Research On The Development Level Of “Chemical Literacy Related To Life” Of Senior High School Students

Senior high school is a critical period for students to form a proper outlook on life, values and world, as well as an important period for them to develop their chemical literacy. Senior high school students’ overall level of chemical literacy is closely related to the attainment of our national chemical education goals for senior high school students. The topic of this paper “Chemical Literacy Related to Life”(CLRL for short) is an integral part of scientific literacy and chemical literacy. It refers to a kind of stable psychological adjustment mechanism that is required for each individual to solve chemical-related life issues. To keep abreast of the current situation as well as the development trend of CLRL of high school students in China, it is of great significance to study the development level of CLRL of high school students.This paper, based on the analysis of previous studies on scientific literacy, chemical literacy and CLRL, explored the status quo of CLRL of 1,425 senior high school students from three schools at different levels in Haikou City and studied the key factors that impact the CLRL of high school students using the CLRL assessment tool(TCLRL) developed by Dr. Song(Wanju Song). From the statistical analysis, the following conclusions were drawn:1. The CLRL general average of senior high school students is 27.05, with the scoring average of 0.42(against the total test score 64) which is below the pass level. More specifically, the scoring averages of these students in terms of identification, interpretation, evaluation, decision-making and action-taking are 0.42, 0.47, 0.43, 0.41 and 0.38 respectively. These students did best in interpretation but worst in action-taking. However, they still have a long way to go to catch up with the CLRL level(general average: 32.98; scoring average: 0.52) of those senior high school students in Beijing;2. The CLRL level of students at provincial key high schools is higher than that of the ones at municipal key high schools, again, the latter of which is higher than that of the students at ordinary high schools. Moreover, the total CLRL scores and the five dimensions including identification, interpretation, evaluation, decision-making and action-taking are significantly different among students from provincial key high schools, municipal key high schools and ordinary high schools;3. Students’ CLRL level will increase with the increase in their grades. More specifically, the total CLRL scores and the identification dimension of high school students at grade two are significantly higher than that of students at grade one, and the CLRL scores and the two dimensions including identification and interpretation are significantly higher than that of students at grade two;4. At senior high school, boys’ CLRL level is higher than that of girls. Specifically, boy students’ total CLRL scores and the two dimensions including identification and interpretation are significantly higher than that of girls;5. The CLRL level of students of science is higher than that of students of liberal arts. The CLRL total score, identification and assessment of students of science are obviously higher than students of liberal arts.6. The CLRL level of students with high family educational level is higher than that of students with low family educational level. The CLRL total score, identification, explanation and assessment of students with high family educational level are obviously higher than that of students with low family educational level.7. Factors that affect the development of CLRL of high school students mainly include: school type, grade, gender, arts and sciences division and educational level of families. The economic level of their families doesn’t affect the development of CLRL.