Training and developing programs for middle administrative managers at Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City: An evaluation using the Kirkpatrick model

Ngan Thi Kim Nguyen — 2025-12-19

In the context of university autonomy and increasingly intense competition, middle administrative managers play a pivotal role in advising, supporting leadership, and administering the operations of higher education institutions. Training and developing have therefore become a key strategy to enhance their capacity. This study evaluates the effectiveness of training and developing programs for middle administrative managers at seven member universities of Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City, employing Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Model. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining a survey of 168 middle administrative managers with in-depth interviews with leaders, lecturers, and staff members. The findings indicate that the training and development programs generally yielded positive outcomes across all four levels: reaction, learning, behavior, and results with mean scores of 4/5 or higher. However, several limitations were identified: the programs remain generic, lacking tailored design to meet the specific tasks of middle administrative managers, while staff in charge of training and developing have limited capacity for advising and designing appropriate programs. Based on these findings, the article proposes solutions to improve the training and developing quality for middle administrative managers, including the development of a competency framework, specialized training modules, a professional unit for career development, and the establishment of periodic evaluation mechanisms. This study contributes empirical evidence to the field of higher education management in Vietnam and provides useful policy recommendations for universities in the current governance reform context.

Some comparisons on goddess worship in Vietnamese - Korean folk culture

Thoa Thi Bui — 2025-12-19

In the spiritual life of Asian agricultural residents, especially residents of monsoon Asian ethnic groups who grow wet rice (including the Vietnamese and Koreans), worshiping goddesses is a quite common phenomenon and has existed for a long time. Over thousands of years of history forming and developing the cultures of the two ethnic groups, Vietnam and Korea, the custom of worshiping goddesses (of natural or human origin - they can be historical figures or historical myths) has become one of the typical cultural features. Along with many other types of folk beliefs, goddess worship has been playing a certain role in the spiritual life of Vietnamese and Korean residents, contributing to molding the traditional cultural values of each country, while creating common denominators in the cultures of the two nations. Through the issue of comparative research on a number of aspects such as origin, role, function, number of goddesses along with offerings, worship rituals, objects of worship practice, etc., as well as a few other characteristics of this type of worship between the two peoples, this article will point out some similarities and differences in goddess worship among Vietnamese and Koreans. Besides, the research results also initially explain the causes of those similarities and differences.

VNUHCM Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

Training and developing programs for middle administrative managers at Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City: An evaluation using the Kirkpatrick model

Some comparisons on goddess worship in Vietnamese - Korean folk culture