A Systematic Initial Study of Civic Scientific Literacy in China: Cross-National Comparable Results from Scientific Cognition to Sustainable Literacy

Sheng Wu, Yi Zhang and Zheng-Yun Zhuang
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Sheng Wu: School of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Zhejiang University, 4/F, Teaching Bldg. 1138 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China
Yi Zhang: School of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Zhejiang University, 4/F, Teaching Bldg. 1138 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, Zhejiang, China
Zheng-Yun Zhuang: Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, 5/F, Civil Engr. Bldg. 1415 Jiangong Road, Sanmin Dist., Kaohsiung 80778, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-26

Abstract: Civic scientific literacy (CSL) is an important factor for the development of any country, and this is especially true for a country which is under development and at the same time pursues sustainability. In this article, we conduct the firstly systematic study of CSL in China based on survey data in 2013. Under the multi-dimension CSL framework and by using item response theory, we assess the CSL level in China, which can be fairly compared with that in U.S. and Europe (US-EU). The comparable survey results provided a number of implicational findings: for example, the status of CSL of China in 2013 would have ranked as middling and poor compared to the CSL results for the various US-EU countries in 1995 and 2005, respectively. Some group-based analyses were also conducted to show how people’s attitudes to the environment and socio-environmental behaviours correlate with the CSL-qualified rate in China. The empirical results provided by this study not only can serve as references for improving CSL in China or other emerging countries that also address the sustainability issues during development, but could also serve as indicators for future studies (e.g., in causational modelling).

Keywords: civic scientific literacy (CSL); sustainable literacy; item response theory (IRT); item selection; cross-national and in-country comparisons; socio-environment investigations and data analytics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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