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This study analyzes and discusses how competition-based funding has been institutionalized in the three North East Asian countries of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan since the neoliberal reforms in the 19...

The study aims to explore how Taiwan doctoral education in knowledge society meets the change of labor market, and how doctoral students deal with the socialization and professional training during their study, as well as influence their perspectives on career plan and job choices. That is, assuming that socialization and professional training have relationships and influences on doctoral students’ career decision. The research questions are as follows: (1) Will the related factors of implementing socialization in doctoral education predict the choices of different career paths? and (2) What factors will affect doctoral students’ perspectives on future job market (academia, public sector, private sector)? 2,000 questionnaires, snowball and purposely sampling, were sent to current registered doctoral student and 914 questionnaires were returned, excluding 214 invalid ones. The amount number of valid respondents is 700. SPSS Window 22.0 version was adopted as the statistical analyzing tool. The descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression were main methods for data analysis. There are 4 models, based on findings, for doctoral students’ intentions of purchasing jobs according to the findings: academia orientated, being employed in the government or public research institute, working in the private sector, and self-confident with career and job market.

This chapter documents the trends in Taiwan’s science and technology (S&T) research and development (R&D) policies and metrics, by analyzing comparative data on R&D expenditures, performance, and the role of business versus higher education. It provides an analysis of the interaction between national research infrastructure, higher education institutions (HEIs), the academic profession, and the status of doctoral education. In our analysis of Taiwan’s higher education system, several salient points have become clear. First, Taiwanese higher education system is in a period of change with a large number of HEIs tending to oversupply education to a shrinking student population. Second, diplomas have become inflated while the student population is steadily declining. Third, full-time faculty positions in Taiwanese HEIs are difficult for PhD graduates to obtain. In the light of national policies on S&T and R&D plans, both will inevitably affect the ways in which knowledge is generated. This generation of knowledge will influence the prosperity of the nation and impact the development of a competitive knowledge society. The biggest feature of the allocation of R&D funds in Taiwan’s corporate sector is the high proportion of funds invested in technology development, while the investment in basic and applied research is relatively insufficient.

Changes in social environments demonstrate that various structural disadvantages have led to increasing competition among higher education institutions (HEIs) and academics in Taiwan. In particular, connecting academics’ effort and performance to their promotion has been considered as an approach to strengthen academics’ willingness to cooperate with institutional development and as an opportunity for them to demonstrate their individual expertise. This paper illustrates the environment confronted by the Taiwan government and HEIs related to the development of policies regarding multi-career pathways and the promotion system for university teachers. It also offers reflections and suggestions on the implementation process of this new initiative. In order to strengthen the implementation of multi-career promotion system, government is advised to establish a database of qualified reviewers for teacher promotion evaluation. On top of this, there should have benchmarking standards for institutional reference. Moreover, the university’s support system for teachers’ professional development, such as resource input, funding subsidies, counselling, and research empowerment, must be linked with teacher promotion.

Higher education plays a key role in national development (Choi & Rhee, 2014). According to statistics from the Ministry of Education (MOE), there were 158 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Taiwan in 2016. This form of mass education provides more educational opportunities for students, but also raises problems like low teaching quality and competitiveness (Marginson, 2011; Shin & Harman, 2009). Recent studies on HEIs have indicated that student learning outcomes (LOs) can be significantly improved through teaching quality improvement, curriculum reform and equipment optimization (Maringe & Sing, 2014; Pike, Kuh, McCormik, Ethington, & Smart, 2011, Pike, Smart, & Ethington, 2012), but students' psychological traits are less explored (Chen, Wang, Wei, Fwu, & Hwang, 2009; Hummel & Randler, 2012). Cole, Field, and Harris (2004) found that learning motivation (LM) is the main predictive indicator of learning efficiency and outcomes. Therefore, this study attempts to explore how to promote students' LM, which has become an urgent issue for HEIs not only in Taiwan but many countries.Western scholars have attempted to understand learning psychology and behavior (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) from the perspective of achievement motivation, although cross-cultural studies have gradually gained more attention. Research has shown that the psychological process and behavior of non-Western samples in pursuing achievement are significantly different from those seen in Western samples (Chang et al., 2011; Chen et al., 2009; Heine et al., 2001). With regard to Taiwanese students, Chen et al. (2009) found that these took factors like social expectations, corresponding obligations, and role identification into account, in addition to autonomous interest and self-identity. Therefore, to improve the performance of Taiwanese college students it is necessary to further verify the perception and status of LM by examining two important factors, academic identity (Nasir, Mclaughin, & Jones, 2009; Winter, 2009) and role identity (White, Thomas, Johnston, & Hyde, 2008), and their correlation with outcome variables.Studies show that the greatest influence on students' experience and perceptions of the whole learning process are teaching quality and interactions (Pike et al., 2012), which can arouse greater class participation and positive attitudes. Furthermore, the methods and strategies of learning engagement that students adopt are the key to internalize the knowledge they are exposed to. Smart, Feldman, and Ethington (2000) regarded student learning engagement as an important mediator in the relationship between academic development and LOs, with learning engagement referring to the learning behaviors of students and their adaptability to HEIs and course learning (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006).In student learning engagement, Marton and Saljo (1976) proposed the "deep process," which effectively distinguishes differences in students' reactions to learning tasks. The deep approach to learning (DAL) shows that students' ability to extract information is the key point to effective learning and obtaining better outcomes. Students applying DAL can process, preserve, integrate and transfer important information more quickly than those applying surface approaches (Ramsden, 2003). Take as a whole, the evidence suggests that the ways students adopt DAL may have different consequences not only for their approaches to learning, but also the quality of their outcomes.Previous studies discussing the relationship between learning engagement and outcomes often reached different and contradictory results (Campbell & Cabrera, 2014; Pike et al., 2011, 2012; Reason, Cox, Mclntosh, & Terenzini, 2010). It is argued that these inconsistent findings might be caused by contextual variables, such as institutional and student traits, especially in major (Pike et al. …