Keywords

1 Introduction

Running campuses in different places is a phenomenon that universities establish campuses in regions other than the original region due to the expansion of the education scale and government policies. The policy of running campuses in different places is to provide development conditions for universities by using its own brand in conjunction with regional government support, the region’s socio-economic and the region’s educational resources [1]. Meanwhile, the development of the campus education can cultivate more talents for the region. In response to the concept of “rejuvenating the country through science and education”, the Ministry of Education issued the Education for the 21st Century Revitalization Action Plan in 1999. In this plan, the concept of “increased enrollment” was introduced [2]. Due to the enrollment expansion policy, universities have gradually expanded their enrollment scale, which has resulted in the shortage of resources such as teaching and dormitory. Therefore, various universities have taken measures to solve these problems. The most common solution is to establish a branch campus in a new region, that is, to run a university branch campus. In addition, China faces the problem of imbalanced development of education resources. Education resources are more developed in first-tier cities such as Beijing, while education resources are relatively poor in third-tier cities. The lack of education resources has prevented these cities from developing rapidly, so local governments have adopted certain measures to attract universities to establish new campus in their city. Due to the promotion of various policies, running campuses in different places has gradually emerged and become a regular means for universities to expand enrollment [3]. Running campuses in different places can not only improve the competitiveness of universities in the education market, but also promote the educational development of the region that university branch campuses located [4].

For students, the construction of university branch campuses provides students with more education opportunities, and enables more students to receive undergraduate education. A lot of project 211’s university branch campuses’ admission line are lower than main campuses, so some students who cannot apply for the project 211’s main campuses can choose to apply for the university branch campuses, so that some students can receive the same education as main campuses, which improves the level of education students received. What’s more, the graduation certificates issued by some university branch campuses are consistent with main campuses, which makes more students choose to study in university branch campuses. Most courses in university branch campuses are taught in small classes, which is easier for students to accept than large classes in main campuses. Therefore, the development of the strategy of running campuses in different places not only helps universities respond to the policy of expanding enrollment, helps universities recruit more students, but also helps students improve their chances of choosing a university.

The strategy of running campuses in different places has solved the problems of the enrollment scale of various universities, but has also brought many problems to the development of university branch campuses. For instance, the management system of the campus is inadequate, the management of students and teachers lacks standards, and university branch campuses lack excellent resident teaching staff. Because university branch campuses are relatively far from main campuses, the two campuses cannot communicate timely. Teachers in main campuses need to spend a lot of time in transportation to teach in university branch campuses, so only a few teachers volunteer to teach at university branch campuses. Newly-built university branch campuses often lack scientific research facilities which results in fewer resources available to students, so it is not conducive to students’ independent and innovative development [5]. In view of the current situation of running campuses in different places, this article mainly analyzes the problems existing in running newly-built university branch campuses from the perspective of students, and proposes solutions to these problems.

2 Literature Review

According to the survey, more than half of the project 211 have adopted a policy of running campuses in different places, and some universities have not only established university branch campuses in one region. For example, Harbin Institute of Technology has established campuses in Weihai and Shenzhen, and Shandong University has established campuses in Weihai and Qingdao. In addition to the campuses that have already recruited students, many universities have signed contracts or are building their university branch campuses. When investigating the selection of regions to build university branch campuses, it is found that the regions are mostly concentrated in coastal regions such as Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Weihai and Qingdao. The number of universities in coastal regions is relatively small compared to developed regions, but coastal regions need high-quality talents to drive economic development. Therefore, building campuses in coastal regions not only meets the needs of universities but also meets the needs of talents in coastal areas [6].

Qiuheng Shi and Min Kang [7] introduce the multi-campus university system in the United States and Japan, and compared it with university branch campuses in China. The authors propose that the current definition of university branch campuses is not clear. Generally, most people position university branch campuses as a platform for expanding the discipline space. In addition, university branch campuses lack the actual investigation and rational judgment on the needs of local higher education. Zhigan Qian [8] points out that newly-built university branch campuses have problems in the students’ ideological education, including the contradiction between functional positioning and student development needs, obstacles to communication between teachers and students, an unformed mature life community. Weak strength of ideological and political is not conducive to the education and management of students’ ideological and political affairs, and it is not conducive to the condensing of campus atmosphere. Zhenming Lyu and Guoping Zhou [9] think that there exist problems in university branch campuses in terms of resource allocation, multiple governance, and campus culture construction. Due to the distance, it is not convenient for university branch campuses to exchange information with main campuses, and it cannot guarantee that all the teachers in university branch campuses will be teachers from main campuses, so the quality of teaching cannot be guaranteed to be consistent with main campuses. And because university branch campuses are more oriented towards serving local needs in terms of school running philosophy, the university branch campuses and main campuses have formed two inconsistent campus cultures. Meilin Gong and Jie Yang [10] argue that there is a large gap between university branch campuses and main campuses in terms of discipline construction, teaching staff, and scientific research hardware facilities and resources. The authors conclude that main campuses can apply and obtain more projects supported by The National Natural Science Funds than university branch campuses by counting and comparing the projects in two campuses. Due to the lack of discipline construction and other aspects, the scientific research development of university branch campuses and main campuses is unbalanced, resulting in the scientific research construction of university branch campuses is far behind main campuses. Philip G. Altbach [11] indicates that the lack of appropriate laboratory equipment and personnel may make scientific research projects on university branch campuses impossible. Therefore, for university branch campuses, the campus is teaching-oriented rather than research-oriented. However, some part-time teachers in university branch campuses may not be able to reach the teaching level of teachers in main campuses, which brings challenges to the teaching quality of university branch campuses. Philip G. Altbach [12] also indicates that university branch campuses have many problems in teachers, students and replicating the main campus. First of all, it is difficult for university branch campuses to attract teachers from main campuses to teach in university branch campuses for a long time. Therefore, the curriculum arrangement is relatively intensive. Secondly, the intensive curriculum arrangement will cause students to study under pressure. Finally, university branch campuses cannot be consistent with the main campus in terms of the breadth and depth of research facilities and courses. Hence, when establishing university branch campuses, sustainability should be a core issue. So, whether university branch campuses can last for a long time remains to be verified. Jeff Hoyt and Scott Howell [13] use Brigham Young University as an example to analyze the reasons why students choose university branch campuses, including less class size, less group lessons, strong interaction with teachers, and being able to get higher scores, so there are more students choose to study at university branch campuses.

In summary, running campuses in different places can alleviate the lack of educational space brought by the increase in the number of professional disciplines in universities, and promote the development of education in the places where university branch campuses are located. However, there have also been many problems that affect the quality of university branch campuses. Only by solving these problems can play the role of university branch campuses to cultivate talents in universities.

3 Research Methods

According to the literature, there are certain problems in the construction of university branch campuses in many aspects. This article studies the problems of the development of university branch campuses from the perspective of students. Before investigating problems in the construction of university branch campuses, this article uses questionnaire survey to investigate the factors that affect students’ satisfaction with the university. First, we process the obtained data, then use regression analysis to test, and finally select the more significant influencing factors. Only by understanding which factors have an impact on student satisfaction, can study the problems of university branch campuses from a more detailed perspective. According to the influencing factors selected, this article analyzes the problems of newly-built university branch campuses from these aspects.

3.1 Analysis of Students’ Satisfaction

Jianfang Zhu [14] proposes to build a “student-centered” teaching quality guarantee system in universities, and strengthen the construction of laboratories to ensure that scientific research facilities are complete. The result of Yuanlin Hu’s [15] research on influencing factors of undergraduate college students’ learning satisfaction shows that teaching level, teaching relationship and learning atmosphere are the main factors affecting the undergraduate college students’ learning satisfaction. Therefore, students’ satisfaction with the university will be affected by many factors, and the influence degree of each factor on university satisfaction is not the same. This article takes students’ satisfaction with curriculum arrangements, teacher resources, scientific research atmosphere, teaching facilities, university environment, and student activities as the characteristic variables that affect students’ satisfaction, and proposes hypotheses: students’ satisfaction with curriculum arrangements, teacher resources, research atmosphere, teaching facilities, university environment, and student activities positively affect students’ satisfaction with the university, and students’ satisfaction with curriculum arrangements, teacher resources, and research atmosphere have a significant impact on students’ satisfaction. Curriculum arrangements mainly refer to cultivating scheme and teaching arrangements. Teacher resources mainly refer to teachers’ professional knowledge and ethics. Scientific research atmosphere mainly refers to academic information communication, innovative activities and academic atmosphere. Teaching facilities mainly refer to laboratories and other equipment. University environment mainly refers to the humanities and natural landscapes. Student activities mainly refer to activities’ type, activities’ content and support of the university.

According to various influencing factors, establish a model to analyze the relationship between students’ satisfaction with the university and various characteristic variables. The model was constructed as follows:

$$ Y = \alpha_{1} + \beta_{1} X_{1} + \beta_{2} X_{2} + \ldots + \beta_{6} X_{6} + \varepsilon $$
(1)

Keep the students’ satisfaction with the university unchanged, analyze the impact of various variables on satisfaction, and gradually eliminate the characteristic variables that have little or no impact. In the model expression (1), it is assumed that Y is students’ satisfaction with the university, and Xi (i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) is each characteristic variable that affects the students’ satisfaction with the university, that is, X1 is the degree of students’ satisfaction with curriculum arrangements. X2 is the degree of students’ satisfaction with teacher resources. X3 is the degree of students’ satisfaction with the scientific research atmosphere. X4 is the degree of students’ satisfaction with teaching facilities. X5 is the degree of students’ satisfaction with the university environment, and X6 is the degree of students’ satisfaction with the student activities.

The data of this survey are obtained by publishing an online questionnaire. The questionnaire uses “Likert five-level scale” to assign values to all variables from low to high, which 1 is very dissatisfied, 2 is relatively dissatisfied, 3 is average, 4 is more satisfied, and 5 is very satisfied. The magnitude of the value indicates the students’ evaluation of the various influencing factors.

We use SPSS to test the data collected in the questionnaire, and obtain the following results:

According to the multiple regression model, use SPSS to comprehensively analyze the six factors of students’ satisfaction with the curriculum arrangement, teacher resources, scientific research atmosphere, teaching facilities, university environment and student activities. Table 1 shows the fitting degree according to the six characteristic variables of curriculum arrangement, teacher resources, scientific research atmosphere, teaching facilities, school environment, and student activities. From the table, the correlation coefficient R is 0.991, and the coefficient of determination R square is 0.981, the adjusted R square is 0.980, so the six variables have a strong explanatory power for university satisfaction, so the judge index selected in this article have a certain feasibility. According to Table 2, the VIF values of the six characteristic variables are all less than 10, which indicates there is no multicollinearity problem among the independent variables. The coefficient of each variable is greater than 0, and the sig of curriculum arrangement, teacher resources, and scientific research atmosphere are less than 0.05, that is, the significance is strong. The hypothesis in this article is verified. Therefore, this article starts from these three aspects, and sets up a new questionnaire to analyze the problems of university branch campuses in these three aspects.

Table 1. Model summary
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Table 2. Coefficients
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3.2 Analysis of the Problems in University Branch Campuses

Due to the different forms and times of running campuses in different places, there are different problems in different universities branch campuses. In response to the problems of running campuses in different places raised in the proposal of The First Meeting of The Thirteenth National Committee of The Chinese people’s Political Consultative Conference, the Ministry of Education replied that “China’s higher education should not be scaled up blindly. It supports university branch campuses for universities that have improved school conditions and the teaching quality, but it will strictly monitor universities that are eager to compete and develop blindly”. In addition, according to the Ministry of Education, building university branch campuses is always disagreed. As the method of running campuses in different places is being adopted by more and more universities, the Ministry of Education has issued that running campuses in different places should be managed strictly. There are many problems in the management of university branch campuses, so the management of university branch campuses will become a major problem for the development of universities.

This article uses a case study method to deeply study the current problems of newly-built university branch campuses. The data was collected using online questionnaires. The same questionnaires were issued to a newly-built university branch campus and the main campus. The questionnaires were for students in the newly-built university branch campus and the main campus. The questionnaire includes 17 questions. The main question is to investigate students’ satisfaction of curriculum arrangement, the resources they enjoy and the overall impression of the campus. Some of the questions are: whether students can digest the knowledge learned during the course arrangement. If not, whether the reason is related to the time or method of the course arrangement; whether the student has access to take part in more scientific research projects in school period and obtain teachers’ guidance during the completion of the projects. Compare the survey result of these two campuses to obtain the difference of students’ learning situation and scientific research between the newly-built university branch campus and the main campus.

4 Research Results

According to the results of the questionnaire, on the whole, students from the main campus mainly scored 80–90 points on the main campus, with 11% above 90 and below 70. The result is shown in Fig. 1. The score of students from the newly-built university branch campus is concentrated on 70–80 points, 90–100 points account for 0, and less than 70 points account for 30%. The result is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1.
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The main campus’s score

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Fig. 2.
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The newly-built university branch campus’s score

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Judging from the results, students in the newly-built university branch campus are less satisfied with the campus, so there are still some problems in the construction of newly-built university branch campuses in meeting the requirements of students.

4.1 Curriculum Arrangement

Regarding the curriculum arrangement, the results of the questionnaire survey show that compared with the students in the main campus, it is more difficult for students in the university campus to digest their knowledge within a specified period of time. The main reason is that the course is too tightly scheduled and before taking this course students have taken a long time for other courses. The result is shown in Fig. 3. As a result, students’ energy cannot be focused.

Fig. 3.
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Reasons why students in the newly-built university branch campus cannot digest what they have learned

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In order to maintain the same teaching quality as the main campus, the newly-built university campus had to rely on the teachers of the main campus in the early stages of running the campus. Because the teachers teach the courses in the two campuses, the same courses will be arranged centrally, and most of courses are arranged in the same time period. During this time, students must not only digest the knowledge taught by the teachers, but also complete the exams and assignments, which leads to greater learning pressure for the students. In addition, when arranging courses, the university first considers the schedule time of the main campus, the remaining time of the teacher is arranged to teach in the newly-built university campus. Because some courses are related, if the two courses are taught separately, it may cause students to forget the knowledge of previous subjects and not be able to contact the knowledge of other courses. Some students in the newly-built university campus indicate that there are still more courses in the senior year, which results in insufficient time to prepare for the IELTS, TOFEL and postgraduate entrance examination. Therefore, due to the reliance of the main campus, there are many unreasonable phenomena in curriculum arrangement of the newly-built university campus.

4.2 Scientific Research Resources

Due to the incomplete facilities of the newly-built university campus, students cannot enjoy the same resources as the main campus. By investigating the participation of scientific research competitions of students in the main campus and the newly-built university campus, it is found that students in the main campus participate in scientific research competitions more times, the survey results are shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5.

Fig. 4.
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Number of participating in scientific research competitions in the main campus

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Fig. 5.
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Number of participating in scientific research competitions in the newly-built university campus

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Secondly, we investigate the reasons why fewer students participate in scientific research competitions in the newly-built university campus. The number of students who choose “no contact with instructors” in the newly-built university campus accounts for 47.5%. The result is shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6.
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Reasons why fewer students participate in scientific research competitions in the newly-built university campus

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Finally, we investigate the reasons why students in different campuses think they can win a prize after participating in scientific research competitions. In the main campus, 50% of the students choose “teacher’s guidance”. The result is shown in Fig. 7. In the newly-built university campus, only 9% of the students choose “teacher’s guidance”. The result is shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 7.
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Reasons students think for winning a prize after participating in scientific research competitions in the main campus

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Fig. 8.
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Reasons students think for winning a prize after participating in scientific research competitions in the newly-built university campus

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Students in the newly-built university campus have less access to obtain scientific research resources and receive long-term and stable guidance from teachers, so they often do not participate in scientific research competitions. Generally, teachers have more scientific research projects in the main campus. Because the newly-built university campus lacks research facilities, if teachers transfer research projects to the newly-built university campus, the lack of scientific research facilities may lead to the inability to complete projects and affect the projects’ progress. So, teachers generally do not transfer research projects to the newly-built university campus. Because teachers’ work on the main campus, there are hardly any teachers are resident in the newly-built university campus. As a result, when students need teachers’ guidance in scientific research or study, they cannot communicate with the teachers in time and get timely help. Therefore, in terms of enjoying scientific research resources and teacher resources, students in the newly-built university campus cannot able to ask teachers about academic and scientific research issues in teachers’ free time. So, the newly-built university campus unable to get the same resource support as the main campus.

In the last question of the questionnaire, students can put forward suggestions for the development of their own campus. Some suggestions made by students in the newly-built university campus are shown in Fig. 9. From the student’s suggestions, more suggestions from students in the newly-built university campus are directed to management to campus, curriculum arrangements and teacher resources.

Fig. 9.
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Student’s suggestions to their campus (the newly-built university campus)

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5 Discussion and Conclusion

Based on the results of the questionnaire, in view of the problems existing in the newly-built university campus proposed, this article puts forward suggestions for the development of newly-built university campuses.

5.1 Don’t Rush to Recruit Students

Some newly-built university campuses begin to recruit students after completing the construction of infrastructure, and improve campus facilities while training students. Although students can successfully complete the required courses, the lack of teaching and scientific research facilities may result in students not being able to use campuses’ facilities resources to meet their needs for scientific research, and then complete their scientific research goals. At the same time, if campuses build some facilities later than planned, it will increase students’ dissatisfaction with the campus. Based on this, newly-built university campuses should recruit students after the various facilities of the campus have been perfected, so that not only there will be complete promotional materials, but also students can use the resources available in the campus to plan their study and scientific research. Students’ evaluation of the campus will affect the enrollment of the campus to a certain extent in the next few years. If the campus meets the needs of students, then the increase of students’ satisfaction with campus will increase the publicity of the campus, and the enrollment quality of the campus will be improved. The government can also play a supervisory role in the recruitment of newly-built university campuses, and work with the campus to plan a reasonable recruitment time, which avoid the campus’s rush to recruit students to ignore the construction and management of the campus.

5.2 Don’t Rely on Main Campuses’ Resources

In order to lay the foundation of the educational resources of the campus, newly-built university campuses need teachers from main campuses to complete the teaching tasks of the campus. Teachers traveling between the two places will not only consume teachers’ time, but also reduce the teachers’ energy during the class, so the quality of teaching will be affected. Therefore, using external teachers will reduce the teaching pressure of teachers in main campuses. However, using external teachers do not mean that newly-built university campuses recruited teachers independently. Teacher recruitment in newly-built university campuses should have the same requirements as main campuses, and the teacher must pass the same assessments as teachers recruited in main campuses. Only qualified teachers who have been recruited and selected by main campuses can work in newly-built university campuses. When main campuses recruit teachers, newly-built university campuses can mark the lack of subject teachers. Teachers who pass the assessment can choose whether to teach in the newly-built university campus or in the main campus. Teachers in newly-built university campuses should carry out the research projects in newly-built university campuses. In this way, not only can teachers be spared from running around and have sufficient time to complete their own scientific research projects, but also enable students to complete their courses and participate in certain scientific research projects to improve their scientific research knowledge and level.

5.3 Establish a Strict Teacher Supervision System

If external teachers are used in newly-built university campuses, in order to avoid the inattention of external teachers to the teaching tasks of newly-built university campuses, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of teachers. Teacher morality is the top priority of teacher supervision. Campuses can regularly allow students to evaluate teachers in terms of teaching attitude and teaching quality in the assessment system. Campuses should give warning to teachers that students think the teaching attitude is poor and the teaching quality is low. If teachers who are warned do not change their teaching attitude, campuses can choose to fire the teacher. Teachers should be assessed regularly, and campuses should warn or fire teachers who do not meet the requirements. In addition, establish a suitable teacher incentive system, and give certain rewards to teachers of good teaching quality, which have a certain stimulating effect on teacher’s teaching and make the teacher teach more seriously. Teachers in newly-built university campuses need to report the teaching results and the next stage of teaching tasks to the main campus on a regular basis to ensure that the teaching tasks are recognized by the main campus, so that the newly-built university campus have the same teaching arrangements and quality as the main campus.