On The Problems And Reflections In Scientific Education Based On The University Students’ Scientific Literacy Survey

Civic scientific literacy has become the key element in comprehensive nationalpower competition, ranging from the proposal of strategy of rejuvenating the countrythrough science and education, to decision of building an innovative country.Governments are very keen to enhance the scientific literacy of citizens, to understandcivic scientific literacy change through investigation, evaluation, etc., and constantlyadjust the methods and means of education. Among citizens, the university studentgroup with a higher level of science and technology elite group is the focus.University students are groups with the higher level of scientific literacy in a country,reflecting the effectiveness of a country’s higher education, and affecting thecompetitiveness of a country’s comprehensive national power.Therefore, there istheoretical and practical significance in measuring the level of scientific literacyamong college student group, finding problems from the results, and proposingsolutions.This paper is divided into four parts, starting from the concept of scientificliteracy, and ending with summary of the theory and practice results in terms ofdomestic and foreign scientific literacy concept, evaluation and promotion strategies.Then through using questionnaires, this paper aims to study into the science literacysituation of postgraduate students majoring in engineering, agriculture and medicinein current China, to analyze higher education problems reflected through the findingsof the research and to propose specific strategies for improvement.The first part introduces the concepts of scientific literacy both at home andabroad which have accepted a certain degree of common recognization. In thehistorical description part of the formation of the concepts, it’s pointed out thatscientific literacy will continue to enrich its connotation; in summary part ofrepresentative survey of scientific literacy achievement in theory and practice, it’spointed out that the survey is an important basis for enhancement of scientific literacy,and the scientific literacy survey among different groups is much more helpful formanifestation and concentration for group attributes, is much more helpful forconnection between theory and practice and is much more helpful for proposingrelevant policies. The second part of the study describes the circumstances of the investigation.The survey selects some first-year postgraduate students from University of Scienceand Technology of China, Anhui Medical University, Anhui Agricultural University,and uses scientific literacy questionnaire for Chinese citizens made in2005by theChina Association for Science. This paper tries to understand the situation in thescientific literacy of this group and describe different categories through data andtables from a survey of basic scientific literacy status of this group, their access tochannels of information, levels of interest for information technology and attitudestoward science and technology.The third part analyses the results of the survey. Comparing the results of theinvestigation at home and abroad, this paper points out the status of universitystudents’ scientific literacy and the existing problems. Analyzing the survey accuracy,this paper analyses the effect of science and education to college students’ scientificliteracy. Through analysis of causes of the differences on scientific literacy successrate between male and female university students, this paper finds out the change ofthe main channels for university students to get science and technology informationand the impact on the scientific literacy. This paper also analyses the function ofuniversities and the government in promoting college students’ interest in science andtechnology information; From the survey for the occupational prestige of science andtechnology through viewpoint of university students, the importance of professionalrecognition is pointed out.The fourth part is based on the results of the analysis, which proposes strategiesfor improving higher education and improving the scientific literacy of this group.This paper uses the way of literature study. On the basis of relevant research results athome and abroad and combined with the findings of this group, this paper proposesstrategies for improving higher education with a certain practical significance andfeasibility.