Effects Of 'the Challenging-Cup Competition' On The Scientific Literacy Of Undergraduate Students In Biological Sciences

Although'the Challenging-Cup Competition'has already developed to be a well-known academic scientific and technological conference of university students, few studies focus on its'effects on the scientific literacy of the competitors. In this study, questionnaire investigation and interview were employed to reseach the effects of'the Challenging-Cup Competition'on the scientific literacy of undergraduate students in biological sciences.The results showed that'the Challenging-Cup Competition'had promoted the scientific knowledge and technical ability, scientific ability and scientific spirit of the great majority of competitors. Meanwhile, the competition was also found to be helpful for most competitors to establish scientific ideology and cultivate the scientific behavior and habit of the great majority of competitors. Basically,'the Challenging-Cup Competition'had promoted the scientific literacy of the great majority of competitors. Moreover, most competitors were basically satisfied with the support for the competition provided by their universities and evaluated positively on the competition and guiding teachers'roles. However, more competitors were not satisfied with the awards provided by their universities and thought that the competition had side-effects on them.Statistically we found that there were no obvious differences on every dimention among the following: gender, grade, status and attendance to the Biological Olimpiad in senior school. But, there were obvious differences in scientific ability dimention and the influence of the guiding teacher dimention among competitors published articles or not. Moreover, we found that there were no obvious differences on every dimention except for the scientific ability dimention through One-Way ANOVA Test on the students with different majors. Through the relationship reseach, we also found that support provided by universities dimention had an obvious positive relationship with scientific literacy, and viewpoints to the competition dimention had an extreme obvious positive relationship with scientific literacy.In conclusion,'the Challenging-Cup Competition'showed positive roles in promoting the scientific literacy of undergraduate students in biological sciences. Meanwhile, to further promote development of'the Challenging-Cup Competition', we suggest that the authorities of universities should make greater efforts in propagating, encouraging and increasing investment in human resources and finance.