Effects of learner-centred education on academic achievement: a meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Given the information age, an important educational objective is cultivating innovators who can propose unique ideas. Learner-centred education is a way to achieve this objective; however, what is the current effectiveness of learner-centred education? A meta-analysis was conducted to analyse 72 effect sizes from 42 quantitative studies to determine the effect of learner-centred education on students’ academic achievement across a 10-year period (2010–2020). The overall effect size was 0.5446 (95% CI [0.3754, 0.7138]), which was medium, positive, and significant (P < 0.001). Thus, learner-centred education can significantly improve students’ academic achievement. There were significant differences (all P < 0.05) in the influence of learner-centred education on academic achievement among six independent variables (subject, region, education phase, learning environment, teaching strategies, and autonomous learning form). Future research should focus on the positive impact of learner-centred education and choosing teaching strategies and learning forms to the discipline to promote it.

KEYWORDS:

• Learner-centred education
• academic achievement
• student evaluation
• meta-analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Open Research Fund of College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University provided to Y.D.L., under Grant [jykf21028], the Organization Construction Project of Lishui University provided to Y.D.L., under Grant [DJ202001], and the Teaching Reform Project of Education Department of Zhejiang Province provided to G.H.D., under Grant [jg20180359]. The funding agency had no role in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; and decision to submit the article for publication.

Notes on contributors

Yin-Die Li

Yin-Die Li: data search and curation; funding acquisition; project administration; writing original draft; review & editing draft of the paper; the final draft approval.

Guo-Hua Ding

Guo-Hua Ding formal analysis; figures and table preparation; funding acquisition; writing original draft; review & editing draft of the paper; the final draft approval.

Chi-Ying Zhang

Chi-Ying Zhang data search and curation; the final draft approval.