Journal of East China Normal University(Educational Sciences) ›› 2024, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (3): 12-25.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2024.03.002

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Has the New College Entrance Examination Promoted Students’ Independent Subject Selection: Empirical Analysis Based on CatBoost Regression Tree model

Jianhua Zhou, Zhengyi Shan, Hongxia Qin   

  1. 1. Institute of Education, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China
  • Accepted:2023-12-11 Online:2024-03-01 Published:2024-02-22

Abstract:

One of the goals of the new college entrance examination reform is to enable candidates to choose exam subjects independently. However, existing research has not reached a consensus on whether the new college entrance examination has increased students’ autonomy in subject selection. Based on 31,656 college students’ samples obtained from the “College Entrance Examination Reform Questionnaire Survey” in 2022, this paper randomly divided the samples into training group, verification group and test group according to the proportion of 70%, 15% and 15%, and constructed CatBoost regression Tree model with the training group. The model passed the test of the verification group and the test group. Empirical research based on this model has found that the new college entrance examination promotes students’ autonomy in subject selection and enhances their right to choose, but their choice power has decreased, rather than improved. The new college entrance examination has intensified the logical conflicts among candidates, parents, and high school teachers in choosing subjects, increasing the anxiety of candidates in choosing subjects. From the perspective of promoting students’ autonomous subject selection, the “3+1+2” model is a rational return to the reform of the college entrance examination, which is conducive to maintaining the stability and sustainability of the reform.

Key words: new college entrance examination, independently selecting subjects, option, selective power