An Empirical Study On Grade Difference Of Chinese College Students’ Course Experience And Approaches To Learning

Quality is the life of higher education, and it is measured by the quality of students’ learning and development. As the key elements of students’ learning process, course experience and approaches to learning have a fundamental impact on students’ learning quality. Therefore, research on college students’course experience and approaches to learning would be an effective perspective to help improve students’ learning quality. However, students’ course experience and approaches to learning are constantly varying during their four years’ university lives, which even implies some change rules. Researching on grade difference on students’ learning may help us understand such changing rules, and help us grasp the key points and key stages of improving students’learning quality.Based on the data of National College Students Survey, this study aims to analyze the grade difference on students’ course experience and approaches to learning, and discuss what influences different types of colleges and different disciplines would have on such grade difference. Following are the major conclusions of this study:Firstly, Chinese college students’ course experience is relatively good in general, and they more prefer to adopt deep approaches to learning. But both their course experience and approaches to learning need improvement.Secondly, there is a significant grade difference on students’course experience and their approaches to learning. Compared to sophomore and junior, freshmen and senior have a better course experience and their learning approaches are more desired.Thirdly, the types of colleges have an impact on the grade difference on students’ course experience and learning approaches. The characteristics of grade difference in different types of colleges are diverse. For students in ’985universities’, their course experience is poor than those in "211universities" and "ordinary universities", while their course experience and approaches to learning are getting better year by year. For students in ’211universities’ and ’ordinary universities’, their course experience and learning approaches are fluctuated that they both go bad after first year and then improved, students’ course experience and learning approaches in ’211universities’ improved earlier than that in ’ordinary universities’.Lastly, the discipline has an impact on the grade difference on students’ course experience and learning approaches. The characteristics of grade difference in different disciplines are diverse as well. In general, students’ course experience and learning approaches of the humanities and social sciences are better than that of the science and engineering. For students of the science and engineering, their course experience and learning approaches are constantly getting worse after the first year and improved after the junior year, just like the letter V. While for the students of the humanities and social sciences, their course experience and learning approaches are getting worse after the first year and improved after the junior year either, but keep in a relatively stable situation in sophomore and junior, just like the letter U.