By comparing the changes from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s results of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 and 2022, it is found that 15-year-old students in East Asian countries and economies maintain a commanding lead in reading, mathematics, and science. These students from regions such as Singapore, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China), Macao (China), and Chinese Taipei not only sustain their academic excellence but also experience improvements in learning efficiency and their sense of belonging at school. Drawing on the PISA 2022 data, this study analyzes students’ learning time investment, out-of school-hours (OSH) services, and their relationship with student academic performance. The results show that the above countries and economies have achieved encouraging results in academic burden reduction by decreasing learning time in regular school lessons, controlling homework time, and providing OSH services. These distinctive policy interventions can serve as valuable reference points for the Chinese Mainland’s ongoing implementation of the “double reduction” policy while facilitating an informed judgment of potential risks.
Using data from the China Education Panel Survey, this study examines the impact of homework time on academic performance among Chinese junior high school students. The findings show that seventh and ninth graders spend 2.28 and 2.67 hours daily on homework, respectively, exceeding the 90-minute limit stipulated by the “double reduction” policy. Homework time significantly varies by gender, grade, and region. The relationship between homework time and the academic performance of junior high school students follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. Ordinary Least Squares analysis indicates that the optimal homework time for maximizing academic performance is less than 0.96 hours per day. Beyond the threshold, the positive effect diminishes, and when homework time exceeds 4.07 hours, it negatively impacts academic performance. Mediating effect analysis shows that excessive homework time leads to negative emotions, such as boredom, unhappiness, frustration, and sadness while depriving students of necessary sleep for healthy growth. It is concluded that optimal daily homework time is about 1 hour, aligning with the “double reduction” policy guidelines.
It is essential to ensure that teachers allocate adequate attention to homework evaluation and effectively carry it out in order to successfully implement the “double reduction” policy. From the perspective of teachers’ attention allocation, this study employed the NVivo 12 software to conduct text analysis on 39 cases of homework evaluation reform practices in primary and secondary schools in City N, China, from 2017 to 2021. The findings indicate that homework evaluation reform in these schools is a practical problem-oriented behavioral decision, and implementing the “double reduction” policy enhances teachers’ attention allocation on homework evaluation. The attention allocation of teachers encompasses multiple aspects, such as determining the purpose of evaluation, setting evaluation content, and selecting evaluation subjects and methods. Following the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, teachers allocate more attention to reducing the homework burden on students. However, certain issues persist in the practices of homework evaluation reform, including inadequate consideration of constraints, an unbalanced content structure, and a lack of process coordination. Therefore, under the “double reduction” policy, it is imperative to improve school incentive systems, enhance teachers’ evaluation capabilities, and alleviate their workload. These measures can guide teachers to allocate more attention to homework evaluation, thereby enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of attention allocation and fully realizing the educational function of homework evaluation.
Promoting the online flow of high-quality teacher resources has emerged as an important way to pursue coordinated progress in burden reduction and quality improvement under the “double reduction” policy. Based on the Open Online Tutoring Program of Secondary School Teachers (hereinafter referred to as “the open tutoring program”) in City A, China, this study examined the factors influencing teachers’ continuance intention to participate in the open tutoring program and their structural relationships, using a structural equation modeling analysis based on 1,159 sample data. The results show that: Firstly, teachers’reputation enhancement, perceived playfulness, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use have a positive effect on teachers’continuance intention to participate in online after-school teaching services. Secondly, online teaching efficacy has no direct effect on teachers’ continuance intention, but rather impacts their reputation enhancement and beliefs about the value of the open tutoring program. Thirdly, social influence has a positive effect on teachers’ reputation. Fourthly, perceived ease of use has a positive effect on teachers’ perception of the value of the open tutoring program. In light of the above, relevant suggestions are proposed to encourage teachers to continue participating in online after-school teaching services.
This study analyzed the effect of primary and secondary school students’ on-campus out-of-school-hours (OSH) tutoring participation on private tutoring participation using the two-level Bernoulli model based on the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data in 2018. The results revealed that students’ on-campus OSH tutoring participation did not decrease the likelihood of their private tutoring participation, while low-achieving students or students from disadvantaged family socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely to continue to participate in private tutoring after receiving OSH tutoring. This may be due to the following: Firstly, on-campus OSH tutoring was less targeted and personalized before the implementation of the “double reduction” policy; secondly, private tutoring institutions conducted misleading marketing and offered private tutoring in the time for on-campus OSH tutoring; and thirdly, students with disadvantaged family SES had fewer opportunities to receive high-quality OSH tutoring. Therefore, it is suggested that concerted efforts be made to provide more targeted and personalized on-campus OSH tutoring and prohibit academic private tutoring institutions from entering campuses. Additionally, it is necessary to enrich the supply of OSH service resources for interest and quality development, optimize the allocation of on-campus OSH tutoring resources, and facilitate the balanced, quality-oriented development of OSH tutoring among different schools and regions.
The “double reduction” policy has shown initial success over the past three years. However, parents and off-campus training institutions continue to influence the policy implementation significantly. Aiming to investigate the correlation between private tutoring and academic performance, as well as identify key moderating variables, this study conducted a meta-analysis on 21 primary studies, encompassing 54 independent samples, 79 effect sizes, and 242,601 participants. The findings revealed a low correlation between private tutoring and the academic performance of students. The impact of private tutoring on academic performance was insignificant after the application of the trim-and-fill method. Among the nine moderating variables analyzed, student gender, educational stage, family socioeconomic status (SES), region, tutoring subject, tutoring duration, and type of tutoring class did not significantly influence the effectiveness of private tutoring. The conclusions clarify the common one-sided perceptions people have about the role of private tutoring, offering new insights for education policymakers, researchers, teachers, parents, and students.