A Study On The Development And The Talents Cultivation Effect Of The College Level Science And Technology Contests In China

After reform and opening up,the college level science and technology contests gradually become important extracurricular activities.They have large number of participants,attract increasing public attention,and are accepted as an important way for cultivating talents.In order to make a further understanding of them,this dissertation provided a general illustration of the development of the college level science and technology contests in China,and investigated their effect and mechanism of talents cultivation.Based on analyzing relevant materials,the development of the college level science and technology contests in China was divided into three stages,namely the introduction stage,the slowly developing stage,and the rapidly developing stage.After examining these developmental stages,the main features of each stage and the important factors that affect the history of these contests,including external factors like social context and policies,and internal factors like the innovativeness and automatic diffusion of contests,were revealed.According to the developmental course and the content of contests,this dissertation divided all 155 contests into 4 categories,namely knowledge test,inquiry of science and technology,product design,and vocational skills test,and analyzed their effect of talents cultivation.The content of contests belong to category "knowledge test" match with the content of relevant undergraduate course.Therefore they can evaluate and reinforce participants' mastery of the content of relevant undergraduate course.The various and deep content of contests belong to category"inquiry of science and technology" provides "play grounds" for participants to develop innovative thinking ability.The content of contests belong to category"product design" directly relate to sponsors' products.They can often represent new technologies and problems of industries,and provide opportunities for practical training.The contests belong to category "vocational skills test" are based on national occupational standards,and simulate different kinds of work situations in the industrial sector and the service sector.They can help the participants to develop professional skills,and to get familiar with the occupational standards.Furthermore,all four kinds of contests can advance the reform of the patterns of talents cultivation by providing universities with feedback information of teaching achievements.Although the form of contests questions and the effect of talents cultivation vary,all four kinds of contests have similar mechanism of talents cultivation.The documents of organization and rules showed that contests were essentially student evaluations,and involved many kinds of organizations.There are two interorganizational paths in which information flow through contests.On one hand,information of educational objectives flow from the sponsors and the organizers to the participants.These organizers could use this information to influence colleges and students.On the other hand,information of teaching achievements flow from the participants to the sponsors and the organizers.In addition,contests belong to "product design" and "vocational skills test" have special organization systems."Product design" contests have a common system including contests questions,organization rules and technologies to ensure that sponsors can make 3 types of profit with its education activity.This system can prompt interactions of enterprises and college students.It is a promising sample of school-enterprise cooperation.The feature of the contests as "vocational skills test" is cooperation framework among government,enterprises and students,which is driven by interest.This framework is also a good model of cooperative education program involving government,enterprises and colleges.