A randomized controlled trial of the effect of high school subject selection guidance on academic performance in China

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Comparative Education and Teaching

Proposal

China began to implement reform on the college entrance examination in 2014. Before this, Chinese high school students needed to learn Chinese, mathematics, foreign languages, and comprehensive liberal arts or science. Generally, Chinese high school students only have to face two choices. Since the reform, the provinces have replaced the arts and sciences sub-system by implementing "3 from 7", "3 from 6", or "3+1+2". Among them, Zhejiang implements "3 out of 7", which means you can choose three of the seven subjects of physics, chemistry, biology, politics, history, geography, and technology to become the elective subjects for the college entrance examination, with a total of 35 combinations. Shanghai and other provinces and cities have implemented "3 out of 6", meaning you can choose 3 out of the six disciplines with 20 combinations. Eight provinces, including Hebei, implement "3+1+2", choosing one subject in history and physics and two in politics, geography, chemistry, and biology, with 12 combinations. This reform has increased students' right to choose, increased the choice space, and advanced the time of choice, creating opportunities for high school students to develop individualized development. However, it has also made high school students who could not initially choose education and choice even more confused and confused, and the new college entrance examination school, teachers, and students are still insufficient to deal with the choice of subjects.
High school career education came into being, in which the guidance of high school subject selection is one of the core contents. Senior high school is an important stage for the formation of students' world outlook, outlook on life and values, and it is also a critical period for students to choose the direction of future life development. The implementation of career education helps students understand themselves, cultivate their awareness and ability of independent choice and development, and help students establish correct ideals and beliefs. In the era of college entrance examination reform, high school career education helps enhance students' learning motivation and learning management ability. As a necessary way to choose majors, career education has great guiding value for students' subject selection and major selection under the college entrance examination reform [1]. Vulnerable groups have evolved into vulnerable information groups in the information society, and it is difficult for them to express, obtain, and possess the information they need to change the status quo of their existence and life. If things go on like this, it will exacerbate information inequality and lead to an ever-increasing social information gap. deep[2]. Furthermore, scientific career education is of great significance to disadvantaged groups. Therefore, this study uses a randomized intervention trial to quantitatively evaluate the impact of a high school career education on students' academic performance.
From the perspective of the development status of career education, there are significant differences in the development of career education in different regions, which are mainly reflected in the government's emphasis, policy support, school career philosophy, professional teachers, hardware facilities, curriculum development and design, and the quantity and quality of class hours. The governments of developed regions have issued several policy documents, and schools have also conducted compelling preliminary explorations. They have a more comprehensive understanding of career education and a relatively rich resource platform. Some effective career education school-based courses and experience activities have been formed. Long-term development of life has played a positive role in promoting. Governments, schools and parents in other educationally underdeveloped regions have a relatively narrow understanding of career education, which is constrained by the level of economic development and lags in curriculum construction, teacher quality, and resource platforms.
Schools in the eastern educationally developed areas started career education earlier, and after the reform of the new college entrance examination, more emphasis was placed on the implementation of career education. Most schools regularly carry out career courses in senior high school's first and second grades. There are no fixed courses in the third grade of senior high school, but they offer targeted career planning lectures. The frequency of career education activities is once a week for the first year of senior high school, about once to three times a semester for the second year of senior high school, and the guidance for the third year of senior high school is concentrated on pre-exam guidance, and a relatively complete career education system has been formed.
In less-developed areas, career education is generally carried out late, and most of them take the new college entrance examination as an opportunity to advance slowly and have insufficient practice. Schools in the Northeast are still in the planning stage, and most of them have not carried out career education. In other areas, the frequency of career education activities for the first graders in other areas ranges from once every two weeks to three times a semester. Former collective guidance. On the whole, career education lacks systematic cohesion.
Since the theme of this study is the impact of a high school career education on students' academic performance, we want to focus on the overall effect and whether the subject selection guidance provided to students can help improve students' academic performance. Are there significant differences in the impact of the two different guidance methods of subject lectures and subject lectures + subject selection tests on students' academic performance?
In addition to analyzing the effect of the experimental intervention on the entire sample of students, we will further analyze whether there is heterogeneity in the effect of the intervention on students with different characteristics. Specifically, at the student level, is there any difference in the impact of subject selection guidance on the academic performance of students with different genders and academic foundations? Whether there are differences in the effects of subject selection guidance; at the county level, whether there are differences in the effects of subject selection guidance for counties with different levels of economic development, educational investment and educational quality.

Author

• Xiaowei Hao, Graduate School of Education, Peking University