Measurement and Evaluation of Collaborative Development Level of Higher Education

Abstract

With the aid of grey correlation theory and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), this paper sets up a multi-dimensional evaluation index system (EIS) for the comprehensive development level (CDL) of China’s higher education, and quantifies the state of collaborative development in 2005-2017 with an improved distance collaboration model. The results show that: Being the premises and bases of higher education, the supply subsystem develops much slower than the other subsystems (i.e. participation, output, and environment), and clearly pulls the development of the other subsystems. From 2012 onwards, the subsystems conformed to basically the same trend for the degree of collaboration: the degree of collaboration tended to be stable. There was even a slight dent in overall degree of collaboration between 2012 and 2016. Hence, the overall degree of collaborative development was far slower than the overall degree of development. After more than a decade of development, the degree of development, degree of collaboration, and degree of collaborative development reached basically the same level in 2017. The empirical results shed new lights on the focal points of higher education development in China.