HKIER

Abstract

The general performance of Hong Kong students in scientific literacy in PISA 2000 has been reported in a previous article. With reference to the released items, this article focuses on a more elaborate analysis of Hong Kong’s performance in comparison with that of OECD countries. Hong Kong students were relatively good in “using scientific knowledge” and “drawing conclusions,” satisfactory in “evaluating evidence” and “communicating explanations and conclusions,” but rather weak in “recognizing scientific questions.” These results suggest that Hong Kong students possess adequate scientific knowledge and are able to apply it in everyday life contexts, but lack a good understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. To account for the relatively poor performance of Hong Kong students on certain items, it is proposed that these items made a high demand on reading skills while the students were used to follow detailed laboratory instruction and had little opportunities to develop their reading and communication skills in science lessons.

摘要

N.A.