A Study On The Factors Influencing The Decision Of High School Students To Choose Subjects Based On Bounded Rationality ——A Case Study Of High School Graduates Of Zhejiang Province

Since 2014,the new round of the National College Entrance Exam(NCEE)reforms has been implemented across the country.As one of the first pioneer provinces of the NCEE reforms,the most significant change in Zhejiang Province is the selection of subjects and changes in the college admission system other than the changes in the examination time,the number of examinations,and test questions.There are a total of35 combinations of subject choices available to students under the seven-selection model,and in addition to their own preferences,the implementation of the assignment system and the requirements of college admissions are the factors to be considered when choosing subjects.This study investigates graduated students to explore whether students are satisfied with their subject-selection decisions after considering multiple factors.After the reforms of the NCEE,the complexity of decisions that high school students choose subjects has increased dramatically,and the bounded rationality theory in behavioral decision-making fits better with the actual situation of high school students' subject-selection decision.This paper integrates the correlation between the bounded rationality theory and the subject selection decisions of high school students,summarizing the main factors that affect subject-selection decisions of high school students based on the prior works from domestic and foreign scholars on the application of bounded rationality in educational decision-making.Based on the satisfaction principle in bounded rationality,the quantitative representation of the feedback on the results of high school students' subject-selection decisions using the satisfaction on college major and subject-major matching.Furthermore,the empirical analysis of data collected through questionnaires indicates an indirect correlation between the level of influence of each factor in high school students' subject selection and the subject-major matching and the satisfaction on college majors.Therefore,we analyze the main factors affecting the satisfaction of subject selection decisions.The results show that,under the bounded rationality theory,the limited cognitive resources that high school students access to improve their own grades or the game problem caused by the assignment system do not have a significant effect on college major satisfaction when making subject-selection decisions,while devoting cognitive resources to the awareness of their self-preference and the information obtained from the environment they live in is conducive to increasing their satisfaction on majors when entering college.Consequently,in the future,teachers and parents should give more consideration to the preferences of students and suggestions from others within the limits of their own information processing ability when guiding high school students in their subject-selection decisions.Moreover,high school students themselves should also consider the preferences and the suggestions for their course selection,in order to achieve satisfying goals in their future life and career pathway.