Promoting Learning Engagement of Vulnerable College Students through Institutional Improvement: The Role of College Student Surveys

• In Event: Educational Improvement: Fundamentals, Comparative Perspectives, and International Cases

Proposal

Promoting inclusion through learning engagement of disadvantaged college students is an important mission of universities. Driven by the global student learning survey movement, Chinese higher education institutions have actively adopted large-scale student learning surveys since the beginning of this century to look for evidence on how college students learn. Based on this, institutional decisions can be better made for improving the learning of vulnerable groups, such as first generation college students, ethnic minority college students, and rural background college students. Chinese higher education institutions used to have long relied on experiences rather than evidence-based investigation. Student survey is undoubtedly innovative in breaking through the old inertia of reform. However, the problem arises from the lack of a scientific and effective mechanism for the multifunctional applications of large-scale student surveys and the uses of survey data to improve the decision-making process. It has greatly impeded the efficiency of universities in fully utilizing student surveys. This study focuses on the following two questions: 1) How can universities scientifically and accurately convert survey data of college students into effective decision-making for vulnerable student groups? 2) What impacts may college students' participation in decision-making on college improvement have on their own learning and growth?

Based on the theoretical framework of evidence-based decision-making in education and college students' learning engagement, this study employs a multi-case study approach with questionnaire survey. The study identifies multiple Chinese higher education institutions as cases to conduct interviews and research on decision-making departments, teachers, disadvantaged students, etc., exploring the experience and problems of universities using college student surveys to make decision. The survey data of about 15,000 students from 11 "first-class discipline construction universities" in Chinese Mainland are also empirically analyzed by using the 2021 "Chinese College Students Survey (CCSS)" project to explore the participation of vulnerable group students in college decision-making and its impact on their own learning investment and growth.

The basic conclusions of the study include the following aspects. The survey of college students plays a key role in assisting college improvement to enhance the learning engagement of disadvantaged college students in three aspects: 1) the research function; 2) Auxiliary decision-making function; 3) Policy effect feedback function. The education and teaching improvement at the institutional level is a key way to promote the learning and development of disadvantaged college students. Compared to ordinary college students, the improvements formulated by universities have a more significant impact on the disadvantaged group of college students, and they also need more policy support from universities to change their disadvantages.

Authors

• Jinghuan Shi, Tsinghua University

• Yuheng Huang, Capital Normal Universit