Research On The Regularity Of Undergraduate Learning Process In Research Type University In China

Quality is the lifeline of higher education. For the quality assurance, selecting competent student is important, and management of process of teaching and learning through the whole university study period is crucial. So, the dissertation focuses on two important aspects of higher education: university enrollment system and undergraduate learning process. And there are some issues to be discussed: the predictive validity of University Entrance Examination, the advantage and disadvantage of the Recommended Admission System, the regularity in the undergraduate learning process, and the variances of achievement between the town and the country undergraduates, or between the male and female undergraduates. The core issue is the regularity in the undergraduate learning process.In view of the issues mentioned above, the dissertation takes one of the research type universities in China, Xiamen University as a case in point, and the study deals with the four-year system undergraduates from Grade 1996 to Grade 2004. The theoretical significance of the research is: (1) to enrich the theory of teaching & learning rules of higher education, and theory of Learning Science, (2) to enrich the theory of the University Entrance Examination in China, (3) to make an evaluation of the Recommended Admission System and to rethink about it. The research could also offer some suggestions for the reform of Chinese university enrollment system, and be helpful to the process management and quality assurance of undergraduate education in the research type university.The dissertation makes an analysis of the data with certain theory of education statistics. Thus in data analysis, it pays more attention to the educational particularity. There are some innovations in the research: 1^st, it's a new way to find the regularity in the learning process of undergraduates by quantitative research. 2^nd, the research on the predictive validity of University Entrance Examination in China is more systemic than the former researches. 3^rd, the research on variances of achievement between the town and country undergraduates is deserved because of few former researches.There are some main conclusions from the data analysis. 1^st, the University Entrance Examination and Recommended Admission System of China have some positive effects on selecting competent students for professional learning, but their predictive validities are not so satisfying. The predictive validity of UniversityEntrance Examination differs among disciplines, and it shows the inherent contradiction between the unified entrance examination and the multifarious specialties. 2nd, the learning process of undergraduates is similar to chain reaction. Take the achievements from the entrance examination to the Forth academic year as a learning process. The correlativity between consecutive phases is higher than between the non-consecutive phases, and the influence of academic year reduces from the first to the forth except the discipline of management. The first academic year is very important for the university learning. 3rd, there are no distinctive achievement variances between the town and the country undergraduates, but in the specialized course learning, the town undergraduates show more adaptability, especially in the forth academic year. Also the town undergraduates are more polarized than the country undergraduates. The female undergraduates get higher achievements than the male undergraduates, and the conclusion is confirmed in any academic year and any discipline. Also the male undergraduates are more polarized than the female.