Although teaching quality is seen as crucial in affecting students' performance, what types of instructional practices constitute quality teaching remains a question. With the theoretical assumptions of conceptual and procedural mathematics teaching as a guide, this study examined the types of quality mathematics instructional practices that…

The assumption that inquiry-based instruction is more effective in influencing student science achievement than traditional didactic teaching has been the driving force of science education reform in recent decades and in many countries. However, the empirical relationship between these two kinds of science teaching and student science performance…

Teacher efficacy in a particular content area is seen as an important factor shaping teaching practice and student learning in the Western literature. However, inadequate efforts have been made to examine this assumption empirically. Drawing on the Trends of International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011 mathematics teachers' data…

The outstanding performance of Shanghai students in the 4th Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2009) gained widespread attention at home and abroad. In this paper, the authors attribute this outstanding performance to three traditional factors and six modern factors. The traditional factors are high parental expectations, belief…

China is undergoing an education reform that calls for a change from a rigid, fixed curriculum and didactic pedagogy to a more flexible, school-based curriculum and more inquiry-based pedagogy. This study investigated the extent to which Chinese middle and high school teachers (a) endorse an inquiry-based approach and underlying learning…

This paper seeks to examine the quality and equality of basic education of Hong Kong based on the first three cycles of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Results from these three assessments suggested that the Hong Kong students have an outstanding performance in mathematics, science and reading. In particular, the…

Mathematical proofs are not only the focus of every country's mathematics curriculum reforms, but also the subject of research on mathematics education. This paper is based on a survey of mathematics teachers, the goal of which was to investigate the understanding of mathematical proofs of secondary school math teachers, their levels of…

Since the 1980s, "key school system" (KSS) in basic education has contributed to teaching quality and the development of some schools. However, at the same time it brings about many serious problems such as failure to attain educational objective, being away from the goal of education equity, arising students' mental or emotional problems, lack of…

This paper presents systematically China's New National Curriculum Reform (CNNCR). It covers the background, origin, essence, goals, features, evolvement, schedule, implementation, the alignment in primary, secondary and middle schools' curricula and inter-subjects, the outcomes and the challenges and strategies of CNNCR.

The essay deals with regional disparities in the average educational expenditure of every ordinary senior secondary student, including budget funds for education, the proportion appropriated to the ordinary senior high school by the government, tuition fee per student and the proportion of tuition fees of the total educational expenditure. By…

Using statistical data on the implementing conditions of China's educational expenditure published by the state, this paper studies the Gini coefficient of the budget educational public expenditure per student in order to examine the concentration degree of the educational expenditure for China's basic education and analyze its balanced…

According to records from 2002, there will be a continuous increase in the number of classes, full-time teachers and teaching staff in urban primary and junior secondary schools during the period 2005-2020. At the same time, the demand for classes and teachers of non-compulsory education will decrease yearly. It is estimated that the budgetary…