| ObjectiveChinese Medicine and Modern Science belong to two different modes of thinking systems. The philosophy of recognizing life and health from the view point of Chinese Medicine, and the drug or non-drug treatment selected by Chinese Medicine, as well as the comprehensive efficacy achieved by Chinese Medicine is much different from that of Western Medicine. It is an arduous historical task to illustrate the rich connotation of Chinese Medicine, and further to promote the process of modernization and internationalization of Chinese Medicine by the means of modern science and technology. As the main body of the Chinese Medicine practice, Chinese Medicine practitioners, on the one hand, should inherit the Chinese Medicine theories and experience which has effectively guided the clinical practice for thousands of years; on the other hand, they should also nourish the basic modern scientific literacy so as to enable the traditional experience and modern science communicate with each other, thus to achieve a breakthrough in the explanation of the scientific connotation of Chinese Medicine. Therefore this paper dedicates to make a thorough research from the subjects of Chinese Medicine practice, through conducting a systematic study toward the modern scientific literacy of various types of Chinese Medicine practitioners, to collect valuable research data, in order to escalate the level of Chinese Medicine modernization.To carry out the research of Chinese Medicine practitioners’scientific literacy contains many levels of significance. On one hand, it can provide new occupational evaluation cases and pragmatically operational examples for scientific literary research; on the other hand, it can get a glimpse of the degree of Chinese Medicine practitioners’proficiency of modern science, and find out the gaps among the concepts of modernization, internationalization and science, as well as the method to fill the gaps; besides, the results from the research can serve as references in the exploration for cultivating qualified Chinese Medicine personnel and further educations as well.Content and MethodThe content of the thesis are composed of four parts:Firstly, based on the foundation of absorbing the previous research on scientific literacy both domestic and abroad, especially the basic theory in J. Miller’s system, a multi-dimensional evaluation system reflecting the Chinese Medicine practitioners’scientific literacy can be generated, later a program of surveys capable of reflecting the occupational characteristics of Chinese Medicine practitioners can be designed. Secondly, a sample of no less than1000personnel chosen from6categories including physicians, pharmacists, nurses, teachers, technicians, and "others" of Chinese Medicine practitioners in Guangdong Province, as well as a control sample of no less than200personnel chosen form other non-Chinese Medicine occupations will be selected to carry out the real survey and evaluation. Thirdly, to deal with the pervasive defect of lacking grade and weight among various dimensional indexes in current scientific literary research, this research is expected to introduce the corresponding fuzzy judgment means in technical economics, to establish mathematical models of various scientific literacy dimensional weight indexes toward the occupational characteristics of Chinese Medicine, and further to quantify and evaluate those weight indexes. Finally, screening statistics and analysis will be conducted for the data obtained from the evaluation, the disparity between the scientific literacy of Chinese Medicine practitioners and control personnel, as well as the structural differences among Chinese Medicine practitioners’scientific literacy will be discussed. The discussion will not only analyze the difference from an overall view, but also from the various dimensions, thus to obtain the result with the reference value.To illustrate the operability of scientific literacy, this research will explain it from two dimensions including the content and structure as well as the scientific field of scientific literacy, which requires the methodology of conceptual modeling, through conceptual models to construct the evaluation program for scientific literacy of Chinese Medicine practitioners. Random sampling methods will be applied to both the Chinese Medicine practitioners group and non-Chinese Medicine control group in the samples. Centralized questionnaire and time-limited questionnaire methods will be applied during the data collecting process. Multi-dimensional system will be applied for evaluation indexes. To obtain the various dimensional quantity value of weight, improved Fuzzy-AHP method will be applied. The design of questionnaire will be centered on the evaluation system, reliability analysis and validity analysis will be deployed to correct the questionnaire. The method of mathematical statistics will be used to process the evaluation data which will also take the chi-square tests and analysis, and further to achieve a comprehensive evaluation through establishing mathematical models.ResultsThe general situation judging form the scientific literacy assessment presents that the overall scores of Chinese Medicine practitioners and control group are66.513and66.157respectively, which shows that Chinese Medicine practitioners’score is slightly higher than that of the control group. The assessment of various ages illustrates that scientific literacy in the age group of18-20is at the bottom both in Chinese Medicine group and control group, whereas the peak is in the age group of41-50for Chinese Medicine group, and51-60for control group. The assessment of various occupational groups illustrates that the categories of "others"(including Chinese Medicine management personnel, Chinese Medicine company personnel, and pharmaceutical representatives, etc.) and physicians get the highest score in comprehensive scientific literacy,66.23and62.65respectively. The categories of teacher, pharmacist, technicians, and nurses rank in third, fourth, fifth, sixth respectively.The overall assessment of various dimensions illustrates that Chinese Medicine practitioners and control groups in five dimensions get the scientific literacy scores of73.03and69.95,68.59and70.53,67.50and67.23,51.13and49.23,62.59and62.49. On the four dimensions of Scientific Terminology, Social Functions of Science and Technology, History of Scientific and Technological, Side Effects of Science and Technology, Chinese Medicine practitioners obtain higher scores than control group; whereas on the dimension of Scientific Ideology, control group gains higher score. Meanwhile, the evaluation data of the various dimensions in different ages, educational backgrounds, as well as professional skills and functions is also obtained.Judging from the Chinese Medicine practitioners’cognition of various dimensions, the highest level of cognition is in Scientific Terminology (73.03%), and the lowest level is in History of Science and Technology (51.13%); whereas in the dimension of Scientific Ideology, Social Functions of Science and Technology, History of Science and Technology, Side Effects of Science and Technology, the disparity is rather small, no more than10%. There is different degree of disparity among various occupational personnel on various dimensions, among which the biggest disparity appears in the dimension of Scientific Terminology between physicians and technicians; the former surpasses the latter by43.88. Judging from the fluctuations of scores on various dimensions, the occupation of teachers is the most stable one whose disparity among5dimensions is the smallest; the occupation of technicians is the least stable one which shows a sharp score difference of54.55between Scientific Terminology and Social Functions of Science and Technology. Meanwhile, specific evaluation data of various ages, educational backgrounds, professional skills and functions on various dimensions are also obtained.The specific evaluation results of Chinese Medicine practitioners on various dimensions shows that the accuracy higher than75%are7during the assessment of Chinese Medicine practitioners toward10indexes on the dimension of Scientific Terminology; accuracy higher than65%are6toward10indexes on the dimension of Scientific Ideology; toward the17indexes on the dimension of Social Functions of Science and Technology, accuracy higher than60%are11; whereas toward the13indexes on the dimension of History of Science and Technology, the accuracy higher than60%are only4which accounts merely30.76%of all the questions; toward the10indexes on the dimension of Side Effects of Science and Technology, accuracy higher than60%are7. Besides, a large quantity of data from the differential analysis between Chinese Medicine group and control group toward questions on independent indexes is also obtained.ConclusionFirstly, the evaluation results of this research states that on the overall view, the scientific literacy of Chinese Medicine practitioners’ parallels with that of control group, which indicates that the scientific literacy of Chinese Medicine practitioners can keep pace with the development of modern society. The evaluation results also illustrates that on the5dimensions of scientific literacy, Chinese Medicine practitioners’ scores on the dimension of Scientific Terminology, Social Functions of Science and Technology, History of Science and Technology, Side Effects of Science and Technology are slightly higher than those of control group’s, which indicates that the distance between the subject of Chinese Medicine and modern science is not so irresolvable, in another word, judging from the view of Chinese Medicine practitioners, the saying that "Chinese Medicine is in lack of science" is venerable without any proofs.Secondly, from the Chinese Medicine practitioners’point of view, the modernization of Chinese Medicine must comply with the intrinsic characteristics and laws of Chinese Medicine, rather than to simplify it into a model of the "Chinese Medicine+Modern Science". After the assessment of Chinese Medicine practitioners on the5dimensions, this research can illustrate that the renaissance of Chinese Medicine can not focus on the scientific paradigm of reductionism, but must conduct according to the intrinsic characteristic of Chinese Medicine. Refusing to return to the Chinese Medicine classics, avoiding the Chinese Medicine practical experience, or straightly applying modern science to expound the concept of Chinese Medicine can only achieve a "mere copycat" effect.Thirdly, in order to promote the full range of Chinese Medicine to get on the international stage, it is urgent to further improve the Chinese Medicine practitioners’ scientific literacy. Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor, Shen Nong’s Herbal Classic, Treatise on Exogenous Febrile Disease, representing the classic Chinese Medicine system of theories, which was all formulated in ancient times, under the vehement impact of western medicine, they were gradually expelled and marginalized. Scientific literacy is structured under the norms of modern science, so it shares the commensuration with Western Medicine. The internalization of Chinese Medicine depends on Chinese Medicine practitioners’international communication capability which is mainly reflected by Chinese Medicine practitioners’scientific literacy. The precondition is not valid without Chinese Medicine practitioners’ability to express and communicate in modern science terms.Finally, the cultivation of Chinese Medicine personnel should keep advance with the times, and pay attention to compensate for the lack of scientific literacy in order to nourish a large number of Chinese Medicine practitioners not only inherit the ancient and profound Chinese Medicine theories, but also have high level of scientific literacy. The evaluation results of this research shows that Chinese Medicine practitioners enjoys a high level in many aspects, but also have some defects and deficiencies in some areas, which provides certain reference for the content of Chinese Medicine institutions’curriculum reform and further education. In particular, the evaluation results of this research indicates that the Chinese Medicine practitioners’overall literacy of science and technology history is rather low, however, the quintessence for realization of Chinese Medicine’s modernization lies on the research of Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine’s medical system under separate cultural backgrounds. Therefore, to make great efforts to strengthen the education of scientific and technological history is an urgent task facing the Chinese Medicine personnel’s training. |
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