Professor Ke Zheng Won the Award of the First Session “Outstanding Achievement Award in Educational Empirical Research”

In order to improve the level of educational scientific research and encourage educational empirical research, the first session of “Outstanding Achievement Award in Educational Empirical Research”, sponsored jointly by Education Department of ECNU, Education Department of BNU, National Education Science Planning Office, and the Educational Research Center of Guangming Daily, was publicized recently. Prof. Ke Zheng, the Deputy Director of ICI, won “Outstanding Achievement Award in Educational Empirical Research” in its first session with his academic paper “Curriculum Reform and the Opportunity of Academic Success of Rural Students——Based on Eight-year Data of Senior High School Entrance Examination from City A”

The paper was published on Educational Research in October 2016. Based on the data from the A-City students' senior high school entrance examination for eight years in a row, the study found the curriculum reform plays an important role in the opportunity of academic success for urban and rural students. From the overall average grades, since the reform of “New Curriculum”, the difference between urban and rural students did not expand, and even narrowed a little. However, after the curriculum reform, the opportunity for rural students to achieve high scores in senior high school entrance examination has been decreased significantly, and there is a distinct gap between urban and rural students to access to academic success in different subjects. Given the different degree of subject responsiveness to the urban-rural gap in the examination results, it is suggested that we should conduct the test of policy intervention simulation by adjusting the weighting of subjects in the total score, so as to significantly narrow the urban-rural gap in educational opportunities.

It is reported that the first session of "Outstanding Achievement Award in Educational Empirical Research" was officially established on January 14, 2017. It was established to award researchers who have made remarkable achievements in educational empirical research. Totally, there were 206 academic papers and 45 dissertations have been recommended by 69 institutions, which including the Institute of Higher Education, major journals of educational research, education and research institutes, and educational science planning offices throughout the country. A total of 31 academic papers and 20 dissertations entered the third round of review. The review committee evaluated the participating achievements, and eventually, 10 outstanding academic papers and 10 excellent dissertations won the award. The award has been presented on the 3rd National Education Empirical Research Forum on November 5, 2017.