A study of the impact of the public management concept on the reform of the modern school management system

With the development of the times, colleges and universities need to carry out reform and innovation in management, improve their own management level, so that they can follow the pace of the times and thus obtain good development, so as not to be eliminated by the times and unable to train more talents for the society. In the process of promoting the management innovation of universities, the introduction of public management theory can inject new vitality into the management of universities and change the deficiencies in the previous management [1-2].

For the university administration, the original university management mode and management methods are not applicable to the current and future development of universities, and the existing management methods of universities have become an important constraint on the social functions of universities [3-5]. Public management theory has been emphasized since the 1990s, which focuses on obtaining relevant results and emphasizes that the function of the government is not only the planner, but also the controller of the whole situation [6]. The concept of public management focuses on the interests of citizens, and when this concept is extended to the management of Chinese universities, it is transformed to the fact that universities should focus on the interests of students and cultivate their learning and social skills [7-8]. At the same time, according to the development situation of the socialist market economy, rationally divide the weight of rights and responsibilities of the government and colleges and universities and role-playing, change the government management mode and service mode, guarantee the autonomy of colleges and universities to run schools, promote the healthy development of management work in colleges and universities, and realize the transformation of modern management in colleges and universities [9-13]. Nowadays, colleges and universities attach great importance to the application of public management theory in management, and give high support to the implementation of its work priorities, so that it can play a more ideal role in the actual application process, and effectively solve a variety of public management problems.

This paper combines the multiple regression model to study the relationship between the public management concept and the “modern school management system reform situation”. It clarifies the role of public management concept in the reform of university management system. The multiple regression model is designed as a data research tool, and the parameters of the independent variables are optimized to improve the effectiveness of the model in regression analysis. A questionnaire survey was used to collect and organize the data on the factors influencing the public management philosophy from the administrative staff, teachers and students of a university. The relationship between the three independent variables of “understanding”, “recognition” and “application” and the dependent variables of “reform of modern school management system” was verified by sample description, descriptive statistical analysis of influencing factors, difference analysis of independent variables, correlation test and regression analysis.

2

Three implications of the concept of public management for universities and colleges

The concept of public management emphasizes the need for the original administrators to change their management concepts, establish a sense of service, and provide better service to the relevant targets. Applying the concept of public management to school management requires school administrators and teachers to enhance their service consciousness to better serve students, and at the same time, guide students to gradually cultivate their service consciousness through practical learning, so as to be ready to serve the society in the future.

2.1

Increased awareness of service among university students

The actual effect of the social work of college students after they leave the college campus will have a direct impact on the reputation of colleges and universities. Colleges and universities should implement a good service to students, the use of scientific and modern education concepts, cultivate students’ service consciousness, guide students to continuously improve themselves, and constantly improve, after students graduate and enter the community, so that students can use their knowledge to better serve the community.

Enhancing students’ service consciousness is of great significance to the construction of a harmonious socialist society and a service-oriented society. Colleges and universities should help students establish the concept of social service, so that students need to improve themselves through various channels. Guiding students to create a wide variety of associations, actively participate in various types of activities carried out by schools and social organizations, such as community service activities, volunteer services, etc., in practice to continuously improve the service consciousness of college students.

2.2

The concept of educational administration is evolving from rights to services.

An important part of the concept of public management is to establish the concept of service, which will also be a new positioning of the relationship between the administrator and the managed. Implemented in college education, college administrators correspond to the administrators, students correspond to the administrators, colleges and universities to build the students as customers of the education work mode, especially need to college counselors and other administrative staff to strengthen their sense of responsibility. Colleges and universities have also taken a lot of measures to establish the concept of service, such as regular questionnaires, face-to-face communication of learning needs, listening carefully to students’ opinions, and letting students evaluate the completion of various tasks in colleges and universities. All these reflect that colleges and universities are developing from the concept of right to the concept of service in management, which is also a requirement for the implementation of the concept of public management in colleges and universities.

2.3

Teachers’ management style shifts from controlling students to serving them

The service function is one of the important functions of university education, which will become more and more obvious with the development of knowledge economy. It is difficult for educators to influence and teach students if they do not have the idea of serving the people and do not demonstrate the service to the people in their behavior. From the point of view of public administration, teachers should communicate with students more often, take into account the psychological characteristics and actual needs of students, and try to satisfy them as reasonably as possible. To convince people with reason, and students to establish an equal and harmonious relationship, so that students feel that they have been duly respected. The concept of public management service makes teachers in colleges and universities in the way of education appeared to change, from the previous management of students to serve students.

3

Design and optimization of multiple regression models

This paper studies and analyzes the impact of public management concepts on the reform of modern school management system by designing and optimizing a multiple regression model, which is described below.

3.1

Curve Fitting

Curve fitting, as the name suggests, is a method of analyzing data and future state based on the trend of the actual deformation curve, which is also known as trend regression analysis. The curve fitting model is able to make intuitive predictions of the future state of the monitoring point based on the existing state of the monitoring data, and fit it to the actual curve so as to obtain the prediction curve and realize the prediction function.

For the functional model f(t,θ), a trend or a pattern between f(t,θ) and the predicted object Y_t can be expressed by the following functional equation: (1) $Y_{t} = f (t, θ) + ε_{t}$

In the above equation, Y_t is the object of prediction; f(t,θ) is the model of different case curves, θ represents some parameters to be determined; ε_t is the prediction error. The following mainly introduces the polynomial trend model which is more closely related to the actual engineering problems in the curve fitting trend model, and the function expression is as follows: (2) $Y_{t} = a_{0} + a_{1} t + \dots + a_{n} t^{n}$

Analyzed through the lens of mathematical functions, any segment of a continuous function within a coordinate system can be infinitely approximated and fitted by a segmented polynomial. In other words, no matter what kind of relationship exists between the dependent variable Y_t and the other variables, it is always possible to fit the curve through a polynomial trend-fitting model with a sufficient width of the x-axis.

In the process of modeling the polynomial trend model, since the amount of deformation of the dependent variable Y_t is reflected in the coordinate system by the cumulative value of the deformation at a point, t in the polynomial is the corresponding time, but the order n of the polynomial fit is not known beforehand, and the order n of the polynomial model takes on the direct value of 4 or 5 in many real-world problems. The value of Specific n shall be determined in accordance with the method of addition. The method of valuation is as follows:

The order n in the polynomial trend model starts at n = k = 1 and goes up, and whenever an item is added, the polynomial is fitted once and the coefficients a_j(j = 1,2,...) and the residual sum of squares rs(k) are estimated, and statistical tests are done for both fits: (3) $\frac{r s (k - 1) - r s (k)}{r s (k) / N - k - 1} ~ F_{a} (1, N - k - 1)$

In the above equation, the value of k is generally able to influence the transformation of rs(k) values, while the value of rs(k) is generally expressed as the significance of the trend model on the predicted object Y_t. When the value of k gradually increases, the value of rs(k) and there is a significant decrease, then it indicates that the fitted model has a better significance with Y_t.

When using MATLAB software to model the polynomial trend model, the order of the model can be directly determined by the fit test equation, and the value of n ranges from the 1st order to the 9th order, according to the actual needs, to find the most compatible order, so as to determine the model expression.

3.2

Multiple regression analysis model and parameter selection

In multiple regression analysis, when the dependent variable y is interfered by external influencing factors, these influencing factors are defined as independent variable x_i. If there is a certain correlation between y and x_i, a multiple regression model can be established based on the dependent variable y and each influencing factor x_i, and the mathematical expression of the model is as follows: (4) $y = b_{0} + b_{1} x_{1} + b_{2} x_{2} \dots + b_{n} x_{n} + ε$

In the above equation, b_n is the regression coefficient; ε is the random error.

The modeling of the multiple linear regression model requires the testing of the following coefficients:

1)

Regression equation significance test

In many practical problems, the relationship between dependent variable y and independent variable x_i is not obvious, and it needs to be tested and verified by certain significance tests to finally be able to determine whether there is a good and significant relationship between the two, and if they do not have a good significance between them, then it means that there is not a relevant connection between y and x_i, therefore, the process of testing the significance is also very important.

To test the significance of the regression equation, the statistic F is generally quoted as the constraint of the model, and the expression of the statistic F is: (5) $F = \frac{S_{Back} / P}{S_{Remain} / (n - p - 1)}$

In the above equation, S_Back is the regression sum of squares, S_Remain is the residual sum of squares, and the statistic F should obey the F(p,n–p–1) distribution, i.e., obey the level of significance α, α can be determined by the following expression:’ (6) $p {| F | \geq F_{1 - α, p, n - p - 1} | H_{0} | = α}$

The above formula is the expression of significance test, if it satisfies |F|≥F_{1–α,p,n–p–1}, it means that there is a good significance relationship between y and x_i at α significant level, and the constructed model is good in significance.

2)

Significance test of regression coefficients

In the multiple regression model, the regression equation is significant does not mean that each independent variable is significant for the dependent variable, at this time, we should analyze the significance of the independent variables, keep the independent variables with high significance, and exclude the independent variables that are not significant, so as to avoid the model significance being affected. After eliminating the irrelevant influences, the parameters of the independent variables in the model can be optimized, so that the intrinsic connection between y and x_i can be studied more precisely, and the deformation of the dependent variable can be analyzed better.

If the effect and influence of a variable x_i on the dependent variable y is not very significant, the value of coefficient β_j of the multiple regression model should be 0, and the test of whether the dependent variable x_i is significant or not is often verified by the following expression: (7) $\frac{β_{j}^{2} / c_{j j}}{s_{Remain} / (n - p - 1)} - F (1, n - p - 1)$

In the above equation, if independent variable x_i is significant for dependent variable y, it obeys a F(1,n–p–1) distribution. $β_{j}^{2} / C_{j j}$ is the partial regression sum of squares of independent variable x_i, and if |F|≥F_{1–α,p,n–p–1}, the regression coefficient β_j is considered significant at the confidence interval of 1–α.

However, it is worth noting that when uncorrelated variables are removed from the multiple regression equation, the coefficients of the remaining x_i, b_n, also change, so the multiple regression equation has to be re-established by removing the variables once, and then each coefficient in the newly established multiple regression equation is tested one by one until all the regression coefficients are significant.

There is a good significance relationship with x_i and the model constructed is significant.

3.3

Estimation of regression parameters

In the multiple regression model, the regression parameters, also known as regression coefficients, for the multiple model, the smaller the deviation value between the observed value and the estimated value of the model, the higher the fitting accuracy of the model and the best prediction, which requires the need to find the estimated value of the individual regression coefficients b₀,b₁,...b_n by the rule of least squares, and finally determine the expression of the multiple regression model.

Let Δ_i be the deviation of the observed value y_i and the estimated value ${\hat{y}}_{t}$ , then: (8) $Δ_{i} = y_{i} - {\hat{y}}_{t}$

At the same time: (9) $y = {\begin{cases} y_{1} \\ y_{2} \\ \dots \\ y_{n} \end{cases}} Δ = {\begin{cases} Δ_{1} \\ Δ_{2} \\ \dots \\ Δ_{n} \end{cases}} x = {\begin{cases} x_{1} \\ x_{2} \\ \dots \\ x_{n} \end{cases}} \hat{b} = {\begin{cases} b_{0} \\ b_{1} \\ \dots \\ b_{n} \end{cases}}$

In the above equation x is the various types of influences, $\hat{b}$ the estimates of the regression parameters, and y the observations.

Let the residual of y be r, then we have: (10) $r = \hat{b} x - y$

Requested: (11) $\frac{\partial r^{T} r}{\partial b} = 2 r^{T} x = 0$

Substituting equation (11) into equation (12) gives: (12) $x^{T} x \hat{b} = x^{T} y$

After arithmetic, the estimate of b_n is obtained as: (13) $\hat{b} = {(x^{T} x)}^{- 1} x^{T} y$

After finding the regression parameter $\hat{b}$ , the multiple regression model is obtained as: (14) $y = {\hat{b}}_{0} + {\hat{b}}_{1} x_{1} + {\hat{b}}_{2} x_{2} \dots + {\hat{b}}_{n} x_{n} + ε$

4

Research and analysis related to the concept of public management

This paper takes the three groups of administrators, in-service teachers, and in-service students of a university in Guangdong Province as the main target of the survey, and analyzes the impact of the public management concept on the reform of the current management system of the university in light of the current status and problems of its reform, and uses the online distribution of questionnaires to carry out this survey research. After collecting relevant data, the questionnaire samples were standardized and analyzed using the method of multiple linear regression analysis to determine the impact of the public management concept on the reform of the modern school management system.

4.1

Sample description

The research subjects of this survey were three groups of administrative staff, in-service faculty, and current students at a university in Guangdong Province. The questionnaire was designed online using the Questionnaire Star website to conduct the survey study. The questionnaire survey is shown in Table 1. By generating the online questionnaire QR code, sending it directly to the survey respondents, and filling out and submitting the questionnaire online, 4652 questionnaires were distributed, with 4468 valid questionnaires, and the answer sheet data were downloaded from the Questionnaire Star website to generate SPSS data files directly. The sample consisted of 5.29% of administration survey respondents, 18.94% of in-service faculty survey respondents, and 75.77% of enrolled student survey respondents. The survey was conducted from April 2022 to June 2022 over a two-month period.

Table 1.

Sample situation

Number of questionnaires issued	Number of valid questionnaires		Head count	Number of active teachers	Student population
4652	4468		236	846	3386
Effective recovery	96.04%	Scale	5.29%	18.94%	75.77%

The questionnaire is divided into two parts. The first part is the basic personal situation, with a total of 4 questions, including gender, identity, age, highest education, etc.; In the second part, according to the field investigation and interviews, the views of relevant personnel on the concept of public management were collected, combined with the relevant research on the concept of public management, in the process of designing the questionnaire, a total of 18 measurement indicators were set up in the three dimensions of “understanding”, “recognition” and “application”, and the form of a five-level Likert scale was adopted, and each question option included five levels: “not at all agree”, “not very agreeable”, “generally in agreement”, “somewhat in agreement” and “very much in agreement”, and assigned 1-5 points respectively, the lower the score, the lower the degree of compliance.

The first part of the questionnaire samples are analyzed: in terms of gender composition, there is not much difference between males and females, because of the large sample capacity, the ratio of male to female is close to one to one, which is consistent with the statistical law; in terms of status characteristics, the students who are enrolled in the program accounted for 75.77% of the total, accounting for the largest share, followed by the teachers who are in the workforce who accounted for 18.94% of the total, and lastly, the administrators who only accounted for 5.29% of the total; in terms of age distribution, 20-30 years old, 30-40 years old predominate, a total of 98.3% of the total; from the highest educational level, the ratio of undergraduates, graduate students and doctoral students is close to 1:1:1. 4468 valid samples of the basic situation of the university as a whole is consistent with the actual situation of the university, the questionnaire issued by the population of the accuracy of the high degree.

The specific survey questions in the second part of the questionnaire were analyzed. A total of three dimensions of “understanding”, “recognition” and “application” are set, of which each dimension is reflected by 6 measurement indicators, and each indicator is assigned 1-5 points, the higher the score, the higher the conformity. “Understanding” includes six measurement indicators: “You take the initiative to learn and understand the concept of public management”, “You can quickly say the basic connotation of the concept of public management”, “You know the use of the concept of public management in modern schools”. “Recognition” includes six measurement indicators: “You agree that the concept of public management has positive value”, “You agree with the view of the concept of public management that managers should change to service providers”, and “You agree that everyone should learn the concept of public management”. “Application” includes six measurement indicators: “You will actively regulate your behavior according to the requirements of the public management philosophy”, “You can implement the service awareness required by the public management philosophy in your work/study”, and “You influence the behavior of others by explaining the public management philosophy to others”.

4.2

Descriptive Statistical Analysis of Influential Factors

By analyzing the descriptive statistics of the survey samples, the statistical information on the variables of the factors influencing the public management philosophy was derived, as shown in Table 2 below. The following is mainly to analyze the basic statistical results of the descriptive statistics of the variables of the influencing factors of the public management concept, and to initially study the factors affecting the application of the public management concept in the reform of the school management system.

Table 2.

Descriptive statistical results of measurement indicators

Number	Measurement index	Mean value	Standard deviation	Variance
X1	Concept understanding initiative	3.68	1.112	1.203
X2	Clear concept connotation	3.21	1.121	1.216
X3	High possibility of application of ideas	3.30	1.126	1.264
X4	Clear concept evolution	3.22	1.138	1.28
X5	Strong idea importance	3.15	1.125	1.23
X6	Concept research is clear	3.31	1.093	1.16
X7	Positive value of idea	3.08	1.126	1.264
X8	High degree of recognition of ideas	3.72	1.063	1.205
X9	High acceptance of concept learning	3.19	1.412	1.995
X10	Good willingness to share ideas	3.28	1.457	2.083
X11	Strong emotional resonance	3.21	1.425	2.005
X12	High evaluation of concept	3.09	1.125	1.057
X13	Integrate ideas into everyday life	3.67	1.06	1.143
X14	Enhance service awareness	3.29	1.014	1.732
X15	Offer to share ideas with others	3.16	1.056	1.119
X16	Innovative ideas and actions	3.19	1.023	1.245
X17	Adhere to service first	3.41	1.018	1.431
X18	Explore ways to implement the concept	3.26	1.019	1.031

Analyzing Table 2, it can be seen that the mean values of the 18 measures in the three dimensions set by the questionnaire are all greater than 3, and the standard variance is around 1, which means that the subjects’ attitudes toward the public management philosophy generally maintain at the neutral-biased agreeing level, and further analysis of the related independent variables is needed.

4.3

Analysis of variance of independent variables

Table 3 shows the mean and standard deviation of the three dimensions of “understanding”, “recognition” and “application”. As shown in Table 3, the mean value of the “understanding” dimension is 3.3116 and the standard deviation is 1.11917, indicating that the three groups generally have a general understanding of the concept of public management, and the difference is small. The mean value of the “recognition” dimension was 3.2617 and the standard deviation was 1.26810, indicating that the three groups basically agreed with the concept of public management, and the difference was small. The mean value of the “application” dimension is 3.3201, and the standard deviation is 1.03167, indicating that the three groups are generally able to apply the concept of public management in actual work and life, and the difference is small.

Table 3.

Means of each dimension

Dimensionality	Measuring index range	Mean value	Standard deviation
Understanding degree	X1-X6	3.3116	1.11917
Recognition degree	X7-X12	3.2617	1.26810
Application situation	X13-X18	3.3201	1.03167

4.4

Dependent variable correlation test

The questionnaire contains three independent variable dimensions of public management concept, namely “understanding”, “recognition” and “application”, and this part will test the correlation between the three independent variable dimensions of public management concept and the dependent variable “reform of modern school management system”.

Table 4 shows the results of the correlation test. The analysis of Table 4 shows that there is a positive correlation between the three independent variable dimensions of public management concept and the dependent variable “reform of modern school management system”. The correlation coefficient between “understanding” and “reform of modern school management system” was 0.249, which was the dimension with the lowest correlation coefficient with “reform of modern school management system” among the three dimensions. The correlation coefficient between “application” and “reform of modern school management system” was 0.617, which was the dimension with the highest correlation coefficient with “reform of modern school management system” among the three dimensions. At the same time, it can be seen that there is a significant positive correlation between all dimensions of public management concept, and the correlation between “application” and “recognition” is the most significant, with a correlation coefficient of 0.606.

Table 4.

Correlation analysis results of each dimension and dependent variable

	The reform of modern school management system	Understanding degree	Recognition degree	Application situation
Understanding degree	0.249**	1
Recognition degree	0.305**	0.565**	1
Application situation	0.617**	0.272**	0.606**	1

**.

At level 0.01 (two-tailed), the correlation was significant.

4.5

Regression analysis between variables

Multiple regression analysis refers to the use of regression equations to explain the linear relationship between the dependent variable and two or more independent variables. To conduct multiple linear regression analysis, correlation analysis is required, if the P value of the correlation coefficient is less than 0.05, it means that there is a significant correlation between the independent variables and the dependent variable; if the P value is greater than 0.05, it means that there is no significant correlation between the independent variables and the dependent variable, or there is no statistical significance, and the corresponding independent variables should be eliminated. SPSS software was utilized to introduce independent variables one by one using stepwise regression method, and F-test was conducted one by one. If the p-value of the previously introduced independent variable is greater than 0.05, the previous independent variable is eliminated until neither significant independent variables are introduced nor insignificant independent variables are eliminated. After obtaining the regression equation based on the stepwise regression method, the linear regression effect of the model is measured based on R², the larger R² is, the better the fit of the regression line to the sample data is, and the model regression is about effective. And get the standard regression coefficient β, the absolute value of β indicates the degree of influence of each independent variable on the dependent variable. DW stands for the Durbin Watson test, which is the most commonly used method to test the autocorrelation of first-order variables, and when the value of DW is close to 2, it means that there is no autocorrelation of first-order variables. Table 5 shows the final results of the test data obtained by performing the operation of analysis-regression-linearity in SPSS and checking the F-test and DW-value test, choosing stepwise for the method, and running multiple linear regression analysis.

Table 5.

Statistics of multiple linear regression results

Variable	Standard regression coefficient β		T	Significance
Constant			0.895	0.867
Understanding degree	0.187		3.382	0.000
Recognition degree	0.142		4.604	0.001
Application situation	0.223		5.285	0.000
R-value	0.781		Adjusted R²	0.604
DW	2.112	F-number	110.657	Sig	0.000

As shown in Table 5, the final results of this stepwise test were obtained after three exclusions and introductions were made, and since the model has a total of three independent variables, it can be tentatively shown that no variable is insignificant and all first-order variables do not need to be excluded. As shown in Table 5, the adjusted R² value is 0.604, which indicates that the scale’s independent variables explain the dependent variable well, with a degree of explanation of 60.4%. The DW value of 2.112, which is close to 2 and not close to with 0 or 4, indicates that there is no autocorrelation of the first order variables. And the p-value of all three independent variables is less than 0.05, indicating that all three independent variables have a significant effect on the dependent variable. The overall F-value of the model is 110.657 with a p-value of 0.000, indicating that the multiple regression equation fitted in this study passes the F-test and is statistically significant.

The β value of the active regression coefficient can reflect the influence of the respective variable on the dependent variable, and the absolute value of the β can reflect the influence of the respective variable on the dependent variable. As shown in the above table, the β value of “understanding” is 0.187, which is greater than 0, and the p-value is 0.000, which is less than 0.01, which can be considered to have a significant positive correlation between “understanding” and “reform of modern school management system”. The β value of “recognition” was 0.142, which was greater than 0, and the p-value was 0.001, which was less than 0.01, which could be considered to have a significant positive correlation between “recognition” and “reform of modern school management system”. The β value of “application” is 0.223, which is greater than 0, and the p-value is 0.000, which is less than 0.01, which can be considered to be a significant positive correlation between “application” and “reform of modern school management system”.

5

Conclusion

This paper conducts a questionnaire survey on administrative personnel, in-service teachers and students, and obtains relevant data for research and analysis. The mean values of the 18 indicators of the three independent variable dimensions of public management concept, “understanding”, “recognition” and “application” were all greater than 3, which means that the participants’ attitudes towards public management concepts generally maintained at the neutral and partial agreement level.

There was a significant positive correlation between all dimensions of public management concept, and the correlation between “application” and “recognition” was the most significant, with a correlation coefficient of 0.606. The β values of the three independent variables were all greater than 0, and the p-values were all less than 0.01, indicating that there was a significant positive correlation between the independent variables of the three dimensions and the dependent variable “reform of modern school management system”.

To sum up, when applying the public management concept to the reform of modern school management system, the degree of understanding, recognition and application of the public management concept by administrative personnel, in-service teachers and students should be considered comprehensively. In particular, various ways should be taken to improve the recognition and application of the public management concept by the three groups. Starting from these three aspects, to enhance the three groups’ understanding and recognition of the public management concept, to provide more opportunities for them to be able to implement the public management concept in their actual work or study, so as to promote the development of the reform of the school management system, so that the school can better serve the students, so that the students can establish a sense of service, and be ready to serve the society, thus forming a virtuous circle of school-student-society.

Lingua:: Inglese

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A study of the impact of the public management concept on the reform of the modern school management system

Lijuan Cao

Pubblicato online: 19 mar 2025

Ricevuto: 01 nov 2024

Accettato: 06 feb 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amns-2025-0528

Parole chiavePublic management concept, Multiple regression model, School management system, Correlation test

© 2025 Lijuan Cao, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Parole chiave
Public management concept, Multiple regression model, School management system, Correlation test