精英大学理工科有助于农村学生继续逆袭吗?——基于家庭背景、学习投入与学习收获的关系探讨

Do the Rural Students Benefits More from STEM Major in a Chinese Elite University?

基于差异优势假说的洞见,借鉴清华大学教育研究院开发的NSSE-China问卷中学习投入和收获量表,本研究对东部一所精英大学本科生学习收获影响因素的城乡差异进行分析,并重点考察家庭背景和学习投入的相对重要性及其学科异质性。研究发现,农村学生在学习投入上与城市学生没有差距,但在学习收获上与城市学生却有显著差距。相比于人文社科专业,一方面理工科专业(尤其是医学)拉大了城乡学生学习收获的差距,另一方面,相比城市学生,理工科专业的农村学生的学习收获更容易受到家庭背景的影响。最后,基于绩点、班级排名的稳健性检验同样支持该结论。因此,本文既不支持西方文化背景中的差异优势假说,也指明了“穷读理”中的不合理成分。

Based on the“differential advantage hypothesis”,we use the scale of student engagement and academic achievements in NSSE-China to analyze the urban-rural differences in the factors affecting the learning outcomes of Undergraduates in an elite university in the East of China,focusing on the relative importance of family background and student engagement and the heterogeneity across disciplines.It is found that there is no gap between rural and urban students in student engagement but a significant gap in academic achievements.On the one hand,compared with the humanities and social sciences majors,the STEM majors widen the gap between urban and rural students in academic achievements.On the other hand,compared with urban students,rural students’academic achievements in STEM majors are more vulnerable to the impact of family background.The robustness test based on GPA and class ranking also confirmed the conclusion.Therefore,this study does not support the“differential advantage hypothesis”in Western culture while pointing out the unreasonable component of the common saying that“disadvantaged students will major in STEM.”