Page 167 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2018 Vol. 44

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166 Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.10, 2018

The mechanism of educational pattern on middle school students’
information worlds: A research based on the comparison of Chinese and
British educational patterns
〇a*
YU Binbin〇
This article aims to explore if and how educational pattern effects students’ informational
characteristics if they were regarded as informational agents. By integrating related theories, this
study assumes that educational pattern may affect students’ informational characteristics directly,
as well as indirectly through their curiosity and critical thinking abilities. Aiming to achieve above
research objectives, 2,973 middle and high school students from both China and Britain (they are
under two different educational patterns), were selected as samples; a questionnaire was involved to
reveal students’ information related characteristics (named Information Worlds of Individuals, IWoI),
curiosity and critical thinking abilities. This research takes Independent-samples t test and Linear
Regression Analysis as the statistical analysis procedure. Empirical evidence related to “direct effect”
shows that: Chinese and British students are not only significantly different on their richness of
IWoI, but also correlating on educational pattern and IWoI significantly. Thus, the variance of IWoI
can be explained by educational pattern effectively. Empirical evidence related to “indirect effect”
shows that: there is significant difference between Chinese and British students’ curiosity, and critical
thinking abilities; besides, educational pattern and curiosity of students are correlated significantly,
as well as educational pattern and critical thinking abilities of students. Thus, the variance of
curiosity can be explained by educational pattern effectively, as well as critical thinking abilities
of students. Moreover, regardless of Chinese samples and British samples, there is a significant
correlation between students’ curiosity and their IWoI, as well as their critical thinking abilities and
IWoI; and curiosity can explain the variance of IWoI effectively, so does critical thinking abilities.
Thus, curiosity and critical thinking abilities of students influence their IWoI significantly. Logically,
we find that, educational pattern can also influence the IWoI indirectly through curiosity and critical
thinking ability. This study enriches LIS related theories which focus on students who are regarded
as informational agents, and also enriches Educational Science related theories which focus on
functions of educational pattern. More questions, such as what other intermediate variables can be
added into the mechanism revealed by present study, still need further exploration.

Tsien tsuen-hsuin and his bibliographical study

〇b**
ZHOU Yujiao〇
Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin is a renowned Chinese-American expert on book history, printing history and

∗ Correspondence should be addressed to YU Binbin, Email:yubinbin77@163.com, ORCID: 0000-0001-6277-2979
∗∗ Correspondence should be addressed to ZHOU Yujiao, Email: zhouyuj9@mail.sysu.edu.cn, ORCID: 0000-0002-8063-3056