英国卫报：东亚学生为何送到哪都是学霸？

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网易教育讯 （来源：英国卫报）东亚国家的学生长期在国际学生能力评估计划（PISA）测试榜单中领先。西方政治家和政策制定者们如今非常积极地研究学习东亚的教育体系以期能模仿并赶上其教育成就。

但一项伦敦大学教育学院的最新研究却发现，这些东亚国家的移民孩子即使在其他国家受教育，也可以取得更好的成绩。在西方国家，来自东亚国家移民家庭的孩子在15岁时，就可以领先西方同龄人两年半时间——即使他们从小和西方孩子一起在西式学校接受教育。

John Jerrim博士作为主要研究者研究了超过一万四千名澳大利亚学生参与2012年PISA数学测试的结果，他发现大部分来自中国的东亚第二代移民平均得分为605分，比澳洲本土出生的学生平均成绩高出102分。而在英国的GCSE（普通中学教育证书考试）中，华裔考生在所有族群考生中排名最高。

针对东亚学生成绩更好的原因，Jerrim博士认为东亚国家的家长们灌输给孩子的态度和信念对于孩子们在学校考试中取得好成绩非常重要。这些态度和信念很大程度上收到文化和家庭环境影响，学校本身的影响很小。

Jerrim博士也进一步发现，东亚裔家庭的家长会更乐于将孩子送到更好的学校：“这样的选择可能反映了东亚家长对教育的重视程度。"

东亚裔学生在课后花费更多时间学习。他们有非常强的工作道德理念，并且更乐于相信努力就会成功。他们的志向也更远大，94%的人想读大学，而澳大利亚本土这一比例仅为58%。

A new study has cast doubt on the current enthusiasm in the west for copying teaching methods in China and South Korea, where children score highly in international tests, suggesting that cultural factors beyond school also play a part in their success.

Politicians and policymakers from the west, where children gain lower marks, are avidly studying the education systems of those countries that regularly top the Pisa international league tables in the hope of emulating their achievement.

But a new study from the Institute of Education (IoE) at the University of London concludes that the children of immigrants from these countries when educated elsewhere continue to score just as highly within no-better-than-average school systems.

The study, by Dr John Jerrim, reader in education and social statistics at the IoE, found that children of immigrants from high-achieving east Asian countries are still two-and-a-half years ahead of their western peers by the time they are 15, even when they are educated alongside them in western-style schools.

Jerrim studied the performance of more than 14,000 Australian schoolchildren who took the 2012 Pisa maths test, set by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and found that second-generation immigrants from east Asia, who were mostly of Chinese origin, scored on average 605 points – 102 points more than Australian-born citizens.

Their results were only beaten by the Shanghai region of China, which came out top in the Pisa rankings. By contrast, second-generation immigrants in Australia from the UK scored 512 in the Pisa maths test. In England, children of Chinese origin have the highest GCSE scores of any ethnic group – last year, 78% gained at least five A*-C GCSEs, compared with a national average of 60%.

The UK, in common with other countries, has been keen to learn from the success of Asian education systems. In July, the Department for Education (DfE) announced an £11m initiative to bring 50 Shanghai maths teachers to England this year to help raise standards. The Chinese teachers will provide masterclasses in 32 “maths hubs”, which will form a network of centres of excellence across England.

Yet Jerrim warns policymakers not to be guided by Pisa scores alone. “High-ranking Pisa countries may well provide western policymakers with valuable insights into how their own education systems might be improved. But any subsequent policy action must be supported by a wider evidence base – policymakers should not rely upon Pisa alone.

“For instance, one does not want to erroneously conclude that rote learning helps to improve children’s maths skills, simply because this technique is often practised within east Asian schools. Indeed, the fact that children of east Asian heritage perform just as highly in the Australian education system (whose schools and teachers do not routinely use such techniques) would actually seem to contradict such views.”

Jerrim continued: “The attitudes and beliefs east Asian parents instil in their children make an important contribution to their high levels of academic achievement. Yet as such factors are heavily influenced by culture and home environment, they are likely to be beyond the control of schools. Greater recognition needs to be given to this point in public discourse. Indeed, policymakers should make it clear that there are many influences upon a country’s Pisa performance, and that climbing significantly up these rankings is unlikely to be achieved by the efforts of schools alone.”

Children taking the Pisa test completed a background questionnaire asking about their parents’ country of birth, attitudes to education, their own aspirations and out-of-school activities, which Jerrim used to explore other factors that may play a part in the immigrant children’s school success. His study then used advanced statistical analysis to gauge their relative importance.

Jerrim concludes that family background factors such as parental education accounted for almost 20% of the 102-point achievement gap between East Asians and native Australians – half of the 276 second-generation east Asian children had graduate fathers, compared with only a quarter of the 6,837 Australian-born children. A further 40% of the gap between east Asian and native Australian children (the equivalent of a year’s school progress) was accounted for by a range of school factors.

“I found that, on average, east Asian families send their children to ‘better’ schools than native Australians do,” Jerrim says. “We can’t be sure why this occurs. Their school selection may, of course, reflect the high value east Asian parents place on education. What is clear, however, is that a range of school effects (including the positive influence of fellow pupils as well as the quality of the school) form a key part of the reason that east Asian children in Australia are doing so well.”

A combination of out-of-school factors and personal characteristics accounted for another 25% of the Pisa score gap. East Asian children spent substantially more time studying after school (15 hours a week) than native Australian teenagers (nine hours). They had a very strong work ethic and were more likely to believe that they could succeed if they tried hard enough – although there was no evidence that they had put more effort into the Pisa maths test. They also had higher aspirations; 94% of them expected to go on to university, compared with 58% of the native Australians.