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From Pressure to Progress- Assessing the Impact of Taiwan's 108 Curriculum on Teen Mental Health
increases their difficulties to prepare for college admissions, causing academic pressure and even
depression.

Figure 5. Do you think there is a big difference between the nine-year curriculum (the one before
the reformation) and the new 108 curriculum?

Figure made by creator

Furthermore, respondents from the Chinese version indicate that the new 108 curriculum
doesn’t significantly lessen the emphasis of examination scores on college admission in Taiwan’s
education—-82.1% of them think that universities and the overall society still highly value test
scores as the only method in education.

Figure 6. Do you think the new 108 curriculum has improved the examination-orientation based
situation that had been implemented before the reformation?

Figure made by creator

To evaluate specific elements of the new curriculum, the team further inquired students’
opinion regarding the e-learning portfolio. From the 191 students that were surveyed, a significant
three-quarters (75%) of the respondents believe that the e-learning portfolio, a new element of the
108 curriculum, had little to no effect on improving student depression trends. Specifically, out of
191, half believe that the change in curriculum had very little effect on mitigating students’
depression frequency while only around 10% of students believed that the portfolio helped the
status quo. The survey then further categorized the factors influencing students stress into three
aspects – examination weight, cram school attendance frequency, and depression rates. Regarding
the reduction of examination weight, only a mere 5% of respondents were confident that the
portfolio adjustment effectively reduced examination weight (Figure 7). Next, when asked about
whether the change in learning systems decreased students’ need and frequency of going to cram
schools, only around 3.2% of the respondents think the e-learning portfolio decreased students’
need for cram schools (Figure 8). Finally, in terms of depression, Figure 9 shows only around 2.6%
of students surveyed believe that the new addition alleviated Taiwanese students’ depression. The
aforementioned survey data unequivocally suggests that while the new curriculum has altered
pedagogical approaches, it has ostensibly failed to address underlying academic stressors and
depression levels among students.

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