A Study Of Student Development Based On The Student’s Learning Outcomes

The Massification of Chinese Higher Education, not only expends the scale of highereducation, but also brings the higher educational quality crisis. To solve the qualitycrisis, improving the condition of education and putting more educational resources ineducation is not enough. Unless the quality of student development has beeneffectively improved, this problem can be solved. Because student is the mostimportant part of the higher education, and the quality of the higher education shouldbe represented by the quality of student development. Then we should ask, how is thequality level of the student development? Indeed the measurement of the quality levelof the student development is hard, we should find a new way to measure thedevelopment of college students. However, the overall development of studentsduring the university level can be indirectly measured by the extent of the students’self-reported learning gains, that is, through the analysis of students’ knowledge,skills, values and other aspects of the "value added", we can see the quality level ofthe student development. In in order to evaluate university the impact of education onstudents, this will be a more viable solution.The primary research design is a longitudinal study, by tracking400universitystudents from a four-year university who enter university in the fall of2009. Based onthe data collected for4year, we can explore the trends of the student developmentand how the various factors affect college student development. Compared thecross-sectional study of one single year, longitudinal study conclusions are morecredible. Using SPSS19.0statistical software descriptive statistics, we can depicttrends and differences in student development trends among different groups. Andusing Hierarchical Linear Models, we can construct the linear and nonlinear model ofstudent development. Based on these models, we can see the trend of students’development. And by building a model of the impact of student development, we canfigure out the most important factor that affect students’ development.There are a few key conclusions. First of all, the characteristics of the universitystudents’ development is showing non-linear growth trend. Specifically, the trendbetween knowledge outcomes, ability outcomes and values outcomes are slightlydifferent. Knowledge outcomes, which is grow fast with a low cardinal number, has the same trend of ability outcomes. Values outcomes grow slowly with a high cardinalnumber. Secondly, through analysis of the students’development impact factor model,we can found students’ background characteristics, such as gender, discipline, familysocioeconomic status, has a little effect on university student development.Differences between students depends primarily on student learning investment andinvestment institutions. That is, the level of students development both rely on thesupport and academic challenges of the campus environment, but also depends on theperceptions and attitudes of students on the campus environment, and whether thestudents themselves are willing to put enough time and effort into effective learningactivities.In order to promote the level of students’ development, there are several steps shouldbe done by the universities. First of all, institutions should set reasonable academicchallenges for students and provide a supportive campus environment. Second, thereshould establish positive interaction between faculty and students, as well as betweenthe students themselves. Third, enrich educational experience is needed. To encouragestudents to participate into colorful activities in and out of the classroom effectively ismore important. Meanwhile, universities should pay more attention to students’self-concept outcomes, which is an important symbol of a real educated person.