Behind the Silence of the Professional Classroom in Universities: Formation of Cognition-Practice Separation among University Students—A Grounded Theory Study in China

Fenghua Xu, Yanru Yang, Junyuan Chen () and A-Xing Zhu ()
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Fenghua Xu: School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Yanru Yang: School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Junyuan Chen: School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
A-Xing Zhu: Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-23

Abstract: Classroom silence is a negative form of classroom performance that is particularly prominent in the Chinese learner population. Existing research has mainly explored the silence phenomenon among Chinese university students in two types of learning contexts: overseas university classrooms and foreign language classrooms at local universities, without focusing on the Chinese undergraduates’ reticence in courses mediated by native language at domestic universities. However, the last type is the most common habitat for Chinese university students’ learning in higher education. Therefore, a sample of Chinese undergraduates majoring in education (n = 394) was recruited to determine the mechanisms of silence formation in professional classrooms. This study was based on grounded theory and in-depth interviews, and the recorded material was processed using NVivo 12. After a series of steps including open coding, axial coding, selective coding, and theoretical saturation testing, the core feature of the phenomenon of silence in professional classrooms of Chinese university students majoring in education was found to be the separation of students’ cognition and speaking practice. Then, a theoretical model of the formation and development of the phenomenon of classroom silence in professional classrooms of these undergraduates was constructed. The study showed that these university students had professional perceptions of classroom silence and displayed strong opposition to it, but they continued to maintain silent classroom behavior under the combined influence of individual characteristics, classroom experience, and learning adjustment. Following this, implications for existing research and suggestions for future practice are discussed.

Keywords: classroom silence; professional courses; Chinese university students; separation of cognition and practice; grounded theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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