Perceptions and practices of academic excellence: Insights from university stakeholders
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Author(s)Renata KudaibergenovaLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1201-6715
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Aknur ZhidebekkyzyLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3543-547X
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Timur BuldybayevLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8199-653X
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Bibigul UtepkaliyevaLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0321-7487
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Svitlana BilanLink to ORCID Index: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9814-5459
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DOIhttp://dx.doi.org/10.21511/kpm.09(2).2025.17
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Article InfoVolume 9 2025, Issue #2, pp. 246-261
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2 Downloads
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Type of the article: Research Article
The study analyzes how academic excellence is conceptualized within Kazakhstani universities, focusing on two key internal stakeholder groups: faculty members and administrative staff. While academic excellence has become a global priority, little empirical evidence exists on how it is interpreted in emerging higher education systems. The paper addresses this gap by examining the Kazakhstani case, where government-led excellence initiatives are still in their early stages. A quota-based survey was conducted across 42 universities, producing weighted responses from 832 faculty and 155 administrators. Quantitative data were processed with IBM SPSS Statistics 25, employing descriptive statistics, Welch’s t-test, and two-way ANOVA to compare perceptions between the groups. Despite a broad consensus on the multidimensional nature of academic excellence (positive agreement averaged > 94%), the results reveal consistent differences in their interpretation of core parameters. Of the 32 indicators tested, only four showed no statistically significant difference between faculty and administrators: faculty numbers (p = 0.246), academic reputation and stakeholder recognition (p = 0.701), graduate employability and employer satisfaction (p = 0.106), and student enrollment (p = 0.588). Overall, administrators assigned systematically higher importance to institutional characteristics, enabling components, and barriers across all thematic blocks. Consistent with the conceptual framework integrating institutional and stakeholder perspectives, these patterns indicate that external policy pressures and role-specific responsibilities shape interpretations of excellence. These findings provide a data-driven basis for designing initiatives that couple system-level reforms with participatory governance and co-created metrics, thereby improving the translation of policy into practice.
Acknowledgment
This research was funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant No. BR21882373).
- Keywords
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JEL Classification (Paper profile tab)I23, I28, O32
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References56
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Tables9
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Figures8
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- Figure 1. Conceptual framework
- Figure 2. Research workflow
- Figure 3. Perceptions of the academic excellence concept (FM group)
- Figure 4. Perceptions of the academic excellence concept (ADM group)
- Figure 5. Estimated marginal means for each block
- Figure 6. Institutional priorities selected by faculty members (up to five choices permitted)
- Figure 7. Institutional priorities selected by administrative staff (up to three choices permitted)
- Figure 8. Top 5 target indicators for assessing the success of academic excellence initiatives
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- Table 1. Sociodemographic profile of respondents by group (%)
- Table 2. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of questionnaire blocks
- Table 3. Perceived importance of institutional characteristics defining academic excellence
- Table 4. Perceived importance of components for achieving academic excellence
- Table 5. Perceived barriers to achieving academic excellence
- Table 6. Summary of two-way ANOVA results
- Table A1. Descriptive statistics of aggregated scales by group
- Table B1. Tests of between-subjects effects (SPSS output)
- Table C1. Target indicators for assessing academic excellence initiatives (with group-wise selection rates)
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Acknowledgment
This article was written under grant from Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science No. АР05135081 “Student with disabilities and distance education learning environment: socio-practical and legal dimensions” coordinated by Prof. Dr Zulfiya Movkebayeva (Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University).
