Improving Rural School Teaching Quality through Blended Synchronous Classroom： A Value-Added Assessment Study

Abstract

Students' academic performance is an important means to
evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. Value-added
assessment of data of their performance can reveal the
increment of students' development. As so, this study used
a simple growth percentile value-added assessment model to
analyze the effects of regular blended synchronous English
classroom to third-grade in 29 rural elementary schools in
G Province, and used a standardized score model to verify
its validity. The results show that: (1) 10 of the 29
schools and 40% of the students reached the high growth
level, indicating that the blended synchronous classroom
plays a significant role in improving the quality of
teaching and learning in rural schools. (2) schools,
teachers and students’ motivation and participation to
blended synchronous classroom affect the development level
of teaching effect. (3) The large proportion of students in
low growth level is one of the reasons to poor quality of
teaching and learning in the townships and schools. The
findings of this study for the exploration of value-added
assessment and the effectiveness of blended synchronous
classroom teaching provide important insights.