Title: Cognitive development of Chinese Immigrant Children in the Netherlands- an evaluation of Chinese primary school children in Groningen
July, 2007 Master thesis Department of Education, University of Groningen, internal publication
Author: Yingxiang, W.
Supervisor: dr. P.J. Tellegen
Summary by: drs. K.P.A. Huysman-Boosman
According to the research of OECD (Organization for Economics Co-operation and Development) PISA 2003, immigrant students in most of the OECD countries lag significantly far behind native students in mathematics, reading, science and problem-solving performance (OECD, 2006). However, many studies have shown that among all immigrant groups Chinese immigrants perform the best at school, and sometimes they even perform better than native students.
This study focuses on cognitive development of Chinese immigrant children at primary schools in the Netherlands, and attempts to explore the reasons why children with a Chinese cultural background can attain satisfying achievements in school while many other immigrant groups attain low achievement. Twenty children with a Chinese cultural background (mean age 8.8 yrs), their parents and teachers and 60 immigrant children (divided in two groups, mean age 7.4 and 10.3 yrs) and 30 native Dutch children (mean age 15.6 yrs, pre-university level) participated in this study. The SON-I, a non-verbal test of intelligence, was administered to all children. The children also filled in a questionnaire concerning children’s study, feeling and family environment (based on the LMT Leer Motivatie Test, Miedema & Vos, 2006 and Student Participation and Engagement: Family Educational Culture, Leithwood, Aikten & Jantzi, 2001). The parent questionnaire emphasizes the influence of family and cultural background on the children, including awareness, expectations and home situation. In the teacher’s questionnaire aspects of children’s performance compared to their classmates were included to explore the cultural differences by evaluation of the teacher.
The results of performance on the SON-I show that, although the mean age of the Chinese group is in between those of the two immigrant groups, the Chinese group obtained significantly higher scores than both of the immigrant groups. Moreover, the mean scores of the Chinese group are closer to the native Dutch group than the other two immigrant groups. Their performance however is significantly lower than the older native Dutch group at pre-university level.
The self evaluation of the children showed that the Chinese children have the same level of learning motivation as the group of native Dutch children. The correlation between learning motivation and test performance on the SON-I turned out to be very low, which means that those variables are not related in this sample.
The results of the parent questionnaire show that the Chinese parents put strong demands on their children and have high expectations of their future. The correlation between the answers on this questionnaire and the SON-I test performance are very low and not significant.
The teachers mentioned ‘nice’, ‘sweet’, ‘a little shy’, ‘hard working’ and ‘obedient’ frequently as characteristics of the children. Most of the teachers answered ‘strict parents’ and ‘serious children’ when asked about the influence of Chinese culture on these children. When comparing Chinese children to their classmates the aspect of intelligence is at first rank and the aspect of sociability ranks at the bottom place.
The current study produces some interesting explanations related to the performance of Chinese immigrant children at school. Firstly, Chinese immigrant children have significantly higher IQ than the other immigrant groups. Secondly, the learning motivation of the Chinese immigrant children as a whole was neither higher or lower than the average level of the norm group of native Dutch children. Thirdly, parents of the Chinese immigrant children have extremely high expectations of their children and high parental involvement. Fourthly, teachers value the family background of Chinese immigrant children as good. The Chinese immigrant children are described as intelligent, obedient and motivated students. The author concludes that Chinese immigrant children perform well in school due to good intelligence and Chinese social values which stimulate education.
References
Leithwood, K., Aitken, R. & Jantzi, D. (2nd ed.). (2001). Making Schools Smarter. Student Participation and Engagement: Family Educational Culture. California Corwin Press, INC.
Miedema, P. & Vos, T.D. (2006). LMT Leer Motivatie Test. Amsterdam: Boom test uitgevers.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2006). Where Immigrant Students Succeed – A Comparative Review of Performance and Engagement in PISA 2003. Paris:OECD.