Exploring students' systems thinking (ST) is essential in enhancing science learning, but existing studies have failed to understand students' ST fully as it relates to ecological issues. This study aimed to fill the aforementioned literature gap by exploring lower-secondary school students' ST regarding ecological issues. The Systems Thinking…

The Chinese education system is characterized as highly meritocratic and examination-oriented. Scores in high-stakes public standardized examinations mainly determine upward educational transitions. Private tutoring classes (PTCs) are a typical measure to boost students' academic achievement. Mental health is also assumed to affect one's behaviors…

With the widening urban-rural gap caused by urbanisation, the equity of urban-rural education has become a research hotspot. This study explored the differences in motivational beliefs about English learning among Chinese urban and rural students and the impact of motivational beliefs on their English performance. A total of 6326 urban and 2600…

There is an increasing interest of policies and projects to adapt boarding schools as a means to provide quality education for educationally disadvantaged students. However, little evidence is available for the effectiveness of boarding schools. The current study examined the boarding effect on primary and middle school student mathematics…

Extensive research has suggested that there is a large rural-urban student achievement gap in China. However, less is known about the effects of family background and parental expectations on student achievement. Using a large representative sample of Chinese eighth graders, this study examines these relationships. We find that: (1) Rather than a…

This study used large-scale regional monitoring data of eighth-grade mathematics students at the compulsory education stage from various areas of mainland China. It extracted a total of 156,661 students and 4,676 junior high school mathematics teachers from 146 districts and counties located in six regions (provinces or cities). The study analysed…

This study investigated 42,643 eighth grade students from 762 secondary schools in 104 districts and counties in the Z province of mainland China and also test the mediating role of self-efficacy in teacher-student relationship prediction of academic achievement. The results show that there are certain gender differences and regional differences…

Online education for higher education has been well-researched. However, the same cannot be said for primary and secondary school education. Using data from two large-scale exams of representative Chinese primary and secondary schools pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic, this study analyzed the difference in students' performance pre-pandemic, which…