Beijing Students' Scientific Literacy Survey

With the deepening of the curriculum reform of the fundamental education, more and more attention is paid to cultivate and improve the scientific literacy of students, and also to the survey of the students’ scientific literacy, a combination of different basic disciplines of research conducted on students. However, in the context of macro science popularization and dissemination, the scientific literacy of high school students, of the adult and of different gender, grade, and people from different regions are still to be investigated. Therefore, this study has remarkable theoretical and practical research significance.In this study, the scientific literacy of students includes three parts:the basic scientific literacy, understanding of the nature of science and scientific capacity. On the basis of Scientific Literacy Survey of Chinese citizens, scholars’ study the nature of science, PISA (2006), the content of science literacy of students was defined, and an index system and questionnaire was designed. Scientific literacy of high school students’ in Haidian, Xicheng, Chaoyang, and Tongzhou District was investigated. The characteristics of the students’ basic scientific literacy, the understanding of the nature of science, scientific capacity were studied. Similarities and difference of students in different genders, grades and regions were also investigated. A comparison between scientific literacy of middle school students and that of Chinese citizens was conducted. The main conclusions are listed as follows:(1) Level of scientific literacy of middle school students as a whole is relatively higher, basic scientific literacy of students, the understanding of the nature of science, scientific capacity is relatively good, and a positive correlation was found between these three.(2) Boys’scientific literacy to be significantly higher than those of girls, especially in basic scientific literacy; boys’understanding of the nature of science is higher than girls, but with no significant difference; there is no difference in terms of scientific capacity.(3) Science literacy of urban students and suburban students in Beijing, did not differ significantly on the whole; on basic scientific literacy, urban students’level was significantly higher than the suburbs; urban areas are higher than suburbs in the understanding of nature of science, but not obviously; science capabilities levels of different areas were almost the same.(4) Middle school students in higher grades were found to have higher levels of scientific literacy, which was shown in scientific knowledge, scientific method, scientific attitude, ability to use knowledge, the use of evidence of ability. And these qualities show a sharp rise before Grade8and smooth down at Grade8, which indicates that8th grade is a critical year; on the understanding of the nature of science, scientific knowledge, scientific method and scientific career, students level first rise with the grade, but in higher grade, the students’ level of understanding declined, some even drop very significantly. On the basis of the qualitative research data, it was found that high school students think more divergently, dialectically and critically, and began to have the ability to reason independently.(5) Citizens have the basic scientific literacy standards with a reference to the China Science and Technology Association; the ratio of Beijing high school students reaching the basic scientific literacy standard is13.91%, higher than3.27%of the citizens’ratio in the2010science survey,3.9%of the citizens with high school or higher education, and13.2%of undergraduate and above.