An Exploratory Study of Chinese Students' Learning Processes as Related to Achievement in Math: From Learning Aspects of Preference, Tendency, and Decision-Makin

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among student learning preference, learning tendency, decision-making of learning and student math achievement in Shanghai, China. By using principal axis factoring (PAF) analysis and principal component analysis (PCA), regression scores for the three factors were created and then linear regressions were computed to analyze the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 data. The results suggest that learning preference, learning tendency, and decision-making are all significant in math achievement. Findings also indicate that economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS), school mean ESCS, and gender are significantly related to student math achievement, whereas school type is not significantly related to math performance.