Study On Academic Achievement’s Influential Factors During Compulsory Education Stage

Academic achievement and its influential factors have received widespreadcommunity concerns as theoretical and practical issues. Under the current educationsystem, academic achievement is still an important indicator to measure students’learning, a main criteria for students’ further studies, and the key impact on the qualityof school education. Thus, discussion of factors that can lead to differences ofacademic achievement has its practical significance.Based on Advice from The Ministry of Education on Promoting ComprehensiveEvaluation of the Quality of Primary and Secondary Schools’Education Reform andGuidance on Projects of Improving the Quality of Elementary Education inChangchun, this study chose14851students from5thgrade of73elementary schoolsand18834students from8thgrade of39middle schools. This study adopted Chinese,maths, and English as test courses, supplemented with questionnaires on students’background, systemically analyzed family, school, and individual factors’ impactmechanism on academic achievement. Also, it showed fundamental relationshipsbetween various factors that can impact on academic achievement. Further itexamined other main factors that could lead to differences on academic achievementof students in various ages and levels. Here are the findings:(1) During the whole compulsory education level, students’ expectations havegreat explanatory power on their academic achievement, thus students with higherexpectations have better academic achievement;(2) Motivation has different impact due to development of age and differences inacademic environments. To be specific, during elementary stage, students withinternal motivation and master motivation have better academic achievement; whereas in middle schools, students with identity motivation and achievement motivationhave better academic achievement;(3) During the whole compulsory education level, as an influential factor of academic achievement, family factors change from process factors to structuralfactors. To be specific, parents expectations and parenting styles in elementaryschools are replaced by parents’ educational background and family economic status;(4) For school factors during the whole compulsory education level, differentnew teaching methods that are adopted by teachers can have various impact onstudents’ academic achievement. To be specific, students with inquiry-based learningstyle have better academic achievement, whereas students from autonomous learningstyle is no different from those of traditional lecture learning style.