臺灣在全球體育學術的排名分析

Global Ranking of Sport Science in Taiwan

10.5297/ser.202303_25(1).0000

程一雄(I-Shiung Cheng)；郭家驊(Chia-Hua Kuo)

大專體育學刊

25卷1期（2023 / 03 / 31）

i - vii

繁體中文;英文

隨著亞洲經濟提升，高等教育品質也逐漸改善，一般義務教育與高等教育的主要差別在於義務教育以傳授現有知識為主，而高等教育以拓展新知識與應用、修正因新證據所推翻的過去知識為主要工作。更精準的說，在大學工作的教授們充分明暸知識的不穩定性與修正知識的需要性。知識攸關人類生存質量，也因為高等教育的這個特殊任務，研究成為大學教授的主要工作責任，臺灣高教體系將學術研究費設為教授薪資占比的50%～60%，根據這個原則，大學教授的教學比重也因此比小學與中學教師少。特別是臺灣大部分的頂尖大學刻意縮減教授授課時數，以方便教授可以進行更多研究來拓展知識與創新，提升人類生存質量。大學的體育學科與其他學術領域並無不同，教授們亦必須不斷尋求體育運動上的知識拓展與創新，進而讓這個領域持續進步。體育關心的核心議題包括了如何提升體能與運動表現、如何活絡體育事業、如何提高健康品質延長存活時間等背後的知識。探索這些問題同樣攸關存活品質的改善，讓人類更瞭解如何提升活力體驗人生。根據幾個世界知名的大學排名機構，體育學科的評量標準與其他的學科領域基本上是一致的。比較知名的排名機構有英國的泰晤士高等教育（Time Higher Education, THE）「泰晤士高等教育世界大學排名」、Quacquarelli Symonds Limited「QS世界大學排名」、美國新聞與世界報導（U.S. News & World Report）「全球最佳大學排名」、上海軟科教育信息咨詢有限公司「世界大學學術排名」（簡稱軟科世界大學學術排名）。前三者均為商業營利性較高的公司，大學付費參與THE與QS活動可獲得提供問卷調查對象的機會，更有機會提高學術聲望（academic reputation），讓大學可透過他們的專業輔導與行銷被列入排名，提升知名度來允許有編列行銷經費的大學吸引學生入學。「軟科世界大學學術排名」則由非營利性大學負責，體育學科的世界排名是在2016年開始（上海軟科教育信息咨詢有限公司［上海軟科］，2016），僅列出世界前300大體育學院或相關專業系所，它的特色在於採用量化硬指標，排除主觀問卷調查（例如學術聲望問卷），提高評量的客觀性。「軟科全球體育類院系學術排名」（ShanghaiRanking's global ranking of sport science schools and departments）的優勢在於所列出的指標在商業操作的空間較小。它的缺點是教師數目眾多的體育學府可能比教師數目少但學術研究品質好的體育學府更容易得到好的排名，也就是靠人數規模衝排名。其排名指標包括Web of Science（WOS）列名期刊的發表總數占比20%、論文被引用的總次數占比20%、每篇文章平均被引用次數占比30%、文章發表於排名前25%的總數占比20%、國際合作論文總數占比10%。以上這些指標僅每篇文章平均被引用次數的30%不受到大學教師人數規模的影響。因此，迫使教師人數不到20人的大學（例如：維吉尼亞大學、馬來亞大學）與教師規模百人的體育機構（例如：日本筑波大學、上海體育大學）在同一個平臺上比較排名。自2016年起，臺灣共有4所大學進入到「軟科全球體育類院系學術排名」的前300名：國立體育大學、臺北市立大學、國立臺灣師範大學、國立成功大學。2016～2021年國立體育大學、臺北市立大學穩定地名列前200名，國立臺灣師範大學、國立成功大學則名列前300名（上海軟科，2016，2017，2018，2020，2021）。在2022年，國立臺灣師範大學進步速度最快，第一次進入全球前200大，成為臺灣最高分。同年國立體育大學、臺北市立大學退至前300大，國立成功大學則未列入前300大（上海軟科，2022）。事實上，國立成功大學的各項學術表現總分持續進步，其排名退步顯然與全球性的普遍進步造成的排擠效應有關。然而，國立臺灣師範大學與國立體育大學排名的消長，可能來自於學術表現卓越的張育愷特聘教授由國立體育大學轉任到國立臺灣師範大學的影響。這現象也發生於臺北市立大學因為優秀外籍人才流失導致類似的後果。這些排名的變化均反映出高等教育攬才與留才的重要性。根據「2022全球體育類院系學術排名」（上海軟科，2022），全球前300的體育學科排名中，亞洲僅占20所（8%），分數均低於25，臺灣有國立體育大學、臺北市立大學、國立臺灣師範大學3所仍在名單內，但過去幾年均未進入全球前100大。這顯示臺灣在這個學科發展雖在亞洲前列，但是離卓越仍有很大的提升空間。總結來說，全球主要的大學排名機構普遍採用研究成果的產出質量在全球的影響力為關鍵評估指標，學生進入排名頂尖大學能獲得較多的機會學到領域內尚未被探索過的前沿知識，有利於開啟新產業。本文提供了臺灣體育學術機構在世界的位置與水準，圖1為世界排名使用的標準總分（最高分為100分）、表1則反映臺灣體育學科在標準總分的各分項優勢與劣勢（分項最高分為100分）。全球攬才與留才為經營高教的關鍵，直接影響年輕學子是否在世界一流的學習環境受教育、走在體育知識的前端，有使命感與理想性的高教管理人員可將這些數據列入經營參考。

With increasing economic prosperity, higher education in Asia is moving towards higher standards. Regardless of disciplines, the main difference between mandatory basic education and higher education is knowledge delivery versus knowledge expansion and revision. To be more specific, professors at universities understand the instability and limitation of knowledge, and put continuous effort for correction. This mission eventually positioned research as the main responsibility than teaching for academic staff. In accordance with this principle, the salary structure of university staff members also sets corresponding proportion. In Taiwan, 50%-60% of professor's salary relates to their research credentials. Therefore, teaching responsibility in universities is much lesser than the elementary and secondary schools. Some top universities even come up with a policy of shortening the teaching hours. Professors in the field of sports and exercise have no exception of achieving the goal for knowledge expansion. The primary interests of sports and exercise include the important questions on how to improve physical fitness, athletic performance, prosperity of sports business, and health span in the interest of human-being. All these subjects are valuable in enhancing the human experience mediated via active life. In line with the general goal of higher education, criteria to assess the quality of a discipline are listed by several ranking agencies. The most famous agencies are, Time Higher Education (THE ranking), Quacquarelli Symonds Limited (QS ranking), U.S. News & World Report L.P., and ShanghaiRanking Consultancy (academic ranking of world universities, ARWU). The first 3 agencies are driven by commercial interest for those universities willing to pay from their marketing budget. While the ARWU ranking or ShanghaiRanking is an interesting exception, managed by a university. ShanghaiRanking's global ranking of sport science schools and departments is first announced in 2016, which lists top 300 major institutes conducting sports science research based on 5 criteria and excluding subjective questionnaire that allows manipulation by university customers with sufficient marketing budgets. The strength of ShanghaiRanking's global ranking of sport science schools and departments is unmanipulable quantitative criteria. It provides little space for commercial manipulation for university clients. The drawback of this ranking method is the scale of the program (number of academic staff) can influence the rank of a program. These criteria are articles/papers indexed in Web of Science (20%), citations to papers (20%), average citation per paper (30%), papers published in top 25% journals (20%), and percent of papers with international co-authorship (10%). In these criteria, only 30% (citation per paper) is the quality indicator independent of the number of academic staff. The score was transformed into a 100-point percentile. This ranking system is putting the sports universities consisted of hundreds of academic staff members (such as Tsukuba University and Shanghai Sports University) in an advantage position against other small programs or universities with academic staff < 20 members (such as University of Virginia and University of Malaya) at the same platform. In Taiwan, there are 4 schools and departments reached top 300 in the world ranking list in sports science, namely National Taiwan Sports University (NTSU), University of Taipei (UT), National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) since 2016 (ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, 2016). From 2016 to 2021, NTSU and UT were ranked within top 200, and the other two universities remained within top 300 (ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021). In recent 2022 rankings, only 3 schools remained on the ranking list. NCKU was excluded from the list probably due to the competition from universities of other countries. In the same year, NTNU moved up within top 200 for the first time since the past 6 years, whilst NTSU and UT declined to top 300 (ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, 2022). These changes fling a warning signal to those who do not have concrete improvement strategy. The major factor to fluctuate the ranking position may be due to the job relocation of outstanding scholars, i.e., Prof. Yu-Kai Chang (from NTSU to NTNU) and Dr. Giancarlo Condello (from UT to University of Parma, Italy). This outcome demonstrates the importance of talent recruitment in academic reputation of the program. The principle from all major ranking agencies adopts research output and citation as key indicator. The method implicates the difference between top universities and most of ordinary universities in a way that students are more likely to gain cutting-edge knowledge if they enter the top-ranked university for learning. Therefore, this investigation provides useful information for those who care about raising standards in the higher education of sports science. Figure 1 and Table 1 illustrate the strength and weakness of the categories on papers indexed in Web of Science (20%), citations to papers (20%), average citations per paper (30%), papers published in top 25% journals (20%), and percent of papers with international co-authorship (10%) of each university in Taiwan.