362
higher education research in Singapore are directly related to policy guidance in line
with national development priorities. This follows the trend in the international
higher education literature, where many of the publications are country cases – iso-
lated or in comparison – that in a way are expected to be used as benchmarks that
other countries can assess and use (Kuzhabekova et al. 2015 ).
However, in many other countries, the themes of higher education research are
wide-ranging and dispersed. A range of areas of higher education are addressed,
such as management, history, philosophy, sociology, curriculum and faculty devel-
opment and teaching and curriculum development, as demonstrated in the case
studies of Mongolia and Thailand. Such research is only intermittently conducted
and published, which tends to point to the strong participation of ‘part-time’
researchers (Harland 2012 ) who contribute to the knowledge in higher education
but are not effectively part of the higher education research community. They do not
frequently publish on higher education topics; sometimes they do not even publish
in higher education research journals, and most of the time, they publish a single
article due to having data or came across a case in their main field of teaching or
professional experience that led to a publication in the higher education research
literature (Horta and Jung 2014 ).
In terms of methodology, the Korean case study illustrated the tendency to base
higher education research on policy documents produced by the government or sec-
ondary data obtained in other countries. Promisingly, however, the volume of quan-
titative, qualitative and mixed-methods empirical research is increasing, particularly
in the East Asian and Southeast Asian research communities. This use of a variety
of methods allows for a more inclusive set of perspectives on the challenges and
issues, which will add value in terms of offering a richer and more nuanced under-
standing of the reasons such challenges exist in the first place and then for devising
possible solutions for them to be tackled. This multitude of methodological designs
can drive Asian indigenous higher education research to develop new conceptual
models that can better explain higher education systems in Asia but also avoid the
trend in higher education (particularly in North America) to overly rely upon quan-
titative methodologies (Wells et al. 2015 ).
What Are the Challenges to and Future Directions of Higher
Education Research in Asia?
Identity of ‘Asian’ Higher Education Research
and International Outlook
It is difficult to identify clear trends in the aims, theories and practices of higher
education research across Asia. The research contexts of Asian countries have
extremely heterogeneous origins due to differences in colonial influence, geo-
graphic boundaries, language, developmental stage and policy priorities. Similarly,
J. Jung et al.