Many developing countries have experienced increasing spatial inequality, but little is known about the effect of community disadvantages on educational attainment in these societies. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (2010-2016), I examine the effect of community socioeconomic status (SES) on the transition into high school in urban…

Small private online courses (SPOCs) have influenced teaching and learning in China's higher education. Learning management systems (LMSs) are important components in SPOCs. They can collect various data related to student behavior and support pedagogical interventions. This research used feature engineering and nearest neighbor smoothing models…

Textual data, as a key carrier of learning feedback, is continuously produced by many students within course forums. The temporal nature of discussion requires students' emotions and concerned aspects (e.g. teaching styles, learning activities, etc.) to be dynamically tracked for understanding learning requirements. To characterize dynamics of…

Using propensity score matching method, this study examined the effect of boarding on campus on left-behind children (LBC)'s sense of school belonging and their academic achievement. The condition of boarding schools was also examined closely in this study. Data were collected from 6,638 students from 74 rural boarding schools in 11 provinces in…

Study abroad can be a life-changing experience, but evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. We examine the experience of studying abroad at colleges in the US and China, which are the largest receiving and sending countries of international students respectively. Using data from two comparable national surveys that follow the same design, we…

This dissertation study focuses on a current and controversial phenomenon in Chinese universities and colleges--student working during academic semesters. The massification of Chinese higher education since the year of 1999 raises the level of competition in the job market of college graduates. More and more undergraduate students participate in…

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China's Ministry of Education embarked on an ambitious program of primary school mergers by shutting down small village schools and opening up larger centralized schools in towns and county seats. The goal of the program was to improve the teacher and building resources in an attempt to raise the human capital of…

The purpose of the present study is to explore the relationship between family socioeconomic status and mathematics performance on the base of a multi-level analysis involving a large sample of Chinese primary school students. A weak relationship is found between socioeconomic status and performance in the Chinese context. The relationship does…