The Burden Of Out-of-School Training From Students’ Perspective

The issue of "reducing the academic burden of primary and secondary school students" has frequently appeared in national education policies and media reports,and it has gradually spread from an educational topic to a thorny issue of social concern.In order to combat the education chaos of "reducing the burden in school and increasing the burden outside school",the state has mainly adopted a "double reduction" policy,focusing on subject-based out-of-school training in an attempt to reduce the excessive burden of out-of-school training on students.However,news reports of parents "crowdfunding private tutors" and "home economics services" are frequently appearing,and why do students and parents still turn to the out-of-school training market when they know that "out-of-school training increases the burden on students" ? Why do students and parents still turn to the out-of-school training market when they know that "out-of-school training increases the burden on students" ? The "burden of out-of-school training",a "native concept" with Chinese educational characteristics,needs to be theoretically analyzed and practically explored by scholars.This study aims to explore students’ real perceptions of the burden of out-of-school training by focusing on students,the direct bearers of the burden of out-of-school training,and to deepen the meaning of the burden of out-of-school training by referring to the top-down analytical framework built from studies on academic burden and outof-school training,and by conducting a preliminary qualitative exploration of the academic burden in the field of out-of-school training from the bottom-up.This paper uses the term "students’ out-of-school training burden" to describe the "burden of training".With the theme of "students’ burden of out-of-school training",this paper aims to answer the following two research questions: First,how do primary and secondary school students perceive the "burden of out-of-school training" ? What are the characteristics of this perception? Second,why do primary and secondary school students have such perceptions? What are the processes and influencing factors?Specific questions include: How do primary and secondary school students understand the meaning of objective load in relation to the burden of out-of-school training,e.g.,what does the duration of training,the amount of homework,and the number of examinations mean for students’ out-of-school training? How do they understand the definition of the burden of out-of-school training in relation to established policies?What do students perceive as potentially threatening/challenging factors in out-ofschool training contexts? To what extent do they think they can address these factors?What resources are provided externally to help them address them? What factors influenced their cognitive assessment? To this end,this study followed a qualitative research sampling path by selecting primary and secondary school students involved in subject-based tutoring in Shanghai as participants to conduct interviews,supplemented by information from the students’ parents and their training teachers to supplement the data from the student interviews.For the analysis of the data,a three-level coding and flipped thinking approach was used to categorize and extract those classes that best answered the research questions in a continuous comparison.The results of the study show that,first,unlike several domestic studies that define objective indicators such as training time and amount of homework for students’ burden of out-of-school training,students hold a more complex view;in short,the length of training time is not necessarily a factor that constitutes students’ perception of the burden of out-of-school training,but rather students value the types of matters and their characteristics represented by the training time series;students set the criterion of reasonableness of homework difficulty as Students set the standard of reasonableness of assignments as their cognitive domain,beyond which the burden may be triggered;students compare themselves with others in a more secretive way,and negative outcomes tend to bring about the burden of out-of-school training.Second,from the perspective of the stress interaction model,students’ perceptions of the burden of outof-school training are generated in the process of interaction between the individual and the out-of-school training situation.Both the individual student and the factors in the learning environment affect the assessment results,such as the student’s learning quality,parenting style,and teacher-student interaction.Based on this,this study points out that the actual amount of workload of primary and secondary school students,such as the amount of time spent on training,is not the same as the amount of burden students perceive as a result of training,and that students’ perception of the burden of training is essentially a process of interpreting and evaluating the training situation and the issues involved.Accordingly,this study suggests that education should lead students to focus on the intrinsic value of learning and provide them with adequate external support during the learning process in order to reduce their sense of burden.