Student attainment of affective objectives in rural China

摘要

Little empirical research is available on the evaluation of affective objectives under the New Curriculum Reform in China. This study investigated 1563 volunteers from three lower secondary school students in Gansu Province, China, to explore the factor structure of affective objectives and to assess students' affective attainments in the context of western rural China. The final affective objectives questionnaire was able to put forth a statistically valid three-factor model that provides solutions for nine affective objectives: bravery, self-confidence, independence, fairness, integrity, forgiveness, gratitude, love of learning and aesthetic. The affective objectives with the best performance in these rural students were gratitude, independence and integrity, while the three lowest rated were forgiveness, bravery and confidence. Male students rated themselves statistically higher on confidence, bravery and love of learning, whereas female students rated themselves statistically higher on independence, fairness and aesthetic. Comparing different grade groups revealed that seventh-grade students reported higher scores than eighth- and ninth-grade students for confidence, integrity, love of learning and aesthetic, whereas ninth-grade students rated slightly higher than eighth-grade students on bravery and gratitude.