A Difficult Road of Hardship and Frustration: Experiences of Radio & TV University Dropouts1

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The data obtained through the interviews and questionnaires are mutually supportive, proving that dropouts have experienced great learning difficulties during the course of their study. Three different groups of interviewees (dropouts, teachers and class supervisors) discussed their views of the main reasons students drop out of school. Table 2 shows the analysis of data obtained from the question, “Why do students drop out of school?” Analysis involved the following steps: 1) Interviewees’ answers were analyzed and categorized as related to “learning difficulties” and “time pressure”, which are listed under “key statements of learning difficulties and time pressure” in Table 2; 2) The statements were further broken down into 8 distinct learning obstacles: language base, difficulty of curriculum, difficulty in understanding the lectures, difficulty of assignments, difficulty of examinations, difficulty of teaching materials, curriculum setup and time management; 3) The terms “high”, “medium”, and “low” used to describe the frequency calculation are defined as follows: if ≥66% of the group mentioned a key statement, the frequency is considered “high”; if ≥50% of the group mentioned a key statement, the frequency is considered “medium”, if less than 50% , the frequency is considered “low”.

As seen in Table 2, the statements with the highest frequency in the interviewees’ responses were: difficult courses, poor base, no time for learning, and frequent business trips. There was a high degree of consensus among the interviewees for these factors. This proves that “learning difficulties” and “time conflicts” are the two greatest challenges dropouts experience in the course of learning. Difficulty in learning covers several aspects, such as curriculum setup, difficulty of teaching materials, difficulty of assignments, difficulty of examinations, and the students’ language base. These statements indicate that dropouts are unable to fulfill their assignments in the face of such difficulties, which reveals that the dropouts’ academic background is incompatible with the existing teaching plan and curriculum setup.

Table 2: Analysis of Interview Data for “Why Do Students Drop Out of School?”

Interviewees	Key statements of learning difficulties and time pressure	Type	Frequency
dropouts	The courses are too difficult.	course difficulty	high
	Although having a junior college degree in English, knowledge base is still weak.	language base	low
	Assignments are too difficult, not able to finish the assignments alone.	assignment difficulty	high
	Teachers teach all classes in English. We can’t understand or keep up, so we lose interest.	difficulty in understanding the lectures	mean
	There are too many new words in the teaching materials, can’t understand.	difficulty of teaching materials	high
	No time for assignments because of frequent business trips.	time management	high
	Changing shifts and working overtime interfere with study schedules, infringing on study time.	time management	high
class supervisors	To students with no English programme background, English is too hard.	language base	high
	The students are unable to keep up mainly because their knowledge base is too weak.	language base	high
	English is too specialized and the students think that they can’t keep up with it after they start learning it.	course difficulty	high
	Business trips, overtime, and work transfer all lead to students’ failure to finish assignments.	time management	high
English teachers	The language base is too weak.	language base	high
	The courses are too difficult.	course setup	mean
	The pass rate of examinations is not high.	difficulty of examinations	low
	There are too few specialized conversion courses, and learner support for non-English programmes is too weak.	course setup	high
	The teaching materials are too difficult, the vocabulary is too hard for the students, and the contents are also outdated.	difficulty of teaching materials	mean
	The course contents can’t fully meet the learning needs.	course setup	mean
	Due to frequent business trips, the students cannot guarantee attendance at face-to-face tutorials, which leads to students’ gradually falling behind.	time management	high

3.2 Another factor to consider in regard to the students’ continued studies is social integration between the students and the school, which primarily refers to whether students are able to establish good relationships with teachers and classmates, and adapt to the given learning environment. RTVU students interact with the school mainly through the following channels: teachers, class supervisors, classmates, administrative staff and the online teaching platform. Dropouts’ harmonious relationships with the above-mentioned groups and their satisfaction with their performance will reflect how well they adapt to school life. Analysis of related data compiled from the questionnaires is shown below.

Four of the nine statistical indexes involve dropouts’ relationships with teachers and class supervisors. Figure 8 shows that about half of the dropouts recognized teachers’ encouragement and class supervisors’ concern, which agrees with the statistics for communication frequency between dropouts, teachers and supervisors in Figure 9. This explains that dropouts’ interpersonal communication at school is mostly limited to teachers and class supervisors. Hence, they are satisfied with the management and service awareness of the school. However, dropouts’ other choices show that they cannot adapt to the RTVU study methods. The mixed study methods of the RTVU require that students have the ability to study independently and be familiar with online learning. The statistics show that about 62% of dropouts are not familiar with the concept of independent learning, and 88% of the dropouts rarely study online. The 40% utilization rate for the school’s information technology support is for school record management, not for study usage; this information was obtained from the RTVU’s information technology service center, whose data shows that most of the questions raised by the students related to school record management. Moreover, 87% of the dropouts interact little with classmates, and this absence of relationships exacerbates their loneliness and helplessness to some degree. Therefore, investigation into the dropouts’ social integration indexes has drawn the follow conclusion: most of the dropouts still perceive study concepts in terms of traditional education. To them, “study” is related to face-to-face learning. They have not successfully grasped the concept of distance education, and so cannot adapt to RTVU learning methods. They seldom utilize online learning resources and have a weak sense of belonging to the school. In summary, these internal factors reveal that the dropouts’ level of academic and social integration during their schooling is too low.