Strengthening Academic Administrative Performance at Guangxi Open University

Abstract

The research objectives were 1) to analyze the current situation and ideal states of academic administrative at Guangxi Open University, 2) to propose appropriate approaches for strengthening the academic administrative level of Guangxi Open University. This research is quantitative research. The samples were 335 teachers and 50 administrators from the Guangxi Open University. The instrument used was a questionnaire. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), Cronbach's Alpha reliability analysis, modified Priority Needs Index (PNI_modified), content validity (IOC), and a five-point Likert scale for agreement assessment. The findings revealed that 1) administrators rated the current state of academic administration as moderately high (3.100–3.780) but expressed even higher ideal state expectations (3.720–4.000), with “The Effectiveness of Administrative Management” identified as the most urgent area for improvement (PNI_modified = 0.290), particularly in developing clear, performance-based incentive measures; 2) teachers also showed moderate-to-high recognition of the current state (3.393–3.940) and uniformly high ideal state means (4.000–4.077), with “Academic Administration by Processes” being the weakest link (PNI_modified = 0.202) while other sub-dimensions had gaps below 0.100; 3) two sets of targeted approaches were proposed accordingly: for administrators, designing transparent performance evaluation and incentive systems alongside multi-channel participation and feedback mechanisms; and for teachers, establishing teacher-led process improvement teams and creating feedback mechanisms for process adjustments; and 4) as evaluated by the experts, all draft approaches received mean scores of 4.8–5.0 (S.D. = 0.00–0.16) from both the administrators' and teachers' perspectives, indicating strong expert consensus and high approval of the draft approaches proposed in this study.