The following article critique is based on Jia et al. (2022) article titled Differences in School Performance between Only Children and Non-only Children: Evidence From China. The authors discussed the effect of being the only child on school performance in China. Overall, the research found that only children have better academic performance and expectations towards school, with few exceptions that can vary over the location, gender or age of a student.
The problem statement discussed refers to the effect of being the only child on academic achievements. The research question is whether the “Only child” status affects school performance. Other research questions include ideas of the influence of status on three variables and how differences vary between subgroups, like gender and type of location. It is clearly stated in the research paper, and the hypothesis was explained in the introductory part. The research paper describes variables such as the status of the only child, mathematic performance, physical well-being, and expectations and feelings from school.
The authors state they used a propensity score matching to examine if only child status has an effect on mathematical performance, physical fitness, and school feelings. The research paper used the Chinese National Assessment of Education Quality dataset that was conducted in 2015. The research was quantitative, and propensity score matching is structured by estimating propensity scores and matching all the data scores of participants with each other.
The literature review synthesizes previously carried research, pointing to different topics and methods they used. The main issues are the problem of being an only child, as well the academic achievements results of them. However, the authors point out that most of the research does not show the positive influence of only child status, as well as misses other performance factors such as happiness or physical well-being. The authors also state that research on mental health and learning expectations has been studied by other researchers, pointing to its importance to the learning outcome.
The research used a sample of 91,619 Chinese students in fourth grade, among which 28,631 were only children and 62,988 were children with siblings. The authors stated that 21,445 students were excluded for missing control or independent variable. The reason for the author to choose fourth-grade students was that this period of childhood was crucial in the development of the student. In addition, the authors stated that they are more cognitively developed than younger grades and thus will provide more reliable answers to the question of an only child. However, the author does not mention ethical issues or questions raised with the sampling, like collecting personal data from each student or their consent to use it.
The authors state that the research conducted the mathematical performance and physical fitness test, as well as a Likert-type questionnaire for each sampling school among fourth grades. These were the main instruments for data collection. Counties were chosen according to their GDP, and 12 schools were assigned in each county. There were 30 students in each school randomly selected for the test. The mathematical test was in accordance with the fourth-grade level and was assessed in advance. The physical fitness test included Body Mass Index, Anaerobic Fitness test, and Cardiorespiratory Fitness test. The last school feeling and expectations were collected through students’ responses on their school well-being and learning expectation, as well the learning expectations of parents.
The authors state that they had reviewed the validity and reliability of research method. The validation for each data collection method is mentioned and described. As such, mathematical test had gone under specific examinations and two pilot tests. Physical fitness tests were widely known to ensure its capability, as well as school feeling questionnaire was evaluated properly. However, author fails to mention the basic reliability and validity problems.
The paper discussed several limitations of the paper. The first was that the paper possibly missed other essential variables to assess children’s performance. There are also blanks in studying the moral and ethical approach to students’ achievements. As this study was conducted for fourth grade only, there is a limitation in the variety of sampling for further research. The study is also incapable of long-term studies since the data neither tracks the development of students nor collects longitudinal data. However, the authors do not mention that mathematical achievements do not represent the whole academic performance of a student, which can vary with each child’s capability. Ignoring other achievements that students possess limits their study drastically.
For the analysis and conclusion, the authors made several statements. They found out that only children are better at mathematical performance. However, this group is keen to have health problems like obesity. The research on school expectations gave ambiguous results, pointing out that urban only-child girls are happier than only-child boys. In addition, the status of a rural only-child boy may cause high expectations and pressure on the student. This way, there is evidence that age, gender, ethnicity, region, location, boarding condition, migrant status, kindergarten education, and family structure can affect the performance of only children at school. This way, the only child that is urban or rural, girl or boy, can behave differently in their academic curriculum and provide different results for evaluation. Finally, the Authors suggest further research on rural areas and only-child boys since they have more specified conditions for academic performance.
Reference
Jia, C., Yang, Z., Xin, T., Li, Y., Wang, Y., & Yang, T. (2022). Differences in school performance between only children and non-only children: Evidence from China. Frontiers in psychology, 12(608704), 1-14. Web.