Study on CET4 Marks in China s Graded English Teaching

Transcription

1 Study on CET4 Marks n Chna s Graded Englsh Teachng CHE We College of Foregn Studes, Shandong Insttute of Busness and Technology, P.R.Chna, Abstract: Ths paper deploys Logt model, and decomposes varables by usng O-B decomposton to analyze CET4 marks of graded teachng emprcally. The result shows graded teachng can help to enhance CET4 marks. The teachers frst school record and the graded students are studyng n, and genders of students are the sgnfcant varables that affect students CET4 marks. Keywords: Graded teachng, CET4, Logt model, O-B decomposton 1 Introducton Accordng to dfferent Englsh startng ponts of the unversty students, unversty Englsh teachng should consder the students of low Englsh startng ponts and provde development space for the other students wth comparatvely hgher Englsh ablty. Accordng to theoretcal researches, graded teachng embodes Krashen s +1 language Input Hypothess. Krashen put forward that only the deal language nput whch s a lttle hgher than language learners present profcency can enable the learners to acheve deal learnng effect: the dffcult nput may make learners feel dffdent and anxous, thus to lead to faled learnng; the too smple nput and especally the nput whch s approachng and even lower than learners present ablty may make learners unable to acheve new knowledge and sklls, and may make them feel dsgusted, ths makes the entre learnng process produce almost no effect. Consequently, Chna s general academes enforce unversty Englsh graded teachng. Ths ensures that students wth dfferent startng ponts make progress ndvdually. Ths paper, by usng statstcal analyss, s to study CET4 results emprcally of those graded and un-graded students n Shandong Insttute of Busness & Technology. Frstly, t s to use Logt regresson model to study the dfference choce of students achevements of passng the CET4 exam or not. Secondly, t s to study major factors that lead to dfferences of exam results by usng bnary choce O-B decomposton. It s to determne the major mpact varables from both the students and the teachers aspects, thus to provde scentfc foundaton for unversty Englsh graded teachng hereafter. 2 Data Selecton and Varable Descrpton 2.1 Data selecton Ths study collects and collates all students (they entered unversty n the year 2008, and they took the frst opportunty of CET4 exam n December, 2009) CET4 results, sexes, Englsh graded grades, and all the teachers nformaton n Shandong Insttute of Busness & Technology. By removng the absent canddates, a total of 3,979 vald samples are obtaned, ncludng the graded 3,834 students and those un-graded 145 ones. 2.2 Varable descrpton Table 1 shows the mean and standard devaton statstcs of the explaned varables and the explanatory varables. The varable s statstcal analyss results of mean and standard devaton are n Table

2 Varable Grade Sex Teacher Jbe Table 1 Varable s statstcal analyss descrpton Varable descrpton Students CET4 results, categorcal varable, dscrete values: =1, qualfed; =0, unqualfed Sex, categorcal varable, dscrete values: =1, female; =0, male Teacher s frst degree, categorcal varable, dscrete values: =1, Master s Degree; =0, Bachelor s Degree Grades of the graded students, categorcal varable, dscrete values: B3=0, B2=1, B1=2, A3=3, A2=4, A1=5 All the samples (n=3 834) Standard Mean Devaton The varable descrpton statstcal analyss results show that the explaned varable s students CET4 results, namely, the mean of Grade s Ths shows the overall CET4 results tend to be qualfed. Explanatory varables nclude sex Sex, teachers frst degree Teacher, and students Grades Jbe. Students grade mean s , ths shows t s at a medum level, and t trends towards B1 grade. 3 Econometrc Models and Methods 3.1 Bnary choce Logt regresson In ths study, the explaned varablegrade, a bnary response varable, shows whether the CET4 results are qualfes or unqualfed. Its mean s just a rato, representng the qualfed opportunty rate. Consequently, n order to clear dfferences on CET4 results of unversty Englsh graded teachng, the nfluencng factors have to be pcked up. In order to get the nfluencng factors, Logt regresson model has to be establshed. 1 p E( Grade) F( X ) 1 e X ( 1 ) In ths pattern (1), p s ndvdual s acceptance probablty of passng the exam. E() stands for mathematcal expectaton. F( z) 1 (1 e z ) s Logstc dstrbuton of cumulatve dstrbuton functon. X s the explanatory varable vector made up of personal characterstcs (gender, level), and teacher characterstcs (frst degree).β s the correspondng coeffcent estmates. To rearrange pattern 1 slghtly, we can get: p ln X 1- p ( 2 ) p In model (2), 1- p s wth defnte economc mplcaton, and that s named opportunty rato. From model (2), we can see that regresson coeffcent for the natural logarthm of the rato of opportunty wll have a lnear effect. 3.2 Bnary choce Logt regresson In order to further probe nto factors resultng n CET4 results dfferences of graded teachng, decomposton approach has to be employed. Oaxaca (1973) & Blnder (1973) put forward classc O-B decomposton approach, whch portrats dfferences of sample characters or nfluences on explaned varable s average level from coeffcent dfference n detals. But f the explaned varable s Bnary 261

3 response varable, the classc O-B decomposton wll not be effectve. Farle (2005) rased bnary choce O-B decomposton approach on the bass of Logt regresson model. Ths helps remove lmtatons that the classc O-B decomposton cannot be appled to explan the bnary response varable. Accordng to ths, students opportunty rato of qualfed CET4 results dfferences can be classfed nto two parts: explanatory part and unexplanable part. The former s also named characterstc effect, t s majorly caused by dfferences of students ndvdual characters and teachers characters; whle the latter s also named coeffcent effect, t s manly caused by regresson coeffcent and cannot be explaned by dfferences on students characters. Ths paper, by makng use of Farle s (2005) bnary choce O-B decomposton approach, s to decompose dfferences on students CET4 results. The specfc steps are lsted as follows: Frstly, to establsh Logt regresson model by makng use of pattern (1), and to get regresson coeffcent vector ˆβ. Secondly, to calculate the total effect by ˆβ, the pattern s lsted as follows: F Xβ ˆ 1 In pattern (3), X stands for Vector of explanatory varable, and stands for sample sze. Thrdly, calculatng the character effect of every explanatory varable, and calculatng the coeffcent effect. The character effect of Sex should be: F Xβ F X β ( 4 ) 1 The character effect of Jbe should be: F Xβ F X β ( 5 ) 1 The character effect of Teacher should be: F Xβ F X β ( 6 ) 1 ˆ Among them, ˆ, ˆ ˆ ˆ 1, 2, 3 4 Emprcal Analyss β =, 1, Sex, Teacher, Jbe X. 4.1 Analyss of CET4 results dfferences n unversty Englsh graded teachng Table 2 lsts estmate results of Logt regresson model. For model fttng results, seen from the table, McFadden R-squared s 0.91, Resdual sum of squares regresson model s only Both the equaton and the coeffcents have passed sgnfcance test. Table 2 Results of model regresson Explaned varable: GRADE Method: ML - Bnary Logt Sample: Varable Coeffcent Std. Error z-statstc Prob. C Sex Teacher Jbe T ( 3 ) 262

4 McFadden R-squared Obs wth Dep= LR statstc (3 df) Obs wth Dep= Probablty (LR stat) Total obs Table 2 reports estmaton results of Logt regresson model. Model fttng result has acheved 0.91, both Equaton and the coeffcents have passed test of sgnfcance. Accordng to regresson results, regresson coeffcent of sex explanatory varable s sgnfcantly postve. Ths shows that female students are more lkely to pass CET4 compared wth male students. Ths s n lne wth sex dfference n learnng of present unversty male and female students. Regresson coeffcent of Teachers frst degree s postve, ths shows the hgher the teacher s frst degree s, the more lkely that the students can pass CET4. Its comparatvely hgher margnal contrbuton s Regresson coeffcent of grade s also sgnfcantly postve. Ths shows clearly that the hgher graded class the students are studyng n, the easer they can pass CET4. The margnal contrbuton s To sort accordng to margnal contrbuton, factors nfluencng students CET4 results are teacher s frst degree, grades of the graded classes, and students sex. 4.2 Character effect analyss of factors nfluencng CET4 results dfferences To decompose the model s total effect by usng bnary choce O-B approach, the character effect of respectve explanatory varable can be acheved and lsted n Table 3. Table 3 Decomposton of model effect Effect ( 10-2 ) Percentage Total effect Sex Character effect Teacher s frst degree Character effect Grade Character effect On the bass of Logt regresson model, to explan the respectve varables nfluencng degree on students probablty of passng the exam by makng use of O-B decomposton. Table 3 reports Logt regresson-based contrbuton degree of the respectve nfluencng factors. From Table 3, teacher s frst degree s character effect plays the leadng role, and ts contrbuton acheves 76%. Samples dfference n teacher allocaton s the major factor that leads to students dfferent achevement probablty of passng CET4. The next mportant factor that nfluences students CET4 results s the graded class. The graded class A & class B are set accordng to students CET4 results. Students n class A are afrad of beng degraded to class B, whle those n class B want to be upgraded to class A by ther hard workng. So grade s the secondary mportant factor n contrbutng to CET4 passng probablty. The thrdly mportant factor s students sex. 5 Conclusons and Polcy Recommendatons The gravelly taught students achevements are sgnfcantly hgher than those not. Ths proves that the general academes Englsh graded teachng reform at present accordng to Unversty Englsh Currculum Requrements enforced by Chna s Educaton Department s effectve. It can enhance students CET4 results. The relatvely hgh standard devaton score of the classfed taught students 263

5 CET4 results, and the expanded gap between the dfferent classfcatons, we can see that n classfed teachng process, teachers should not just focus on teachng n hgher graded classes. They should take nto account both the hgher grade classes and the lower grade classes, and they even need to focus more on students n the lower grade classes. Besdes, to mprove the educatonal level of teachers takng part n classfed teachng task, to pay more attenton to boys n the classfed classes are both benefcal to ncrease CET4 results of classfed taught students. Ths paper studes on one college s samples. There s stll further dscusson on the general academes Englsh graded teachng, and on ts ftness for other types of nsttutons. References [1]. Humn, Wang Bele. Constructng a Brand-new Mode for College Englsh Teachng and Learnng [J]. Shandong Foregn Language Teachng Journal (1): (n Chnese) [2]. Wang Guofeng. A Tentatve Exploraton of the Constructon and Applcaton of Text-based Test Item Bank of College Englsh [J]. Shandong Foregn Language Teachng Journal (2): (n Chnese) [3]. Zheng Xufen. Practce and Thoughts on Unversty Englsh Graded Teachng [J]. Chna Hgher Educaton Research (12): (n Chnese) 264