Deng Zhe: Constructing the Content System and Scientific Methodology for the Ideological and Political Leadership Index

In 2024, at the National Education Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping explicitly proposed the landmark concept of "ideological and political leadership power" (思政引领力) ^[1], identifying it as a distinctive feature of a socialist educational powerhouse with Chinese characteristics. How to scientifically and effectively evaluate the development level of ideological and political leadership power has become an important and urgent issue. An index is a relative number used to measure the degree of change in a variable across different times or spaces, and it can effectively monitor the developmental state of things. In the process of building an educationally powerful nation with strong ideological and political leadership power, we can construct an "ideological and political leadership power index" to conduct status assessments, cause analyses, and path optimizations for the leadership power within various regions and schools.

I.

An ideological and political leadership power index or indicator system possesses its own inherent logic. One can refer to the internationally common "Input-Process-Output" educational indicator model to construct an ideological and political leadership power index content system, which includes a target system, a procedural system, and an element system.

The target system. The targets of ideological and political leadership power evaluation are primarily oriented toward regions and schools; thus, the index should include regional and school-level indices. Taking the school index as an example, the targets mainly include administrators (management services), educators (teacher teaching and research), and the educated (student learning). Among these, management services involve educational philosophy, strategic planning, organizational structure, and rules and regulations; educators include teachers of Ideological and Political Theory Courses ^[2], teachers of general or specialized courses, graduate supervisors, and counselors; the educated spans all educational stages from primary and secondary schools to universities.

The procedural system. Ideological and political leadership power is a systemic joint force formed through various links such as ideological and moral education, cultural and intellectual education, and social practice education. Ideological and Political Theory Courses, “curriculum-based ideological and political education” (课程思政) ^[3], and routine ideological and political work are vital components of the ideological and political education system and are the primary links in evaluating ideological and political leadership power. Furthermore, the construction of "Grand Ideological and Political Courses" ^[4], the integrated construction of ideological and political education across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels, the development of the teaching force, and home-school-society collaboration are all important avenues for enhancing leadership power. Therefore, the construction of the index should integrate evaluations of ideological and political courses, curriculum-based ideological and political indices, routine work standards, and evaluation systems for other links.

The element system. Generally speaking, ideological leadership, political leadership, cultural leadership, value leadership, faith leadership, moral leadership, emotional leadership, and action leadership together form a collective leadership force—namely, ideological and political leadership power. The index should observe and assess the above elements to reflect the actual state and effects of such leadership power in a comprehensive and multi-dimensional manner.

II.

As soon as the concept of "ideological and political leadership power" was proposed, the academic community rapidly launched a wave of theoretical research, demonstrating its scientific connotation, summarizing its constitutive elements, analyzing its generative mechanisms, and exploring its practical paths. These efforts have yielded research results concerning the fundamental theoretical and practical issues of this leadership power. Constructing the index requires absorbing these research findings, basing work on China’s policy documents regarding ideological and political education evaluation, and drawing on general principles and methods of index construction.

First, the practice of ideological and political education is, in essence, an educational practice of arming minds with Marxist theory. In constructing the index, we must firmly uphold the directional leadership, developmental drive, and talent cultivation power that Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era provides for building an educational powerhouse. We must consciously follow the moral education evaluation thoughts of classical Marxist writers, firmly grasp the nature and positioning of building an educational powerhouse, and deeply understand the scientific connotation of ideological and political leadership power.

Second, China’s ideological and political education evaluation has accumulated rich practical achievements, such as the construction standards for Ideological and Political Theory Courses in higher education institutions, the assessment system for ideological and political education work for college students, and the basic standards for Party building and ideological and political work in higher education. Constructing the index can extract policy elements from macro-policies, practical activities, and specialized work in ideological and political education evaluation, advancing in coordination with existing evaluation work.

Finally, regarding the evaluation of ideological and political leadership power, we must adhere to the unity of political evaluation and professional evaluation, and the unity of value evaluation and factual evaluation. We must persist in the unity of process evaluation and result evaluation, and the unity of work evaluation and effectiveness evaluation. We must maintain the unity of objective evaluation and subjective evaluation, and the unity of quantitative evaluation and qualitative evaluation. Given regional differences and school types, we must also adhere to the unity of comprehensive evaluation with classified and graded evaluations, while considering value-added evaluations that account for the characteristics of different regions and schools.

III.

A new generation of digital technologies—represented by big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence—is promoting transformation and innovation across all fields, including education, in an all-encompassing way. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to educational digitalization, emphasizing that "educational digitalization is an important breakthrough for our country to open up new tracks for educational development and shape new advantages for educational development." Constructing the ideological and political leadership power index should take evaluation as the pulling force, the indicator system as the landing point, and digitalization as the source of momentum.

Innovatively design the scale formation of the index. For a long time, theoretical research and practical work have pointed out the contradiction between the complexity of ideological and political education evaluation parameters and the convenience of actual operation. Therefore, constructing the index should balance quantitative and qualitative methods; it must introduce relatively mature scales while remaining vigilant against the mindset that "everything can be quantified." Through preliminary construction, expert scoring, pre-assessment, and algorithmic analysis, a persuasive and operational scale can be formed. This requires each indicator to possess characteristics such as authority, collectability, and calculability, while also considering the generation, collection, and evaluation cycles of the data. Furthermore, through repeated verification and multiple iterations, the scientific rigor and effectiveness of the index must be continuously improved.

Innovatively design the weight distribution of the index. For example, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the composite index method, one can perform dimensionless processing on various indicators and items and calculate composite indices to derive weight distributions, further enhancing the scientific nature, precision, and credibility of the scale. Additionally, experts in relevant fields should be invited to provide suggestions for adding, deleting, or modifying the content system and specific measurement items of the preliminary index for step-by-step revision.

Innovatively design the data representation of the index. The data representation forms for various indicators and items can include multiple modalities: for instance, administrative data such as policy documents and statistical data; digital footprints like online classroom interactions, "Rain Classroom" ^[5] bullet chats, and social media big data; and survey data reflecting the thoughts, attitudes, and emotions of teachers and students. Based on different data representation forms, different data collection methods should be adopted. In recent years, growing attention has been paid to big data evaluation in ideological and political education, digital transformation, and the empowerment of evaluation by intelligent technology. This reminds us to explore digital-driven construction methods for the index. For example, to minimize "data pollution" as much as possible, non-inductive data collection based on voice recognition, image recognition, and emotion recognition can be utilized.

Innovatively design the practical application of the index. The application process of an index generally consists of three stages: "evaluation—analysis—optimization." In the status evaluation stage, the final measurement scale should be organized into a structured assessment questionnaire to carry out data collection and calculate the leadership power indices for various regions and schools, depicting a quantifiable and visualized landscape. In the cause analysis stage, quantitative research methods such as multilevel linear regression should be used to deeply analyze the factors influencing leadership power and the interaction between various elements. In the path optimization stage, targeted suggestions and optimization plans should be formulated based on the specific results of the index evaluation and the analysis of influencing factors. Meanwhile, the index is not static; it must be constantly iterated and updated according to the actual level of effectiveness demonstrated by different regions and schools.

In short, constructing an ideological and political leadership power index is key to conducting evaluations, which concerns the enhancement of leadership power and the construction of a socialist educational powerhouse with Chinese characteristics. Applying the index to "Double First-Class" construction ^[6], disciplinary evaluation, and educational supervision will help promote "upholding the fundamentals and breaking new ground" in ideological and political courses, improve the quality of curriculum-based ideological and political education, push for the intensive development of routine ideological and political work, and foster a healthy educational ecosystem. This will guide the cultivation of "new people of the era" (时代新人) ^[7] who are capable of shouldering the great responsibility of national rejuvenation through ideological and political education.