Bridging or widening？The impact of family socioeconomic status on college students' online learning

• In Event: Higher Education and Institutional Improvement Initiatives

Proposal

With the large-scale application of online education in the field of higher education, the effect of college students' online learning and the factors influencing it has become the focus of attention of many disciplines such as pedagogy and sociology. Currently, the relevant literature focuses on the assessment of online learning effectiveness of college students and how to improve the efficiency of online learning at the level of educational technology, and less in-depth research on the influence of family socioeconomic status (SES) on college students' online learning. Using data from the 2022 China College Student Survey (CCSS), this study attempts to reveal the impact of family socioeconomic status on online learning of Chinese college students, including learning behaviors and learning effects, as well as the possible causes behind them and tries to answer the question of whether the large-scale application of online education can bridge the digital divide between college students of different family socioeconomic statuses to a certain extent from the perspective of educational equity. The study also attempts to answer the question of whether the large-scale application of online education can to some extent bridge the digital divide that exists between different groups of college students with different family socioeconomic status from an educational equity perspective.

This study is guided by George D. Kuh's (2001) comprehensive research framework of "learning engagement" theory and "constructivist learning" (Jean Piaget, 1977, Lev Vygotsky, 1997). The framework is guided by the existing literature in the field of online learning (e.g., Anderson, 2011; Dabbagh, 2012, Hofer, 2021, etc.) and is based on data from a national survey conducted in 2022. The theoretical framework emphasizes that students' constructive autonomy, information processing skills, and socio-cultural communication and interaction all play an important role in the online learning process. Based on this theoretical foundation, this study focuses on the influence of students' SES on online learning behaviors and outcomes, and the differences in learning strategies, technological skills, and community integration between students from higher and lower socioeconomic status families.

The sample used in this study included 30 universities and colleges nationwide, including 14 "double-tier" universities, 15 other universities, and one higher vocational school. Stratified random sampling was used to select participants from each institution. The final valid sample consisted of 103,101 students, of which 85.93% were students who had taken an online course during the current academic year. Of the 88,729 samples, 12.43% were in the humanities; 27.63% were in social studies, 10.99% were in the sciences, and 48.95% were in the arts.

Based on multiple regression analysis, we found that SES had a positive and significant effect on the outcome and process of college students' online learning after controlling for influencing factors at the individual and institutional levels. In terms of outcome, the higher the SES the higher the students' satisfaction with the online course experience and learning gains. In terms of process, SES was significantly and positively associated with students' self-directed online learning strategies and information processing-related technological skills and was able to significantly contribute to students' community integration in online learning.

Further exploration revealed that the different effects of family socioeconomic status on the outcomes and processes of college students' online learning can be explained by the effects of family economic level and social capital on the three aspects of autonomous strategies, technological competence, and community integration in the online learning process. The results of group regression show that college students with higher socioeconomic status are more adept at formulating online learning strategies and plans, such as integrating online and offline learning resources and developing online learning plans; students with higher SES have significantly higher information retrieval and are able to use online education tools more skillfully; students with higher SES have significantly higher abilities to engage in continuous dialogue and reflection in online learning communities and to deepen their integration.

Based on the above findings, this study argues that more attention should be paid to family background differences in students' online learning process at the higher education level, and more targeted guidance should be provided to disadvantaged college students. More strategies are needed to enhance the online learning ability and matching information literacy of students from lower socioeconomic families, to further bridge the digital divide and give full play to the role of online education in promoting educational equity.

Authors

• qiran chen, Tsinghua University

• Tianle Shi, Institute of Education, Tsinghua University