BNU-PS-06-Liang-Sun-Zhang

Title:
The Role of Teachers’ Teaching Enthusiasm in Explaining Urban-rural Gap in Students’ Academic Achievement: An Empirical Study Based on PISA 2018 Database in China

Presenters:
Associate Professor Wenyan Liang, Miss Ran Sun and Dr. Yaxing Zhang, Beijing Normal University
Email: zhangyaxing@bnu.edu.cn

Abstract:
Using data drawn from the PISA 2018 survey in four provinces in China (Beijing-Jiangsu-Shanghai-Zhejiang, SZJB), this paper explores the urban–rural gap in students’ academic achievement from the perspective of teachers’ teaching enthusiasm. The main findings are as follows: 1) The OLS regression results show that, on the average level, teachers’ teaching enthusiasm can significantly improve rural students’ academic achievement; the result of Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition shows that the urban-rural gap in the absolute level of teachers’ teaching enthusiasm and the urban-rural gap in the improving effect of teachers’ teaching enthusiasm on students’ academic achievement do result in the urban-rural gap in students’ academic achievement. Especially, teachers’ teaching enthusiasm explains the urban-rural gap in students’ achievement noticeably larger than other factors on teachers such as their educational background. 2) The unconditional quantile regression results show that, among quantiles of students’ score distribution, the improving effect of teachers’ teaching enthusiasm on rural students’ academic achievement is mainly reflected in students of medium scores and above. And the rural students with the highest scores can especially benefit from greater enthusiasm of teachers. The result of quantile Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition also discloses that the effect of higher teaching enthusiasm of rural teachers on smaller urban-rural gap in students’ academic achievement is mostly embodied in students of medium scores and above. The regressions and the decomposition analysis indicate that, in order to raise the rural students’ academic achievement and narrow the urban-rural educational gap, it’s imperative to pay close attention to improving the teaching enthusiasm of rural teachers; meanwhile, it’s important to guide teachers to take targeted teaching strategies, so as to better satisfy the needs of students at different academic levels.

Keywords:
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