The present study aimed at exploring the elementary school and junior high school English teachers’ understanding and perceptions of the “Remedial Instruction Project.” Results of the questionnaires and interviews were presented in this chapter.
The first section presents the results from the questionnaire. There are four subsections displaying English teachers’ knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project,” the relationship between teachers’ background and their knowledge of the project, teachers’ perceptions about the implementation of the project, and teachers’
perceptions of the project at different school levels. The second section describes the results of interviews, including teachers’ perceptions regarding the administration of the Project, National Screening Test and National Progress Test, English Basic Learning Content, materials adopted in English remedial classes, organization of English remedial classes, effects and implementation difficulties of the Project, and future support needed.
Questionnaire Results
Results from the questionnaire are divided into two sections. In the first section, the distribution of English teachers’ scores on knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” is presented, and teachers’ background that may influence their knowledge of the Project is analyzed. In the second section, the present situation and English teachers’ perceptions of the Project are displayed.
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Teachers’ knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
This section answers the first research question of this study—how much do English teachers understand the “Remedial Instruction Project”? In the questionnaire, 23 questions related to the purposes and strategies of the Project, the procedures adopted to screen and evaluate students’ performance, teacher qualifications, and organization of English remedial classes are designed to measure English teachers’
understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project.” If the respondents answer one question correctly, they gain one point, but if they do not, they get zero point.
Therefore, the lowest score would be zero, and the highest score would be twenty-three. Figure 4 demonstrates that the average score of the English teachers was 12.73 (SD = 3.88), and the mode was 11. The following figure showed that more than half of the teachers (n = 158, 57%) failed to answer half of the questions correctly.
Figure 4.
Results of English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
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Teachers’ knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” and Teacher’
Backgrounds
The second research question aims to find out whether teachers’ background influenced their knowledge of the project. To answer this question, t-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted.
First of all, t-tests were used to test the effect of school level, education level, and experience of professional development community, workshop, and remedial instruction program on knowledge of the policy of remedial instruction program. In terms of school level, in Table 5, the results of a t-test show that there was not a significant difference (t (237.9) = 1.33, p = .18) in the scores of elementary school English teachers (M = 13.08, SD = 4.27) and the scores of junior high school English teachers (M = 12.44, SD = 3.52).
Table 5.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by School Level Elementary school Junior High School
N M SD N M SD t df p
Score 124 13.08 4.27 151 12.44 3.52 1.33 237.9 .18
In terms of education level, the teachers of this study were mainly graduated from graduate programs and colleges. The results in Table 6 demonstrate that there was a significant difference (t (267.55) = 3.64, p = .00) in the scores of teachers who owned a master’s degree (M = 13.42, SD = 4.19) and teachers who had a bachelor’s degree (M = 11.77, SD = 3.23). The former had a significantly better knowledge than the latter.
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Table 6.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Education Level Master’s degree Bachelor’s degree
N M SD N M SD t df p
Score 155 13.42 4.19 115 11.77 3.23 3.64 267.55 .00*
* p < .05.
Independent sample t-test was also implemented to investigate whether teachers that had joined professional development groups for English remedial instruction had a better knowledge of the Project than those without. Table 7 showed that there was no significant difference (t (273) = -.06, p = .95) in the scores of teachers who had joined professional development groups for English remedial instruction (M = 12.75, SD=3.46) and the scores of those who did not (M = 12.72, SD = 4.11).
Table 7.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Professional Development Experience not attend the workshops scored lower. The results of Independent Sample t-test show that there was a significant difference (t (273) = -2.81, p = .01) in the scores of teachers who attended English remedial instruction workshops (M = 12.94, SD = 3.85)
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and the scores of those who did not have the experience (M = 10.68, SD = 3.58).
Table 8.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Workshop Experience
As to the “Remedial Instruction Project” experience, Table 9 shows that teachers who had joined in the remedial project scored higher than those who did not.
Moreover, their average score was even higher than the teachers who attended workshops. The result of Independent Sample t-test reveals that there was a significant difference (t (261.71) = -4.47, p = .00) in the scores of teachers who had joined English remedial program (M = 13.75, SD = 3.89) and the scores of those who did not (M = 11. 72, SD = 3.57).
Table 9.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Remedial Instruction Program Experience explore the impact of five factors—years of teaching experience, positions, school scale, and school location—on teachers’ knowledge of the remedial project. First, respondents were divided into four groups according to their teaching experience
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(Group 1: 5 years or less; Group 2: 6 to 15 years; Group 3: 16 to 25 years; Group 4:
26 years and above). However, because the result of the test of homogeneity of variances shows that the subjects were not homogenous (Levene Statistic (3, 270) = 8.43, p = .00), the Welch statistics was used in these circumstances. The significance value was smaller than 0.05, so the scores of the four groups showed significant differences. Post-hoc comparisons using Scheffe test indicated that the mean score for Group 3 (M = 14.88, SD = 4.85) was significantly higher than Group 1 (M = 11.66, SD = 3.09).
Table 10.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the Remedial Instruction Project by Years of Teaching Experience
Scheffe’s Post Hoc Comparison of English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Years of Teaching Experience
(I) Years of
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Table 11. (continued)
Scheffe’s Post Hoc Comparison of English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Years of Teaching Experience
Group 4 Group 1 2.54 1.73 .54 -2.33 7.40
Group 2 1.28 1.72 .91 -3.55 6.11
Group 3 -.68 1.81 .99 -5.77 4.41
The respondents were also divided into four categories, Group 1: English teachers (including subject teachers and homeroom teachers), Group 2: English teachers with administrative duties, Group 3: Pre-service English teachers (including college students and intern teachers), and Group 4: English substitute teachers. The results of Welch statistics show that there was a significant difference among the four groups: Welch (3, 53.17) = 6.41, p = .00. Post-hoc comparisons in Table 13 revealed that the scores of English teachers with administrative duties (M = 14.55, SD = 4.10) were significantly higher than those of English teachers (M = 12.28, SD = 3.77) and English substitute teachers (M = 11.67, SD = 2.79), while the scores of pre-service English teachers (M = 12.20, SD = 4.09) did not differ significantly from the scores of the other groups.
Table 12.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Teachers’ Position
Statistic df1 df2 Sig.
Welch 6.411 3 53.168 .00
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Table 13.
Scheffe’s Post Hoc Comparison of English Teachers’ Understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by Teachers’ Positions
The fourth factor was school size. In the questionnaire, school size was divided into five groups (Group 1: 6 classes or less; Group 2: 7 to 12 classes; Group 3: 13 to 24 classes; Group 4: 25 to 48 classes; Group 5: 49 classes and above). The results of ANOVA show that there was not a significant effect of school size on teachers’
knowledge of the Project at the p < .05 level, F (4, 269) = .29, p = .88.
Table 14.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by School Size
SS df MS F p
Between Groups 17.68 4 4.42 .29 .88
Within Groups 4099.40 269 15.24
Total 4117.08 273
The last one was school location, which included cities, towns, and remote areas.
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A one-way ANOVA indicated no significant difference in scores of teachers from different school locations, F (2, 268) = .13, p = .87.
Table 15.
English Teachers’ Knowledge of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by School Location
SS df MS F p
Between Groups 3.98 2 1.99 .13 .87
Within Groups 3976.73 268 14.84
Total 3980.71 270
In sum, teachers’ background such as education levels, teaching experience, positions, workshop experience, and “Remedial Instruction Project” experience had significant influence on teachers’ knowledge. Apparently, teachers who had a master degree, workshop experience, and “Remedial Instruction Project” experience scored higher on the test. Also teachers who were senior teachers or teachers with administrative duties had better understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project.”
Teachers’ Perceptions of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
The third research question aims to explore English teachers’ perceptions of the implementation status quo of the “Remedial Instruction Project.” This section presents detailed analyses of the participants’ responses to questions 1 to 36 in the third part of the questionnaire.
In the questionnaire, questions 6, 8, 24, 27, 35, and 36, which are related to the present situation of English remedial instruction, such as teacher sources, frequency of meetings in schools, material choices, material sources, implementation difficulties, and future support, are presented in frequency and percentage. The frequency and percentage of choices in each question are presented. In addition, the comparisons
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between elementary school teachers and junior high school teachers are displayed in order to find out if there are significant differences between them.
The rest of the questions in the questionnaire are related to English teachers’
perceptions regarding the administration of the Project, the National Screening Test and the National Evaluation Test, the Basic Learning Content, materials used in English remedial classes, organization of English remedial classes, and effectiveness of the Project. Since the responses were categorical data, Chi-square goodness of fit tests were implemented to analyze whether the proportion of responses to each question was significantly different, and pairwise comparisons were used for post-hoc comparisons. As to different school levels, Chi-square independent tests were implemented to explore whether the elementary school English teachers and the junior high school English teachers perceived the Project differently. Column proportions with adjusted p values (Bonferroni method) were used for post-hoc comparisons. If a pair of value is significantly different, the values will be given different subscript letter, a and b. However, if there was no significant difference between the proportions of two school levels, the proportions was given the same subscript letter, a and a.
Note that for questions designed with four choices, (e.g. strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree), they were combined into two categories that represent either positive (e.g., agree) or negative (e.g., disagree) responses.
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Perceived effect of “Remedial Instruction Project” on helping the underachievers gain basic abilities (Question 3.1). A Chi-square goodness-of-fit analysis indicates the proportion of participants who agreed the Project can help underachievers gain basic abilities, n = 225 (81.9%), was significantly greater than those who did not, n = 50 (18.1%), χ2 (1, n = 275) =111.36, p = .00.
Table 16.
Positive Effect of the “Remedial Instruction Project” on Improving English Underachievers’ Basic Abilities
Frequency Percent χ2 p
Valid Disagree 50 18.1% 111.36 .00
Agree 225 81.9%
Total 275 100.0%
If we took a closer look at the results of different school level, a Chi-square independent test indicated significant association between school level and the perceived effect of the Project on improving English underachievers’ basic abilities, χ2 (1, n = 275) = 7.21, p = .01, phi = -.16. In order to find out whether there are any differences in school level, paired column proportion comparisons with adjusted p values were implemented. Table 17 shows that the proportion of the junior high teachers who disagreed that the project could help the English underachievers gain basic abilities (23.8%) was significantly larger than the proportion of the elementary school teachers who disagreed with it (11.3%). Similarly, the number of the elementary school teachers who agreed with the positive effect of the Project (88.7%) was significantly higher than that of the junior high school teachers who agreed with it (76.2%).
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Table 17.
Positive Effect of the “Remedial Instruction Project” on Improving English Underachievers’ Basic Abilities at Different School Levels
School Level
Total
ES JHS
Responses Disagree Count 14a 36b 50
% within school level 11.3% 23.8% 18.2%
Agree Count 110a 115b 225
% within school level 88.7% 76.2% 81.8%
Total Count 124 151 275
% within school level 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Note.
1. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different
In sum, most teachers believed that the Project was able to help underachievers gain basic abilities, and among them, elementary school teachers had more positive attitude toward the Project than junior high school teachers.
Perceptions about English teachers’, students’ and parents’ understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project” (Questions 3.2 and 3.3). A Chi-square goodness-of-fit analysis was performed on the data concerning frequencies of respondents who agreed that teachers understood the purpose and the content of the
“Remedial Instruction Project” and those who did not. The result shows that, with one missing data, the number of participants with positive responses, n = 183 (66.8%), was significantly greater than those with negative responses, n = 91 (33.2%), χ2 (1, n
= 274) =30.89, p = .00.
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Table 18.
Teachers’ Sufficient Understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
Frequency Percent χ2 p
Valid Not understand 91 33.2% 30.89 .00
Understand 183 66.8%
Total 274 100.0%
For different school level, a Chi-square independent test indicates significant association between school level and English remedial instruction teachers’
understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project”, χ2 (1, n = 274) = 6.89, p = .01, phi = -.16. The results of the paired column proportion comparisons with adjusted p values in Table 19 show that the proportion of the junior high teachers who thought that teachers did not understand the purpose and the content of the “Remedial Instruction Project”, n = 60 (40.0%), was significantly greater than the proportion of the elementary school teachers who held the same thought, n = 31 (25.0%). Similarly, the number of elementary school teachers who thought that teachers understood the purpose and the content of the “Remedial Instruction Project”, n = 93 (75.0%) was significantly greater than the number of junior high school teachers with the same idea, n = 90 (60.0%).
Table 19.
Perceptions About Teachers’ Understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
by School Level
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Table 19. (continued)
Perceptions About Teachers’ Understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
by School Level
Total Count 124 150 274
% within school level 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Note.
1. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different
As to students’ and parents’ understanding of the Project, 48.9% (n = 134) of the teachers felt that students and their parents knew the purpose and the content of the
“Remedial Instruction Project”, but 51.1% (n = 140) of the teachers did not think so.
A Chi-square goodness-of-fit analysis performed on the data, however, shows that the percentage of the two groups of participants was not significantly different, χ2 (1, n = 274) =.13, p = .72.
Table 20.
Students’ and Parents’ Sufficient Understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project”
Frequency Percent χ2 p
Valid Not understand 140 51.1% .13 .72
Understand 134 48.9%
Total 274 100.0%
For different school level, a Chi-square independent test indicates no significant association between school level and performance about students’ and parents’
understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project”, χ2 (1, n = 274) = 3.19, p = .07, phi = -.11.
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Table 21.
Perceptions About Students’ and Parents’ Understanding of the “Remedial Instruction Project” by School Level
School Level
Total
ES JHS
Responses Not
understand
Count 56a 84a 140
% within school level 45.2% 56.0% 51.1%
Understand Count 68a 66a 134
% within school level 54.8% 44.0% 48.9%
Total Count 124 150 274
% within school level 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Note.
1. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different
In sum, most teachers thought that they understood the purpose and the content of the Project, and elementary school teachers had more positive perceptions about their understanding of the Project than junior high school teachers. However, both of them thought that students and their parents did not fully understand the Project, and there was no significant difference between the two groups of teachers.
Perceived sufficiency in human and administrative resources (Question 3.4 and 3.5). In terms of human resources, the results of the Chi-square goodness-of-fit analysis were performed on the data concerning the sufficiency of human resources in the “Remedial Instruction Project.” The result shows that the number of participants who thought the human resources were sufficient, n = 119 (43.3%), was significantly lower than those who did not, n = 156 (56.7%), χ2 (1, n = 275) =4.98, p = .03.
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Table 22.
Perceived Sufficiency of Human Resources for the “Remedial Instruction Project”
Frequency Percent χ2 p
Valid Insufficient 156 56.7% 4.98 .03
Sufficient 119 43.3%
Total 275 100.0%
For different school level, a Chi-square independent test indicates no significant association between school level and perceived sufficiency of human resources for the
“Remedial Instruction Project”, χ2 (1, n = 275) = .67, p = .41, phi = -.05. And paired column comparisons also showed no significant differences between elementary and junior high teachers in terms of human resources.
Table 23.
Perceived Sufficiency of Human Resources for the “Remedial Instruction Project”
by School Level
1. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different
In terms of administrative support, 57.7% of the teachers thought that the administrative staff in their schools provided sufficient support, but 42.3% of the teachers felt the support insufficient, with one missing data. A Chi-square goodness-of-fit analysis shows that the number of participants who thought the
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administrative support was sufficient, n = 158, was significantly greater than those who did not, n = 116, χ2 (1, n = 274) =6.44, p = .01.
Table 24.
Perceived Sufficiency of Administrative Support for the “Remedial Instruction Project” significant association between school level and perceived sufficiency of administrative support for the “Remedial Instruction Project”, χ2 (1, n = 274) = .05, p
= .82, phi = .01.
Table 25.
Perceived Sufficiency of Administrative Support for the “Remedial Instruction Project” by School Level
1. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different
To sum up, significantly more teachers felt the human resources were not sufficient. However, most of them thought administrative staff provided sufficient
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support for the teachers.
The main source of English remedial instruction teachers (Question 3.6). For this question, the participants could choose more than one source of English remedial instructors in their schools, so the total percentage would not be 100%. As illustrated in Table 26, in-service teachers (78%) are still the main source of English remedial instructors. The second source is substitute teachers (43%). Pre-service teachers, intern teachers (15%) and college students (11%), are sometimes recruited to ease in-service teachers’ burden. The number of community members with a bachelor degree (9%) and retired teachers (7%) was not many, not to mention special education teachers (1%).
Table 26.
Main Sources of English Remedial Instructors
Frequency Percent
In-service teachers 214 78%
Substitute teachers 118 43%
Intern teachers 42 15%
College students 31 11%
Community members with a bachelor degree 24 9%
Retired teachers 18 7%
Special education teachers 4 1%
Others 2 1%
The sources of English remedial instruction teachers varied at different school level. As illustrated in Table 27, in-service teachers are still the main source of English remedial instructors in both elementary (50%) and junior high schools (68%).
The second largest source of the teachers was substitute teachers; they occupied 40%
and 45% of the openings in elementary and junior high schools. The third popular
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choice was community members with a bachelor degree (16%) in elementary schools and intern teachers (21%) in junior high schools. College students can also be found in both elementary (13%) and junior high schools (10%), while retired teachers were rare at both school levels (4% and 9%), let alone special education teachers (0% and 3%).
Table 27.
Source of English Remedial Instructors at Different School Level In-service
Teachers Retired Teachers Intern Teachers Substitute Teachers
Note. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
In sum, in-service teachers were the main source of the English remedial instruction teachers, and substitute teachers were the second major source in both school level. However, more community members with a bachelor degree were hired in elementary schools, while junior high schools recruited more intern teachers as remedial instruction teachers.
Perceptions about teachers’ remedial instruction knowledge (Question 3.7). In terms of teachers’ knowledge of English remedial instructions, except for three missing data, 69.9% of the teachers believed that the English teachers in their schools had rich knowledge of English remedial instruction, but 30.1% of the teachers did not
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think so. The Chi-square result shows that the number of participants who thought English remedial instruction teachers had rich knowledge of remedial instruction, n = 190, was significantly greater than those who did not, n = 82, χ2 (1, n = 272) =42.88, association between school level and English remedial instruction teachers’
knowledge of remedial instruction, χ2 (1, n = 272) = .545, p = 0.46, phi = -.05.
Table 29.
Perceptions of Teachers’ Remedial Instruction Knowledge by School Level School Level
1. ES = Elementary School; JHS = Junior High School
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different
2. Subscript a, b = significantly different; subscript a, a = not significantly different