Compilation And Preliminary Trial Of Learning Quality Evaluation Tools For Senior Classes

The quality of learning is an important quality in humans’ learning process and good quality of learning plays a crucial role in childhood, adolescence, even in people’s whole life. Under today’s circumstance where lifelong learning is advocated, good quality of learning plays an indispensable role. By conducting a research towards previous literature, it can be seen that the current research on children’s quality of learning is still in early stages. Most of which are about studying its concept, discussing its structure as well as building theoretical models. However, the relevant empirical studies and indigenous research are comparatively deficient. Especially in terms of the utilization of research tools, foreign tools account for a major proportion while lacking indigenous testing and evaluation tools that aim at specific groups. As such, the objectives of this thesis are to combine relevant theories with existing research outcomes, work out testing and evaluation tools that are suitable for local senior kindergarten. Furthermore, from both the parents’ and researchers’ perspective, this thesis also aim to conduct a comprehensive assessment towards senior kindergarteners’ quality of learning by combining testing and evaluation tools which are to be worked out with existing exam tools. Based on the assessment, the basic condition of the development of senior kindergarteners’ quality of learning can be discussed as well as whether gender and kindergarten make a difference to the quality of learning. To examine whether the learning quality of children vary with sex, educational level of parents. To analyze the relationship between the learning quality of children and cognitive abilities among children. Hopefully, this thesis will do its small part to relevant studies on children’s quality of learning.The quality of learning in this thesis refers to the quality of learning under school readiness, the concept of which comes from NEGP, so this thesis adopts the definition of the quality of learning proposed by NEGP. The quality of learning refers to tendency, attitude, habit, manner and others which indicate that children themselves engage in learning in various ways. This thesis divides senior kindergarteners’ quality of learning into cognitive factors and non-cognitive factors. Tools used in this research include assessment tools of learning quality of children and assessment tools of children’s cognitive abilities.For evaluation towards cognitive factors, relevant examinations recomposed from Early Mathematics Diagnostic Kit (EMDK) are used; for non-cognitive factors, the evaluation contains two tools:Measurement Scale for the Quality of Learning complied by experts from Study and Development Guide for 3-6-year old Children and self-compiled Parents’Evaluation Scale for Children’s Quality of Learning.After research tools have been confirmed, this thesis chose senior kindergarteners and their parents from two kindergartens in Xi’an as research objects. While parents are filling in the Parents’Evaluation Scale for Children’s Quality of Learning, the researcher runs individual tests among corresponding children, evaluating both cognitive factors and non-cognitive ones. According to the statistics gathered from the tests, the researcher amends and examines self-compiled tools so as to ensure that tools are scientific. Finally, analyzing the overall conditions and features of senior kindergarteners’ quality of learning through synthesizing all data. It can be found through the research that:(1)The Parents’ Evaluation Scale for Children’s Quality of Learning compiled in this research is of high credibility and validity, and it can demonstrate most contents of the quality of learning in general. This scale includes 41 items in total and it covers five dimensions, namely curiosity and interest, initiative, persistence and concentration, introspection and explanation, imagination and creation.(2) The development of senior kindergarteners’ quality of learning is between fine and excellent in general. There are obvious differences between five dimensions and their ranking from high to low is:curiosity and interest, persistence and concentration, initiative, introspection and explanation, imagination and creation.(3) Among senior kindergarteners, there is no obvious difference between male and female regarding the development of the quality of learning. It is the difference between male and female’s personality that gives rise to the diversity with regard to the performance in persistence and concentration.(4) As to development of children learning quality, there was no significant difference in the parents’level of education. But there are differences on this dimension of the initiation, the higher the educational level of parents, the stronger motivation children may be to have.(5) The development of children learning quality is affected by economic level of family. Children from high economic level of family have better performance than that from low economic level of family in curiosity and interest, stick and focus, reflection and interpretation, imagination and creation.(6) The development of cognitive abilities and children learning quality are significantly correlated. Typically, children with strong curiosity, learning initiation, concentration on learning, high ability of reflection and interpretation are better in the development of cognitive abilities.