Promotion criteria, faculty experiences and perceptions: A qualitative study at a key university in China

The purposes of this micro-level, detailed qualitative study of a university faculty in a large city in China are threefold: to identify the sources of institutional promotion criteria, to illustrate the experiences of frontline faculty members with these criteria and their perceptions of them, and to discuss the possible bearings of the findings on the modification and reform of the existing system for faculty evaluation and promotion in China. The data and analyses suggest that promotion criteria at the institutional level are largely influenced and determined by the policies that are developed by regimes at the national level. My research further suggests that faculty members are highly reflexive and pragmatic with respect to external definitions of scholarship. Future efforts in faculty evaluation and promotion might need to move the locus of the teaching criteria for promotion to the departmental and workgroup levels and broaden the research criteria to include faculty “knowledge application.” Research work may need to be reviewed for content rather than evaluated in terms of language or quantity.

► In this study I examine the promotion criteria at a Chinese university and elaborate on faculty experiences and perceptions of them.
► Data analysis suggests that institutional promotion criteria are to a large extent influenced by the policy regimes at the national level.
► Faculties are highly reflexive and pragmatic in face of external sources of scholarship definition.
► Future reform efforts might need to move the locus of teaching promotion criteria down to the departmental and workgroup levels.
► And broaden research promotion criteria to include faculty “knowledge application.”