High dropout rates in secondary Chinese courses: are characters to be blamed?

Figures & data

Table 1. Detailed information about the three groups of respondents.

Group		A	B	C
Current status		continues or plans to continue learning	discontinued learning	temporarily discontinued learning (due to the preference for offline learning)
Number of students (male, female)		7 (2 M, 5 F)	7 (2 M, 5 F)	3 (3 F)
Students who have completed	one semester or less	–	B1, B2, B3, B4, B6, B7	C2
	two semesters	A3, A4	–	–
	more than two semesters	A1, A2, A5, A6, A7	B5	C1, C3
Students who have Chinese as	an elective subject	A1, A2, A3, A4, A5	B1	C1, C2
	an extracurricular activity	A6, A7	B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7	C3

Table 2. Students’ personal motivation for choosing the Chinese language course.

Group	A	B	C
Number of students with interest in Chinese (Asian) culture before taking the class	3 (4)	0 (1)	1 (2)
Number of students with interest in Chinese culture after taking the class	6	1	2

Table 3. Students’ assessment of the characters as represented in the key words they used:

Group	A	B	C
Positive	relaxing, artistic, interesting, exotic, amusing	artistic, adventurous, interesting, fascinating, fun	interesting, entertaining, fun
Neutral	acceptable		memory-training
Negative	difficult, demanding, hard	arduous	arduous