Quality Evaluation Model of Vocational Education in China: A Qualitative Study Based on Grounded Theory

Abstract

Enhancing quality is the focus of vocational education reform, and building a quality evaluation system that is adapted to the needs of modern vocational education is an important task of vocational education reform. However, international research on quality evaluation models of vocational education has still not been explored in depth. In order to reveal the influencing factors and the relationships between them in the quality evaluation system of vocational education in China, this study establishes a theoretical model of quality evaluation of vocational education in China and tests the model. Based on in-depth interviews, this study reached the following conclusions: (1) Educational orientation is the starting and ending point of vocational education quality evaluation. The quality evaluation of vocational education in China is directly reflected through professional settings and talent training objectives; (2) the quality evaluation of vocational education in China focuses on factors external to the education system, which is an important means through which the quality of vocational education can be recognized by the public, enterprises, and industries; (3) there are internal factors influencing the quality evaluation of vocational education, namely institutional resources and evaluation system construction. In addition, strategies for vocational institutions are proposed based on the study results, suggesting that other countries should strictly regulate the settings of majors based on the real needs of industries; promote the development of technical knowledge, teaching materials, and teacher training; and explore the function of international exchange and cooperation, industry–education integration, and school–enterprise cooperation in educating people. This study provides a theoretical model for the quality evaluation of vocational education; in terms of practical value, the constructed model extends the scope of basic theory.

1. Introduction

Enhancing quality is a key concern of vocational education in the world. Building a quality evaluation system and quality evaluation model to meet the development needs of China’s modern vocational education system is also an important strategic task for China’s vocational education reform. Throughout the world, the overall scale of vocational education is on the rise, with different countries and regions showing different volumes and growth momentum according to their own macro policies, economic development levels, changes in labor supply and demand, and the degree of informationization. According to the “Global Vocational Education Industry Development Report 2022” released by Ariadne Consulting in July 2022, despite the emergence of the global new crown pneumonia epidemic, political landscape turmoil in various countries, and extreme natural disasters in recent years that have brought certain negative impacts on the global economy, the global vocational education market size is expected to expand to 2026 under the macro background of positive global vocational education development, exceeding USD 800 billion [1]. From 2012 to 2022, vocational education in China trained 61 million high-quality workers and technically skilled personnel for various industries [2]. In China’s modern manufacturing, strategic emerging industries, and modern service industries, more than 70% of the new front-line workers are graduates of vocational colleges [3]. The reason why vocational education in China plays such a huge employment function cannot be separated from the help of vocational education quality evaluation. Transforming the way vocational education is developed and building a vocational education quality evaluation model with Chinese characteristics and international standards is the current direction of development in China. However, from the perspective of the impact of international economic transformation and digital industrial upgrading on vocational education, the process of reform and development of vocational education in China is facing many problems: the Chinese government is not performing its duties properly and the policy implementation mechanism is not sound; Chinese industrial organizations and enterprises are not active enough to participate in vocational education and the cooperation between schools and enterprises lacks a long-term mechanism; the attractiveness of vocational education within the Chinese public is not enough, etc. In China, the choice of secondary vocational education in urban areas was 44.63%, 32.48%, 36.21%, and 35.31% in 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2017, respectively, while the choice in rural areas was 29.49%, 21.57%, 30.00%, and 33.02%, respectively, all of which were lower than in OECD countries’ high school vocational education. The percentage of graduates in upper secondary vocational education is lower than the average values in OECD countries [4]. To solve the above problems, it is inevitable that the whole society pays more attention to the improvement of the quality of vocational education, and a scientific quality evaluation model can be the lifeline of vocational education.

Faced with the pressure of enrollment and the social image caused by the Chinese public’s lack of confidence in vocational education, the development of vocational education in China must be upgraded and transformed under the premise of demanding quality improvement [5]. Generally speaking, the development of quality education is usually associated with the cultivation of talents and the curriculum and professional settings. As the pace of China’s industrial transformation advances, the talents cultivated by vocational education are given the significance of the times to contribute to economic development and industrial production. Unlike general higher education, the quality of vocational education does not focus too much on the mastery of advanced knowledge, but more on the proficiency of skills and the ability to solve real-world problems [6]. Focusing on vocational education, from the perspective of enrollment, only students with low academic performance will choose to enter secondary schools or higher vocational colleges because of the prejudice of the Chinese public towards vocational education, hence the quality of enrollment in vocational education is low [7]. From the perspective of graduation, the duration of education in higher vocational colleges in China is three years—one year less than in ordinary universities—and students in vocational colleges also undertake a higher number of internships [8]. The quality of graduates from vocational colleges is generally considered to be “low” because of the three-year duration of education in higher vocational colleges in China, which is one year less than in ordinary universities. Numerous studies have proved that establishing an effective internal quality control system in vocational colleges, including assessment indicators of curriculum design, teaching processes, teaching objectives, teaching effectiveness, teaching methods, and other elements, will effectively monitor the internal and external qualities of vocational colleges, which will contribute to the sustainable development of vocational education. Building a perfect quality evaluation model for vocational education is not only necessary for improving the quality of vocational education talent training but also an important manifestation of people’s pursuit of satisfactory education, which needs to be focused on urgently. Whether high-quality development of vocational education can be achieved is not only linked to the survival and development of vocational institutions themselves but also to the overall development of China’s education system, economic and social development, and social atmosphere. Therefore, this study explores the influencing factors involved in the quality evaluation of vocational education in China and explores the relationships and mechanisms through which these factors influence each other, which have important theoretical and practical values in enriching and expanding the theory of vocational education quality evaluation and formulating scientific, standardized, and systematic quality evaluation models.

However, existing studies have not revealed the factors influencing vocational education quality evaluation, hence this study aims to develop a theoretical model to reveal these factors and the mechanisms influencing these factors in an attempt to answer the questions: what are the factors that influence the quality evaluation of vocational education in China? What is the relationship between these factors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of China’s vocational education quality evaluation model? The above three questions are the main issues that need to be addressed in this paper. On this basis, this paper took the management, teachers, and students of 32 vocational institutions as the research subjects, collected interview data from them, and organized the data for analysis. This study then established a theoretical model using the grounded theory method, laying the foundation for subsequent research.

This study has theoretical contributions and practical value: in terms of theoretical contribution, this study enriches the theory of quality evaluation of vocational education and provides a theoretical model for quality evaluation of vocational education operation and talent training; in terms of practical value, the quality evaluation model constructed in this study provides a reference for subsequent studies and extends the scope of the basic theory, while also providing a reference for the government and schools to formulate relevant policies and regulations. In terms of practical value, the quality evaluation model constructed in this study provides a reference for subsequent studies and extends the scope of basic theory.

This paper is divided into five sections, and the main contents of the remaining four sections are as follows: Section 2 is the literature review; Section 3 is the research methods and data, where the research methods and data sources used in this study are presented; Section 4 is the analysis of the findings, where the model and its internal factors and relationships are explained; Section 5 is the conclusions and outlook, where the main conclusions, research limitations, and future prospects of this study are presented.

2. Literature Review

Quality evaluation elaborates on the specifics of vocational education curriculum development, instructional settings, and faculty development [9], which play an important role in the process of vocational education system construction. This study focuses on the quality development of vocational education and comprehensively arranges the relevant literature in terms of the definition and connotation of quality evaluation of vocational education, the factors influencing quality evaluation, and the interactions between the factors “quality education and enhance lifelong learning opportunities for all” [10]. In this context, vocational education is often considered necessary for building a new quality assessment system for addressing the dual development of economic growth and individual technical skills enhancement [11]. Therefore, it is possible to systematize the indicators, influencing factors, and constructs of vocational education quality evaluation by considering both economic and individual factors.

2.1. Quality Evaluation Indicators and Factors Influencing Vocational Education

Before research was carried out on the quality evaluation of vocational education, international research on vocational education focused more on the quality of personnel training. Many studies have reached a consensus that the quality of personnel training is the core issue in deepening education and teaching reform and improving education quality, and is the lifeline of vocational education [12]. With the differentiation of academic education from skill education, academia began to focus on research on vocational education quality evaluation [13]. In the study of vocational education quality evaluation indicators and influencing factors, researchers have analyzed quality evaluation indicators of vocational education development in different countries or regions from multiple perspectives, and these indicators are widely influential and play the role of “overall leadership” in the relevant studies. In terms of the selection of evaluation indicators, there are two tendencies: Baxter (2013) [14] considers the quality of vocational education as the extent to which vocational education meets the needs of society. However, there are some researchers who focus on the individual growth research perspective and believe that the purpose of vocational education quality evaluation is to enhance the quality of talent development. For example, Billing (2004) [15] suggests that the quality of vocational education needs to be understood and interpreted from the perspective of technical literacy development of skilled personnel from an individual perspective and proposes four dimensions—technical thinking, technical behavior, technical attitude, and technical culture—to examine the quality of vocational education personnel training. At the same time, there are studies that integrate the above-mentioned perspectives and consider that the factors influencing vocational education quality evaluation involve internal fitness quality, external fitness quality, and humanistic quality (Forrest et al., 2013) [16]. Although some researchers have tried to explore the factors influencing the quality evaluation of vocational education, there is some room for research in these studies. This is because they do not take into account the differences between vocational education and general education. The dimensions involved are still approached from the internal and external perspectives of education, and they cannot reveal the factors influencing the high-quality development of vocational education. Many scholars have shown that vocational education involves multiple subjects and cannot be studied only from the internal perspective of education (Asiri, 2020) [17]. The quality evaluation of vocational education is bound to involve different subjects, such as education, enterprises, industries, third-party organizations, and research institutions. Therefore, we must be conscious that the construction of the quality evaluation index system for vocational education must be based not only on economic functions but should also fully consider individual needs.

2.2. Research on the Constructs of Vocational Education Quality Evaluation

Focusing on the construction of quality evaluation in the field of vocational education is an important part of improving the quality of talent training and a key step in judging the comprehensiveness, relevance, and effectiveness of vocational education reform efforts [18]. Vocational education is the type of education that is most directly connected with industrial transformation and upgrading and is closely associated with people’s production and life. The quality evaluation of vocational education has received much attention from international researchers in recent years and has been researched continuously through various means. In terms of the concept of vocational education quality evaluation, Wergin (2005) [19] proposes four quality evaluation views of vocational education: demand-oriented, diversified, “competence-based”, and moral education-oriented through a multi-program decision-making approach [20]. After discussing the concept of evaluation, the principle of constructing the evaluation index system is the operationalization of the concept on the ground. In the principle of constructing the evaluation index system, Hongliang (2015) [20] believes that the principles of scientificity, professionalism, comprehensiveness, and feasibility should be followed when constructing the talent cultivation quality evaluation system. Unlike relevant studies in China, international studies use more scientific research methods and pay more attention to the principles of multidimensional constructs. Ewell (2011) [21] proposed the evaluation principles of combining universality and specificity, evaluation and rating, science and practicality, precision and fuzziness, and static and dynamic for the evaluation of talent training quality in engineering majors. In addition, Song (2012) [22] summarized the principles of talent cultivation quality evaluation in vocational education as “one center and four combinations” centering on the cultivation of talents for sustainable development in vocational education, combining quantitative evaluation with qualitative evaluation, process evaluation with final evaluation, multiple evaluations with development evaluation, and skill evaluation with quality evaluation. On the whole, the above research shows that the academic community has constructed evaluation models based on scientific methods, but this is still at a relatively preliminary stage.

2.3. Research Review

In the context of countries competing to enhance the international competitiveness of their industries, the quality of vocational education has become an inevitable topic. However, the limited literature has explored the connotation, essence, indicators, and other elements of vocational education quality evaluation as a sample of empirical studies. For vocational institutions in different regions, at different levels, and with different schooling characteristics, there are significant differences in the construction choices and realization paths of the quality evaluation system due to the differences in the foundations of schooling and talent cultivation, the path dependence of development, and the different sensitivities and requirements for various conditions in schooling. Existing studies have not systematically explored the factors influencing the vocational education quality evaluation model and the relationships between them based on the development characteristics of vocational institutions. The influencing factors and each factor of the vocational education quality evaluation model are key to the cultivation of technical skill talents, which not only determines the direction of development of vocational education but also limits the degree of investment in the curriculum and teaching in vocational education (Xiaohua, L.; Xihui, C., 2022) [23]. In the current context of gradual global economic recovery, promoting the quality of technical skill talents through high-quality development of vocational education is a key move in accelerating the industries of each country to break the development deadlock. How to establish a systematic, scientific, and comprehensive vocational education quality evaluation system to help vocational colleges and universities to better cultivate technical skill talents? How to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of the training of talents? Ensuring the sustainability of policy support in each country in the future is important. In addition, the following points, in particular, need special attention.

(1)

Relevant research on quality evaluation of vocational education has achieved relatively mature results in the construction of evaluation index systems; however, the research on quality evaluation of vocational education focuses mainly on its economic functions, and research involving individual development is not systematic and in-depth enough, and does not specifically reveal the systemic and complete nature of the quality evaluation of vocational education. At present, the corresponding research results are mainly distributed between the evaluation principles and main indicators, and the deep-level quality evaluation factors are insufficient.

(2)

Research on the current state of vocational education quality has yielded good results, but research on quality evaluation is limited, especially since current research is still borrowed from the field of general education and lacks relevance. Therefore, the evaluation of the quality of vocational education should include several different dimensions such as economic factors, personal factors, and technical factors. Meanwhile, in terms of research methods, the scientific methods and evaluation principles used in academia should be considered as the basis for the construction of evaluation models; however, due to the relatively mixed research in the field at present, the existing methods on the evaluation factors of vocational education quality and their scientific construction are not clear. Therefore, this study attempts to fill the methodological gap by building on the literature review. Specifically, this study will reveal the relationships between the influencing factors and factors of vocational education quality evaluation by conducting an in-depth analysis of interview materials on vocational education quality evaluation using the grounded theory approach.

(3)

Analysis of studies on the evaluation of the quality of vocational education reveals that the topic has been on an annual increase. However, research on the quality evaluation of vocational education is not systematic and in-depth enough, and empirical studies are particularly scarce. Most of the existing studies are qualitative studies exploring the factors influencing the quality evaluation of vocational education, and there are no strong, evidence-based studies. Compared with related international studies, China has more room for theoretical breakthroughs in this area. Therefore, this paper takes the quality evaluation system of vocational colleges as the research objective and tries to construct a quality evaluation model suitable for the development of high-quality vocational education using the grounded theory approach.

In view of this, this study constructs a quality evaluation model that helps to improve the quality of vocational education based on the characteristics of vocational institutions and their talent cultivation environments, and conducts in-depth interviews on the quality evaluation system of vocational education using grounded theory, with a view of providing a theoretical basis and decision-making reference for promoting the development of vocational education quality. These research contents will also help to make up for the fact that the development characteristics of vocational institutions are not obvious in the field of vocational education research, and the quality evaluation model does not analyze the influencing factors and the relationships among them, which will help to promote the progress of research on vocational education quality evaluation.

3. Research Methodology and Data

3.1. Research Methodology

The grounded theory approach explores and develops theories behind phenomena through systematic data collection and analysis. Glaser and Strauss discovered a strategy for qualitative research in 1967, thus pioneering grounded theory. Strauss and Corbin subsequently refined this approach in 1990 and 1998. Grounded theory is mainly used in exploratory rather than validation research, and the main ideas and assumptions of the method are as follows: (1) The data collected by the researcher are gathered through a process of literature review and interview exchange in a specific research context. (2) The researcher summarizes and subdivides concepts and categories of primary data, and continuously deepens the research topic in comparison. (3) Theoretical sampling is used to achieve theoretical saturation and eventually generate new theories.

This study focuses on the quality evaluation model of vocational education in China, which deals with the specific factors influencing vocational education quality evaluation. There is a current lack of mature theoretical research in this area. Grounded theory has significant advantages in construct theory and is considered to be the most scientific qualitative research method. Therefore, it is feasible to use grounded theory to study the influencing factors and the relationship between factors in the evaluation of the quality of vocational education in China. Figure 1 shows the specific process used in this study. Starting from the basic idea, this study uses grounded theory to organize and analyze the interview materials in depth based on the proposed questions and the literature review; then, through in-depth interviews, open coding, axial coding, and selective coding are conducted in turn; finally, a model for quality evaluation of vocational education in China is constructed using theoretical saturation tests.

3.2. Data Sources

Research based on grounded theory should follow the principle of theoretical sampling. In order to consider the typicality of the sample, this study conducted theoretical sampling based on the following criteria: (1) Interviewees had knowledge and experience in participating in vocational education quality. (2) The interviewees were from different regions and schools, covering different types of schools, majors, and other dimensions. (3) The interviewees were core administrators, teachers, and students at vocational institutions. Therefore, the sample selected for this study is typical.

In-depth interviews with teachers from vocational institutions in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces of China were conducted between 15 October 2022 and 18 November 2022. These provinces were selected because they reflect the average range of vocational education development levels in China and could provide a sample for the study. Ultimately, this study resulted in 32 interview transcripts covering a total length of 980 min. After conversion to text, 210,128 words of recorded textual material were obtained. The demographic characteristics of the sample in terms of gender, age, level of education, position, and type of school attended are given in

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the sample.

Classification Items	Classification Sub-Items	Number of People	Percentage
Gender	Male	21	65.63%
	Female	11	34.38%
Age	20–29 years old	8	25.00%
	30–39 years old	12	37.50%
	40–49 years old	7	21.88%
	50 years old and above	5	15.63%
Academic qualifications	Doctoral students	7	21.88%
	Master’s Degree	20	62.50%
	Undergraduate	3	9.38%
	Specialized and below	2	6.25%
Title	Advanced	5	15.63%
	Intermediate	9	28.13%
	Primary	11	34.38%
	None	7	21.88%
Position	Campus Leadership	6	18.75%
	Middle Management	8	25.00%
	Section level cadres	10	31.25%
	General Faculty	8	25.00%
School Type	“Double-high” schools	23	71.88%
	Non-”double-high” schools	9	28.13%

.

4. Analysis of Results

Based on the design research method and analysis steps, the in-depth interview materials were coded step by step, with open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. After obtaining the conceptual model, the theoretical saturation was tested and the final theoretical model was generated and interpreted.

4.1. Open Coding

Open coding is a process of initially refining and categorizing concepts from the sample. First, primary sources were selected from the interview material and each statement was labeled. Then, by categorizing and conceptualizing the labels, it was subdivided into the concept “A₁₁”. Finally, category “A₁” was obtained by categorizing and abstracting the concepts. The sample was transformed into the same concepts and categories as the original material through conceptualization and categorization to further refine its relationship with the categories. Open coding of the 22 interview materials yielded 44 concepts and 13 categories in

Table 2. Open coding and category refinement.

Excerpts from Original Sources	Concept	Category
In fact, the state also has clear requirements for professional development, and for our school, professional development is actually going to be aligned with the “Vocational Higher Education Undergraduate Professional Catalog”.	A11 Policy Requirements for Majors	A1 Professional Settings
Take the machinery industry, many of our school majors are built on “industry”, for example, intelligent manufacturing engineering technology majors focus on intelligent production process control in the industry. …	A12 Align with industry needs …
We require students to have manufacturing strength, skills for the nation and Huang Yanpei’s idea of vocational education.	A21 Professionalism Requirements	A2 Talent Development Objectives
Schools and enterprises should work together to develop a human accompaniment program, which should also follow the law of growth of technically skilled personnel and highlight the high level of knowledge and skills as much as possible. …	A22 Policy requirements for talent development …
Our requirements for students are summarized in three points: technical complexity, technical depth, technical innovation, in short, they are still required to master the knowledge and skills in the field of expertise.	A31 Course Structure	A3 Course Construction
I teach no less than 50% of the total professional practice teaching hours. …	A32 Course Percentage …
Yesterday, we just introduced the method of identifying “dual-teacher” teachers. This means that when building a profession, it is no longer the case that teachers are “transported” in a monolithic way, but that it is better to match them with each other.	A41 “Dual-Teacher” Teacher Requirements	A4 Faculty
For example, the Measures for the Management of Undergraduate Vocational Education Programs mentions the need for an adequate number of “dual-teacher” teachers and teaching teams. …	A42 Policy Requirements for Faculty Development …
Public practical training, skills development platform, and innovation and entrepreneurship development platform are also important when building professions, and many schools are building them.	A51 Practical training and cultivation platform	A5 Facility Construction
We need to promote the integration of information technology and teaching, teachers should be skilled in applying some digital and information technology devices, and schools should accelerate the construction of intelligent teaching support environments and build curriculum resources that can meet diverse needs. …	A52 Building an Intelligent Teaching and Learning Support Environment …
Our school has been carrying out international exchange cooperation for 30 years, and has fully localized and practiced the German dual system, the British modern apprenticeship system, and the Singapore teaching factory.	A61 Cooperative Education	A6 “Bringing in” cooperative education
Our school has a “pilot class” with a German company and is also enrolling international students. …	A62 Education for International Students …
I once went to Germany for a six-month exchange at the Dual University of Baden-Württemberg.	A71 Faculty Communication	A7 “Go Global” Exchange and Cooperation
Students from our school participated in the BRICS Vocational Skills Competition, which, in terms of international competition standards, focuses more internationally on vocational education students’ ability to innovate, coordinate, organize, and cooperate…	A72 International Competition
There is an urgent need for us to connect teaching content, assessment, etc. to each other.	A81 Multidimensional Instructional Integration Evaluation	A8 Faculty and Student Evaluation System
Now many schools still pay more attention to the final exam results, I think it is necessary to increase the process of assessment, practical skills assessment results in the total score of the ratio…	A82 Sound diversified assessment and evaluation system for students
There is an urgent need for schools to build a professional evaluation system based on professional teaching standards, talent training quality and social services, etc. They can also use technologies such as big data to ensure the quality of the system.	A91 Improving the professional evaluation system	A9 Professional Evaluation System
Schools that are upgraded to vocational undergraduate institutions also need to be evaluated regularly, and the exit mechanism needs to be improved by introducing third-party institutions to evaluate the institutions. …	A101 Setting up access mechanisms …	A10 access and exit mechanism
The recent policy requires that these five years should accumulate more than 20 projects above the department level, and for regional and industry enterprises to carry out scientific research, social services and other projects that can generate significant economic and social benefits.	A111 Policy requirements for research and social services	A11 Technical Support and Services
Our vocational education is actually a bridge between the two types of institutionalized and non-institutionalized education, providing continuing education and training for people in the community to be able to…	A112 Services for Lifelong Education for All Universality
Skill-based personnel training not only to invest and training, and vocational education personnel in the continuous investment in equipment, facing the problem of many technologies, rapid changes, new equipment and high investment, we are generally and enterprises together to build the integration of industry and education training base.	A121 Industry-education integration training base	A12 Industry-education integration
Nowadays, vocational education as a type of education should be oriented to serve the needs of industry, to carry out technology accumulation and joint declaration of projects to serve industrial development according to the structural adjustment and upgrading transformation needs of regional industries. …	A122 Service Industry Development …
At present, enterprises also have a shortage of talent reserves, the development of quality and efficiency needs, school enterprises to build industry colleges is actually a good solution to enable professional industry synergy, through the system to bind the rights and responsibilities of both sides.	A131 School-Enterprise Industry College	A13 School-Enterprise Cooperation
The courses offered should be organized in order of knowledge depth and difficulty, find the logical relationship between courses, and determine in which semester the courses are more appropriate. …	A132 Sorting out the logical relationship of offering courses …

.

The initial concepts were continuously merged, and the 44 initial concepts were divided into 13 categories: professional settings, talent training objectives, curriculum construction, faculty, facility construction, “incoming” cooperative education, “outgoing” exchange and cooperation, faculty and student evaluation system, professional evaluation system, access and withdrawal mechanism, technical support and services, integration of education and industry, and school–enterprise cooperation (

Table 3. Axis code refinement.

Main Category	Sub-Categories	Scope Content
Z1 Educational Orientation	A1 Professional Settings	Compared with comprehensive and research universities, the professional settings of vocational colleges are directly oriented to social production, service, and management fields, concentrating on technical, economic, social service, and information technology fields.
	A2 Talent Development Objectives	Talent training objectives refer to the specific training requirements based on the national education objectives and the nature and tasks of schools at all levels, which determine the choice of talent training mode, the construction of teaching content and curriculum system, the use of teaching methods, and the matching of experimental and practical training methods.
Z2 Institutional Resources	A3 Course Construction	Curriculum construction includes static curriculum system as curriculum plans, curriculum standards and curriculum content, as well as dynamic generation processes such as curriculum setting, curriculum implementation, and curriculum evaluation, etc. The object of curriculum construction in vocational colleges involves three major themes: national curriculum, local curriculum, and school-based curriculum.
	A4 Faculty	The faculty includes full-time teachers, counselors, scientific research series, and laboratory series personnel in vocational colleges and universities. The faculty referred to in vocational education not only includes personnel with professional and technical positions as teachers but also includes teachers who undertake the task of lecturing courses.
	A5 Facility Construction	Infrastructure refers to the process of developing and utilizing resources in vocational colleges and universities, including water and power supply, teaching services, research and technical services, landscaping, environmental protection, sanitation and other school public works facilities, teaching support facilities, and public living service facilities.
Z3 International Exchange	A6 “Bringing in” cooperative education	The “introduction” of cooperative education refers to the cooperation between international educational institutions and Chinese educational institutions in China to organize educational institutions with Chinese citizens as the main target students.
	A7 “Go Global” Exchange and Cooperation	The “going out” exchange and cooperation refers to the social responsibility of Chinese vocational institutions through promoting cooperation and exchange, helping education development, funding public welfare, establishing a good image of international vocational education, and promoting the sustainable development of international vocational education to cooperate with other countries to run schools.
Z4 Organizational Collaboration	A11 Technical Support and Services	Technical support and service is a form of service provided by vocational colleges and universities for technological innovation, product production, process processing and other processes of industries, trades, enterprises or other social organizations to help extra-educational subjects diagnose and solve their technical problems in the production process.
	A12 Industry-education integration	The integration of industry and education refers to vocational colleges and universities actively opening professional industries based on their majors, closely integrating industry and teaching, supporting and promoting each other, and turning schools into industrial business entities integrating talent training, scientific research and scientific and technological services, and forming a schooling model in which schools and enterprises are integrated.
	A13 School–Enterprise Cooperation	School–enterprise cooperation is generated by the deep cooperation between vocational colleges and enterprises, with the school based on the development needs of enterprises and tailored for enterprises with targeted specialities. In this cooperation process, the school is involved in the dissemination of theoretical knowledge, while the enterprise has experienced employees to train students.
Z5 Evaluation System Building	A8 Faculty and Student Evaluation System	The teacher and student evaluation system refers to the series of value judgment behaviors made on the process and results of classroom teaching, internship, and other activities carried out by teachers and students in vocational colleges, and is a form of system construction to provide feedback on the information.
	A9 Professional Evaluation System	Professional evaluation system construction refers to the process of investigating, predicting, evaluating, and regulating the quality of vocational education and human resources training when starting a profession, in which specific countermeasures for enhancing the utility of vocational education will be proposed and corresponding programs will be developed.
	A10 Access and Exit Mechanisms	Access and exit mechanisms are the conditions that must be met for vocational institutions to carry out the quality evaluation process, and for other organizational actors to enter or exit a market to engage in quality regulation.

). Only some of the concept codes are shown due to space limitation.

4.2. Axis Coding

Axis coding is the process of classifying and abstracting the categories into major categories by exploring the intrinsic relationships between them. In this study, the 13 categories are classified into 5 categories based on the steps in axial coding, namely, educational orientation, institutional resources, international exchange, organizational collaboration, and evaluation system construction.

At the same time, this study forms a “story line” to describe the relationship between the main categories: educational orientation is the starting and ending point of vocational education quality evaluation; institutional resources are constantly improved according to the development goals of vocational institutions, which is the material guarantee of vocational education quality evaluation; organizational coordination and international exchange are important means of achieving vocational education quality and is the material guarantee for the quality evaluation of vocational education; organizational collaboration and international exchange are important means of achieving the quality vocational education recognized at home and abroad; evaluation system construction is the realistic path and grasp for the development of high-quality vocational education, and is the guarantee measure at the system level.

4.3. Selective Coding

Selective coding is the process of categorizing and abstracting the main categories into core categories by exploring the intrinsic relationships between the main ones.

Table 4. Selective coding refinement.

Main Category	Core Scope
Education Positioning	Positioning points
International Exchange Organizational Collaboration	External Factors
Institutional Resources Evaluation system building	Internal factors

shows the core categories formed by selective coding. Among them, educational orientation is the orientation point of vocational education evaluation, international exchange and organizational synergy are the external factors of vocational education evaluation, and institutional resources and evaluation system construction are the internal elements of vocational education evaluation. These categories are closely related to China’s vocational education quality evaluation system and influence the process of China’s vocational education quality evaluation undertaking.

A model of China’s vocational education quality evaluation can be constructed based on the positioning points of China’s vocational education quality evaluation and the logical relationship between the three core categories of internal and external factors (Figure 2).

4.4. Saturation Test

Using Nvivo 12 software, a theoretical saturation test was performed on the remaining 10 interview materials to determine whether the above theoretical model had reached theoretical saturation. The logic of the theoretical saturation test was repeated for the remaining sample using open coding, axial coding, and selective coding [24]. The analysis did not identify new concepts or categories, nor did it identify new relationships between the categories. In addition, we also gave the coding results and the model to two expert scholars in the field and received positive feedback from them, indicating that the theoretical model shown in Figure 2 passed the theoretical saturation test.

5. Theory and Strategy Explanation

Through the three-level coding process—open coding, axial coding, and selective coding—and the saturation test of the theory, it was verified that the Chinese vocational education quality evaluation model constructed in this study has a theoretical saturation. Based on this model, further elaboration can be made in terms of both theory and strategy.

5.1. Theoretical Explanation

With the development of information technology in the 21st century, globalization has deepened as never before, and there are now more than 250 international regulatory bodies, more than 2000 international affairs standards, more than 20,000 civil multinational organizations, and 40,000 multinational enterprises worldwide. The deepening of globalization has enabled vocational education to learn and develop new technologies based on enhanced international cooperation and exchange. In such a context, the analysis of China’s vocational education quality evaluation model is of epoch-making significance to the development of vocational education in other countries. Theoretical interpretation showed that the positioning of quality evaluation of vocational education in China is educational orientation, external factors are international exchange and organizational collaboration, and internal factors are institutional resources and evaluation system construction, as elaborated below:

(1)

Educational orientation is the starting and ending point of vocational education quality evaluation. Contrary to the early days when vocational education was only concerned with the function of connecting to industrial development, the current goal of vocational education development is consistent in the international arena; quality evaluation of vocational education must focus on students’ development and be centered on individual quality improvement. The theoretical model of this study points out that the quality evaluation of vocational education in China is directly reflected through the professional setting and talent training objectives, and this view involves the fundamental factors of quality evaluation of vocational education in China. It has been shown that vocationalism and distinctiveness are types of representation of vocational education, and quality evaluation of vocational education based on the vocational competence level is the hierarchical embodiment of vocational education orientation [25]. In order to highlight this type of characteristic, this study constructed a basic theory of vocational education quality evaluation based on the interview materials and set out the main dimensions to be examined in the evaluation of the quality of vocational education in China. On the one hand, professional settings are important objects of quality evaluation of vocational education in China. Since the professional settings are directly oriented to the production, service, and management fields of society, and are concentrated in the technical, economic, social services and information technology fields, they can provide direct assistance to industrial and social development and can better reflect the level of quality of vocational education. On the other hand, the talent training objectives mainly examine the quality factors within vocational institutions that are controllable by vocational institutions and are the dimensions that the leadership, teachers, and students of vocational institutions can focus on. China began to explore a new model of vocational education quality evaluation as early as the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, but there was a certain incompleteness in both the target and the content [26]. This incompleteness was closely linked to the social development and educational environment at that time, and in essence, it showed “pilot action” [27]. This incompleteness in the reform of vocational education quality evaluation also raises a warning for the relevant international research, which is implemented in the specific schooling practice. The global vocational education quality evaluation system is still unsound [28], thus as an important subsystem of the education system, the vocational education quality evaluation system must be focused on the construction.

(2)

External influencing factors exist in vocational education quality evaluation. The view that quality evaluation of vocational education in China focuses on factors external to the education system involves external influences on the quality evaluation of vocational education in China and is an important means through which the quality of vocational education can be recognized by the outside world. Many studies have shown that vocational education quality evaluation is a process that encompasses multiple stakeholders [29]. In the 1960s, the academic concept of stakeholders gradually emerged in the West; in 1984, Robert Edward Freeman, an American management scientist, published in Strategic Management: An Analytical Approach to Stakeholder Management. In 1984, Robert Edward Freeman formally introduced stakeholder theory in his book Strategic Management: An Analytical Approach to Stakeholder Management, and its influence has been expanding since then. Based on stakeholder theory, this study comprehensively and systematically summarized the external influences on the quality evaluation of vocational education in China from both international and domestic levels. First, in terms of international exchange, the quality of vocational education in China has been improved through two paths: “bringing in” and “going out”, mainly through domestic and international cooperation, international student education, professional accreditation, teacher exchange, international competitions, etc. Second, it can also be conducted through the “inbound” and “outbound” paths. Third, the quality of vocational education in China can be improved through organization and collaboration, mainly through technical support and services of vocational colleges, integration of education and industry, and school–enterprise cooperation.

(3)

There are internal factors that influence vocational education quality evaluation. There are two educational internal factors influencing the quality evaluation of vocational education in China: institutional resources and evaluation system construction. This view involves two internal means of improving the quality of vocational education in China. The first is achieved by accumulating resources from vocational institutions, and the other is achieved through the construction and strengthening of evaluation systems. In today’s international world development change, the purpose of building a vocational education quality evaluation system is not to cope with school assessment or superior tasks, but vocational institutions judge the level of quality of their education and find their strengths and weaknesses in order to improve the quality of their education. The ultimate purpose of vocational education quality evaluation is to improve the quality of talent cultivation, thus its quality evaluation should be of comprehensive quality, including students, teachers, schools, and society, and the improvement of vocational education quality evaluation system is also a comprehensive improvement, including students, teachers, schools and society in many aspects. According to the barrel principle, if any aspect fails to become a short board, the overall quality of vocational education will not meet the requirements. For the accumulation of resources in vocational institutions, vocational institutions can strengthen the specific examination of three aspects, namely curriculum, teachers’ teams, and facilities construction, to enhance the quality of vocational education and strengthen the degree of improvement of vocational education quality evaluation [30]. For the construction of an evaluation system, the quality evaluation of vocational education can be improved by improving the teachers and students evaluation system, professional evaluation system, and access and withdrawal mechanism.

5.2. Explanation of Strategies for Vocational Institutions

For many developing countries, the development of education will become unsustainable if they simply keep expanding the scale of vocational education provision and talent training without considering the quality of vocational education. For many countries, the purpose of vocational education is to serve the development of the economy and society and to enhance the competitiveness of industrial transformation and upgrading, however, they neglect the fact that the development of vocational education should be about quality. Quality is a comprehensive term that requires vocational education to focus not only on its economic function but also on the most basic function of talent training. Vocational education cannot be considered to support only economic development without considering its contribution to individuals. To achieve the development of high-quality vocational education internationally, from the perspective of internal factors of vocational institutions, vocational institutions should use professional development, faculty development, curriculum development, and other means to promote the accumulation of internal resources and achieve high-quality operation of vocational institutions. In addition, considering that other organizations at home and abroad have the same influential role in vocational education, countries should pay attention to the role of external factors when developing vocational education. This study provides insights from the following aspects.

(1)

Strictly regulate the setting of majors based on the real needs of industries, which is the first “barrier” to ensuring the quality of vocational education. Scientific and solid research on talent demand is the premise of a professional setting. At present, the literature shows that research on talent demand for vocational education in various countries has shortcomings, including weak scientific evidence, and is necessary for strengthening the guidance and management supervision of diagnosis and improvement. According to the international modern quality management concept, an organization’s control and management of the quality of its work involves developing evaluation capabilities to “determine how well it is doing”, “find out what is wrong” and “know how to fix it” in time. A quality evaluation system is a tool that provides managers with continuous feedback on how an organization is performing, identifies the potential for success, and identifies problems early enough to ensure timely adjustments. A modern vocational education evaluation system consists of at least three parts: a macro vocational education quality evaluation system that promotes human resource development in the region, industry, or enterprise; a quality evaluation system for vocational institutions; and a teaching quality evaluation system that promotes student development and teacher improvement. There are some differences in the content and specific operation of these evaluation systems, but they have a similar structural framework. Quality evaluation in vocational institutions is aimed at judging the extent to which goals are met after developing new curricula or promoting new management models with the aim of ensuring that the school’s work is achieving the desired results.

(2)

Promote the development of technical knowledge, the preparation of teaching materials, and teacher training to facilitate the construction of a competency-based curriculum towards depth, which is core to ensuring the quality of education. Internationally, many countries have formed a mechanism that combines internal and external evaluation of vocational education quality. In the UK, for example, internal evaluation of vocational education is conducted by schools on their own, while external evaluation focuses on checking the operational efficiency of schools’ internal quality assurance mechanisms. This external evaluation model not only respects the freedom of institutions and academic autonomy but also realizes the perfect combination and complementary advantages of internal and external quality assurance, which jointly improve the quality of vocational education and promote the development of vocational education in the UK. Vocational institutions are the providers of vocational education services, and different groups have different interests and demands and they evaluate the quality of vocational education services differently. The “customers” of vocational education are very complicated, including “client customers”, “funded customers”, “direct customers”, and “commissioned customers”. There are many types of customers, including “commissioned customers”. The direct customers of education services are students, but they cannot fully choose the services they receive (e.g., schools and courses) on their own and their purchasing decisions are limited; vocational education services are not provided to funders (e.g., the government), but to those who are eligible (e.g., secondary school students who enjoy free education); in the operation of vocational institutions, the evaluation of service quality by customers is often not decisive, and the evaluation by the administration may be more important. In addition, competition among vocational institutions is not market-based; non-market factors such as culture and regional characteristics have an important influence on the choice of vocational education services. All these factors influence the evaluation of the “service quality” of vocational education and the establishment of evaluation systems. Therefore, vocational institutions should use these tasks as their core focus to ensure the supply of high-quality curriculum content and to promote the formation of knowledge and competence structures for students with specialized skills.

(3)

To explore the nurturing function of international exchange and cooperation, industry–education integration and school–enterprise cooperation are key to promoting the improvement in the quality of vocational education. Internationally, many countries will pay attention to the nurturing function of vocational education, and vocational institutions will form vocational education alliance organizations to jointly participate in the process of vocational education talent cultivation to enhance the suitability and quality of vocational education to industry, the economy, and society. Taking the quality evaluation of vocational education in Australia as an example, Australia insists on the principle of quality first, and the practice of extensive participation of industry and employers in quality assessment as third-party evaluators is also becoming more common; this will become an important choice in government management innovation. Australia’s higher education quality assurance framework has been highly successful at all levels of government, in individual universities, and for students and other stakeholders. Vocational education is central to Australia’s economic growth and business productivity, and the role of third-party evaluation of vocational education in improving the quality of education cannot be underestimated. First, it encourages the active participation of third parties and decentralizes the government; second, it strengthens consultative governance and implements quality control; third, it improves the quality of education and teaching based on students’ feedback; and fourth, it supports third-party evaluation through sound legislative organization. Focusing on the quality evaluation of vocational education in China, on 20 April 2022, the Chinese government passed the newly revised “Vocational Education Law of the People’s Republic of China”, which is a milestone in the development of vocational education in China. Article 43 stipulates that “vocational schools and vocational training institutions shall establish and improve the education quality evaluation system, involve industry organizations and enterprises in the evaluation, and disclose relevant information in a timely manner, and accept education supervision and social supervision”, which will play an important role in promoting the establishment and improvement of the quality evaluation system of vocational education in China. The fundamental purpose of the above-mentioned legal provisions is talent cultivation, and vocational education breaks through the bottleneck of education quality, which needs to be oriented to cultivation, to develop adequate domestic and foreign collaborative development goals, processes, evaluation rules, etc., to dig deeper into the cultivation function of the enterprise side of the organization’s collaborative process and to promote the acquisition of students’ key technical knowledge as well as specialized skills.

6. Conclusions and Future Prospects

6.1. Conclusions

In order to reveal the factors influencing the evaluation of vocational education quality in China, a theoretical model is constructed in this study. This study constructed a theoretical model using grounded theory by conducting in-depth interviews with 53 management, teachers, and students in Chinese vocational colleges and universities, collecting interview data and conducting in-depth research.

The theoretical contributions of this study are: First, this study enriches the fields of vocational education quality evaluation theory and vocational institution development theory. Second, this study constructs the influencing factors of quality evaluation of vocational education in China and discusses the relationship between these factors. These will provide a reference for subsequent studies. Finally, this study extends the application of grounded theory.

In addition, this study has practical value: First, this study opens a research perspective for the government and education authorities to scientifically study the quality of vocational education, and the relevant authorities will closely follow the perspectives of education positioning, international exchange, organizational collaboration, institutional resources, and evaluation system construction to carry out planning in a categorical and step-by-step manner during policy formulation. Second, this study provides a reference for the evaluation of strategies of vocational education quality adapted to different countries and regions. Finally, this study provides a reference for national vocational education towards the path of high-quality development.

The following three findings were found in this study.

(1)

Quality evaluation of vocational education in China is directly reflected through the professional settings and personnel training objectives.

(2)

Quality evaluation of vocational education in China focuses on factors external to the education system.

(3)

There are two educational internal influences on the quality evaluation of vocational education in China, namely, institutional resources and evaluation system construction.

6.2. Limitations of the Study and Future Prospects

Although the Chinese vocational education quality evaluation model is constructed using the grounded theory approach, there are still some limitations in this study. The theoretical model constructed in this study only represents the current situation of vocational education development in China, and the model has not been tested in vocational colleges or educational institutions in other countries. In addition, the theoretical model constructed from the perspective of qualitative research has not been tested empirically. Therefore, future research should remedy the shortcomings of this study.

Further research could be conducted in the future in the following areas.

(1)

Classification and stratification of different vocational institutions in China, validated in secondary vocational schools, higher vocational institutions and vocational undergraduate schools in China, respectively, to observe how the theoretical model proposed in this paper works in practice.

(2)

Testing the theoretical model proposed in this paper in other countries or regions.

(3)

Exploring the interaction between multiple subjects and factors in the development of vocational education in each country using simulations.

(4)

Many countries, including China, Germany, and Japan, are currently developing vocational bachelor’s education. Therefore, it is recommended that quality evaluation reform projects be extended to vocational education at the undergraduate level in order to enhance the theoretical guidance of related research.

(5)

Since the theoretical model generated so far does not involve a specific index system, it is suggested that AHP or other decision analysis methods be used at a later stage to further explore the specific indexes and index score percentages in vocational education quality evaluation.