| 英文摘要 |
The present study explored differences in academic performance in Mandarin between children from new immigrant families and nonimmigrant families and identified the effect sizes of significant factors. The subjects were fourth- and sixth-grade new-immigrant students, with Taiwanese students from nonimmigrant families forming the control group. Stratified cluster sampling yielded a sample of 4,001 and 4,017 fourth- and sixth-grade new-immigrant students, respectively. The study included four native Taiwanese control groups; 7,835 and 9,772 fourth- and sixth-graders took the Mandarin test, respectively. Data were collected through Mandarin achievement tests and questionnaires. After the tests, samples were weighted to accurately represent the population, and the Jackknife method was used to estimate standard error when comparing Mandarin learning performance among the new-immigrant family and nonimmigrant family children. The confidence intervals for learning performance were calculated to determine whether differences in learning performance among the groups were significant. The results showed that both the fourth- and sixth-grade new-immigrant family children had significantly lower Mandarin and math scores than the nonimmigrant family children did. Significant differences with large effect sizes existed between the fourth-grade Mandarin scores for both groups compared to scores from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia. Significant differences also existed for both sixth-grade groups, but the effect size was smaller. Score level was not significantly correlated with school environment but was partially correlated with class adjustment and peer relationships. Furthermore, students with mothers whose parenting style was “slightly authoritarian,” “moderately permissive,” or “highly authoritative” tended to have superior learning performance. Personal factors, particularly self-concept and expectation of success, had a strong effect on learning performance. However, interest value in the subject was not correlated with Mandarin performance for the fourth- or sixth-grade students. Three implications were derived according to the quantitative results. |
