An Empirical Study Of College Students' Classroom Silence

Since the enlarged enrollment of higher education,educational researchers pay more and more attention to the quality of college students' learning,especially the development of critical thinking.The development of critical thinking cannot do without effective teaching,however,subject to persons qualified to teach and other reasons,teaching in large classes is still the mainstream,with limited interaction between teachers and students,lacking of classroom discussions,and dull classroom,on the other hand,by respecting authority,taking care of face,being cautious and cautious,doing better than words,and other traditional culture,students are generally silent.How can students develop critical thinking in such a realistic situation?How should we look at the silence of the students?In order to explore the connotation and causal chain of classroom silence with traditional cultural characteristics,this study takes Nanjing University as an example to establish and test the relationship between the classroom silence and the related factors through the analysis of the silence of 353 undergraduates in class,and it would help teachers and universities' managers further understanding the causes of the students' silence,and correctly understand the relationship between the silence and the learning results,so as to provide the basis and suggestions for the policy formulation of the teaching reform and so on.By analyzing the data with SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 21.0 software and integrating with related research,this study gets five conclusions.First,undergraduates' classroom silence is relatively optimistic,with a mean score of 3.26 points(total score 6 points),which is at a moderate level.Its connotation includes four dimensions:cautiousness of speaking and acting,habit propensity,altruistic propensity and self-protection propensity.Among them,the scores of cautiousness of speaking and acting and habit propensity were higher,and the scores of others were lower.Cautiousness of speaking and acting and habit propensity were the important psychological tendencies leading to students' silence.Second,students with different background characteristics have little differences in classroom silence,classroom environment perception,individual characteristics' learning methods and critical thinking,and there were only having some differences in gender and specialty.There is no significant difference in variables among grades,but there are significant differences in teachers'encouragement.Third,classroom environment and individual characteristics affect students' classroom silence behavior.Among them,"big class","classroom depression" and "individual anxiety" are important factors that affect students'classroom silence behavior.Fourth,students' classroom silence does not directly affect their performance,but it can indirectly affect their academic performance through deep learning.Students' classroom silence has a direct effect on students' critical thinking,while deep learning,as an important intermediary,will deepen the influence of classroom silence on critical thinking.Fifh,cautiousness of speaking and acting and habit propensity oriented classroom silence has the function of "compensation"on the learning outcomes.It is shown that although the big class and the dull class do not have direct effect on critical thinking,the indirect effects can be produced through cautiousness of speaking and acting,habit propensity and deep learning.Although the limited individual ability has a direct negative effect on critical thinking and deep learning,the negative effect can be partly compensated by careful practice and habit.From the above conclusions,this study gives the following suggestions.First,reexamine students' silence in class.For Chinese students,the classroom silence itself not only contains the students' humility,the harmonious psychology,respect for others,the consideration of others,and the principles of doing things better than the words,but also contains the defensive mentality of self pros and cons and habit propensity.It's not wise to consider it as dangerous or beneficial.Second,concerning the positive effect of cautiousness of speaking and acting.Cautiousness of speaking and acting is the important part of silence.The dominant position of "cautious and careful" in the silent,as well as its positive effects on deep learning and critical thinking,show that the Chinese students' classroom silence is not completely passive.It has a positive and reasonable composition,there were implicit learning behind of them,With students'explicit learning participation,we can jointly promote students' development.It is important to note that although this study found that silence has positive effect on critical thinking,but this does not mean that the author want to advocate and encourage students to silence.The author want to express that students have their unique learning to adapt to the big class.Silence is not gaining nothing.The effects on critical thinking suspected exaggerated,but at least the silence will not bring adverse effect to the students' critical thinking.Third,speeding up classroom teaching.Fully understanding the students' learning characteristics,creating a comfortable and good classroom atmosphere,stimulating the enthusiasm of students to participate,and letting the students open their hearts would achieving effective interaction and promoting the growth of students.