Open-Mindedness: Report on the Study of Social and Emotional Skills of Chinese Adolescents (IV)

Abstract

As one of the five dimensions of social and emotional ability, open-mindedness is derived from the openness factor of the "Big Five Personality", which describes one’s willingness to try and accept novel experiences. People with a high level of open-mindedness are more creative and artistic, while those with low level of openness are more obedient to tradition and pragmatic, but lack of innovation. According to the OECD research framework, open-mindedness includes tolerance, curiosity and creativity. This study is based on data collected from 10-year-old and 15-year-old students in Suzhou city participating in the OECD social and emotional ability assessment. It uses descriptive statistics, difference testing and regression analysis to present the performance of Suzhou students’ open-mindedness. This allows the study to provide reference for the accurate assessment of teenagers' social and emotional abilities, in addition to further developing the quality of education in China. The study presents data results from the following three parts: the first part presents the overall score of open-mindedness, the correlation between open-mindedness and other sub-abilities, and the age difference of open-mindedness (comparison between 10 and 15 years old group), gender difference, urban-rural difference, and the difference between general high and vocational high; the second part presents the factors influencing open-mindedness through regression analysis, including background variables, individual factors, family upbringing, teacher factors, and school factors; the third part presents the effects of tolerance, curiosity and creativity on academic achievement (Chinese, math, art), educational expectation, global consciousness, closeness to family, closeness to others, health, life happiness, life satisfaction, test anxiety and other life outcome variables of 10 and 15 year old students through regression analysis.

Keywords: China, Education, Non-Cognitive Ability, Social and Emotional Skills, Adolescents