高中生科学素养的性别差异——基于无条件分位数回归的经验研究

Gender Gap in Scientific Literacy of Chinese High School Students:An Empirical Study Based on Unconditional Quantile Regression

科学教育历来受到各国的广泛重视,科学素养研究也成为基础教育研究的焦点之一,其中不乏关于科学素养与性别关系的讨论,但既有文献都侧重于研究性别对科学素养的影响,没有讨论不同能力水平上的性别差异。本文利用无条件分住数回归模型在这方面进行了有益探索。研究发现,高中男生在科学素养总分、科学解释现象和运用科学证据的能力上都显著强于女生,且这种优势在中等能力水平处(50分位)较为明显;在识别科学问题能力上,男女生没有显著性差异,且高能力水平(75分位以上)女生更具有优势。因此,在科学教育中应该渗透性别发展均衡的理念,注重通过干预非认知因素(科学价值观和科学兴趣等)提升女生的科学素养。

Science education has attracted great attention in many countries,and Scientific Literacy(SL) has become one of the focuses in basic education research,with one of the debates being the relationship between SL and gender.Previous studies have few discussions on gender gaps in SL at different ability levels.This paper explores the gaps using Unconditional Quantile Regression(UQR).The results show that boys' SL,measured by the overall score of SL,ability of providing scientific explanations of phenomena,and ability of using scientific evidence,are significantly higher than that of girls,and it is especially true at the median ability level(50 quantile).But in terms of the ability of identifying scientific issues,gender difference seems no longer significant,and girls even outpace boys at the top ability level(75 quantile and above).As a result,we believe that China should promote a balanced development in both genders' science education,and girls' SL should be improved through interventions targeting non-cognitive factors such as value of science and science interests.