to address any issues that have not been completed during the online evaluation stage.

This round of evaluation has also made significant adjustments in its working methods. The online evaluation strives to be comprehensive and in-depth, reflecting the comprehensiveness and depth of the evaluation. It not only comprehensively reviews and evaluates the primary and secondary indicators and audit focuses, fully reads the self-evaluation report and supporting materials, accesses and reviews various evaluation materials, and comprehensively reviews the "whole picture" of education and teaching work. It also fully explores normal resources such as self-evaluation reports and quality reports, as well as school self-assessment and other related reports. Through in-depth research and analysis, accurate research and judgment, and identifying problems, it conducts in-depth analysis and investigation of the discovered problems to ensure that the raised questions are to the point, reflecting the scientific, professional, and objective nature of the evaluation. The offline evaluation focuses on targeted investigation and diagnosis based on the "problem list", focusing on the primary and secondary indicators and audit focuses of the audit and evaluation, without expansion or omission. Thus, it achieves the goal of inspecting with problems, accurately diagnosing, and prescribing the right remedy, providing useful work suggestions. The basic requirement for both online and offline evaluations is not to interfere with or affect the normal work of the school. Sometimes it even requires the evaluation experts to be tired, extracting and summarizing more from the materials, corroborating and refining more from interviews, rather than taking themselves as experts, and not making things difficult for the evaluated school. It truly reflects the level, position, and mission of the evaluation experts, and embodies the evaluation culture of "answering the same question together".

III. Elements and links of undergraduate education teaching evaluation

First, we need to identify the problems. Through in-depth investigation of online assessment and on-site assessment, we can help schools find fundamental and key issues that are practical, in line with their educational orientation, and helpful for their development. Identifying problems is not simply using a microscope, magnifying glass, or searchlight to find problems. Instead, experts, as higher education practitioners, work together with schools to identify problems. The assessed schools also hope that the assessment team can point out problems and provide rectification suggestions, so that the schools can use the power of assessment to promote internal rectification and implementation.

Second, we should condense characteristics. Through in-depth investigation of online evaluation and on-campus evaluation, we should fully explore the fresh and practical cases with bright spots and promotional value in the reform of undergraduate education and teaching in the school, and form demonstration cases. Sometimes, schools have a variety of colors and highlights in undergraduate education and teaching, and it is difficult to choose when summarizing demonstration cases. The expert group can work with the school to start from the most important issues in the school's development orientation, social needs, teacher development, and student growth, and use goal-oriented and characteristic-oriented methods to sort out, condense, and summarize the school's most distinctive, effective, and inspiring practices and achievements, so as to reflect its characteristics and strengths, and provide inspiring innovative cases for the construction of first-class universities in colleges and universities nationwide.

The third is to focus on "caring for people, development, and the future". That is, to conduct inspections around important issues that affect the implementation of the fundamental task of cultivating students' moral character in schools, strategic issues that affect the long-term development of schools, and key issues that affect the quality of talent cultivation. The inspections should also focus on fundamental issues that schools want to address during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and plan to address during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The inspections should also focus on the quality assurance capabilities necessary for building a world-class university, as well as influential comprehensive reform measures and achievements in undergraduate education and teaching.

IV. Development Trend of Undergraduate Education Teaching Evaluation

Today's university education and teaching are undergoing unprecedented challenges and changes. Universities must not only lead and support social development in spirit, culture, and technology, but also adapt to the needs of economic and social development. All types of schools must aim to shape students' "three views", cultivate their moral character, and develop their abilities. They must reconstruct teaching materials, courses, teaching and practical content, and teaching technology systems, so that students can not only consolidate their knowledge foundation, but also adapt to the needs of economic and social development.

Currently, there are several notable trends in undergraduate education and teaching. Firstly, the integration of professional knowledge has become increasingly prevalent. More and more schools are combining professional courses with general education courses, and interdisciplinary integration has become a trend. It is essential for students to have a well-rounded education in both arts and sciences. Secondly, teaching content is becoming modularized. To enable students to have a cross-disciplinary and cross-major knowledge structure, course modules that are problem-oriented and aim to improve problem-solving skills are being developed within the limited academic structure. Thirdly, teaching scenarios are becoming diversified. Teaching has expanded from traditional classrooms and laboratories to more "classrooms" such as fields, enterprise workshops, banks, and courts, based on different majors and educational goals. Virtual experiments and situational teaching have also become common supplements to teaching. Fourthly, teaching technology is becoming more informational. Combining offline and online teaching, large-class lectures with small-class discussions, classroom knowledge with AI applications, teacher lectures with immersive teaching, and classroom teaching with experimental practice teaching have become basic techniques and methods in education and teaching. Fifthly, the roles of teachers and students are becoming interchangeable. Teaching and learning are fundamental principles of education, and the development of various teaching technologies and diversification of teaching scenarios are aimed at strengthening the interactive interface between teachers and students and breaking the one-way nature of knowledge impartation. Sixthly, undergraduate learning is becoming more graduate-like. As China's university education enters the stage of popularization, it has moved from a single focus on knowledge impartation to a new stage where knowledge inheritance and knowledge creation are equally important. It has become a basic characteristic of excellent universities for undergraduates to start research-based learning and practice as early as possible, and the integration of undergraduate and graduate education is taking shape. Seventhly, career planning is becoming earlier. In addition to the goal of "entry-level employment" in vocational and technical education, research universities are providing barrier-free major transfer after enrollment, credit system, dual degrees, undergraduate-graduate integration, and interdisciplinary training during undergraduate studies, all aimed at giving students more opportunities to "try and error" and choose again, while allowing them to recognize their own thinking and ability strengths more deeply, so that they can adapt their learning to their future careers and life driven by their interests. Eighthly, student life is becoming more community-oriented. With the improvement of school infrastructure, logistics, and life support capabilities, especially the下沉 of student work and affairs, the self-care, self-reliance, and self-governance abilities of college students urgently need to be improved. Coupled with informational support, socialized procurement services, and broader participation in student affairs management, many logistical and life support functions in universities will gradually be returned to society. Ninthly, there is a mismatch between teaching and learning. The impartation of knowledge is a learning system centered around teachers and primarily based on existing knowledge systems. Therefore, it inevitably requires synthesis, refinement, approximation, and hypothesis to simplify complex practical problems into manageable "ideal" models. Consequently, the comprehensiveness and regularity of knowledge are inevitably accompanied by the lag in knowledge summarization and disconnection from actual needs. With the addition of AI technology, the binary structure of "teacher and student" in past education and teaching has become a ternary structure of "teacher, student, and AI". At this time, the relationship between teaching and learning based on knowledge impartation and teacher-centeredness will be reconstructed, which requires different needs and majors to quickly bridge the lag, one-way, and mismatch between teaching and learning according to their own rules. The tenth is the disappearance of university campus boundaries. Here, it mainly refers not to the disappearance of physical walls and fences, but to the interaction and integration of universities and society. University culture should become a banner of advanced social culture, and university spirit should purify the restlessness and utilitarianism of society. This is both an inevitable trend and a higher pursuit and goal for us higher education practitioners.

The advanced education and teaching and high-level talent cultivation in universities are related to the sustainable development of the world, the future of the country, the rejuvenation of the nation, and countless families, with distinct political, people-oriented, and strategic characteristics. Through undergraduate education and teaching evaluation, we can map the common problems that need to be solved and typical achievements that can be used for reference in China's construction of world-class universities and educational power in the new era, and promote China's leap from the current continuous growth in the number of universities and gross enrollment rate of students to a new stage based on quantity, with quality as the connotation, culture as the pursuit, and spirit as the benchmark. I believe that despite various indicators and indexes of educational power, these pursuits must be the fundamental purpose of China's construction of educational power, which is also the original intention and essence of undergraduate education and teaching evaluation.

Author: Yan Chunhua, CAS Member, Vice President of the China Association of Higher Education, Former President of Lanzhou University, and Professor of Liberal Arts at Peking University

Source: The original article was published in the 8th issue of China Higher Education Research in 2025