Title of Project

Private Tutoring in Chinese Middle School

Research question

What's the relationship between the time spent on private tutoring and the change of middle school students' grades on Math exams in China?

Student researcher names

Yangxuan Chi

Qinhao Wang

Yangxuan Chi; Qinhao Wang; Shuaixin Qiu

Project proposal summary

The gap in educational resources in China is huge and there are many factors that increase the gap, but few research was about private tutoring. The aim of our research is to know the effect of private tutoring on Chinese Middle school students’ school exams. To control other variables, we decide to focus our research on Grade 9 students and their grades in Math exams. The research question is “What’s the relationship between the time spent on private tutoring and the change in their Math exams.” Our research chooses to do the survey on campus and then analyzes the survey results and tries to get a correlation lab. The questions in the survey are about the time spent on Math private tutoring and students’ grades change on Math exams. The advantage of our research is it does not require too much of a budget and is helpful in sustainable education. It can improve the Chinese education system and provide a better learning model for Chinese Middle school students.

Project Objective and Contribution to Scholarship

Shuaixin Qiu

Private tutoring is a common situation in China, while some families cannot afford the tuition fee. It can increase the gap between students as the grades on exams can decide who can go to high school and can receive a further high-quality education. The gap is private tutoring increases education resources gaps among students. Private tutoring expands the gap between students from different families. This is one of the reasons why our RQ is valuable and important. In China, private tutoring has different styles one-by-one or a whole class. Also, the frequency to take private tutoring will influence students’ performance at school. Furthermore, rich students and poor students will have different levels of education, getting private tutoring. Thus, the sustainable goal for quality education is also affected.

Connection of Research Proposal to Sustainability

Our research topic is about private tutoring, which is related to education. In other words, our research is connected to social sustainability. We found that in China, the educational level of tutoring received by different middle school students' families is uneven. Poor families can get less or no tutoring than rich families. This is inequality. Therefore, the first reason that our research is connected to sustainability is that quality education is in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Second, changing education quality can improve people’s lives and escape poverty. Also, private tutoring may undermine China’s education system, which influences the quality of education, thereby affecting sustainability.

Literature Review

China, as a country with a large population and limited learning resources, this situation leads only part of Chinese middle school students with good grades on the High School Entrance Exam to go to senior high school. Therefore, Chinese parents prefer to send their children to private tutor classes after school or at weekends to improve their children’s performance in school exams. However, private tutoring increases the gap in overall science literacy levels among students from different social backgrounds. Generally, students from advantaged families have more chances to receive a high-quality education, and private tutoring expands the gap between students from different families. Although many papers have talked about private tutoring in China as common, this paper will research to what extent private tutoring can help Chinese middle school students to improve their academic subject grades. In our research, private tutoring includes all classes that help students with academic achievement after school, and tutors get extra money from it. Private tutoring with art classes or free is not researched in this paper.

References

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059319301592?casa_token=Nrob 1ZuynZEAAAAA:cCEfIQ9iCr6ulce9iKwX5bzMKI8Yc3DDu_gfkJvyjkKKNn68_BPmMRmJPwL6JNbZLyzXwzyRXQ

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