Trends in scientific literacy and research on it in science education of Japan
摘要
The objective of this article is to clarify the concepts of scientific literacy and trends in research on scientific literacy in Japan.Our research is based on the results of the project "Survey for Construction of Scientific, Mathematical, and Technological Literacy" (KITAHARA Kazuo et al., 2005).In a survey of numerous journals on science education published during the period 1970-2005, 836 articles on scientific, mathematical, and technological literacy were found and analyzed in the project.Of these, 159 articles on scientific literacy are analyzed in more depth in this article.First, the historical aspect of research on scientific literacy in Japan during 1970-2005 was analyzed.In Japan, the first article on scientific literacy appeared in 1975.The number of articles on research in this field increased in the 1990s.Two peaks in the numbers of articles on this research were found.The themes of the research were classified into nine categories according to references on scientific literacy.In the mid-1990s, original Japanese research on scientific literacy was actively conducted.However, in general, Japanese research on scientific literacy refers to research in America.Second, each article was analyzed from the standpoint of concepts of scientific literacy.Two concepts of scientific literacy in Japan were found.One type defines literacy in the narrow sense of "reading and writing."The other type does not define literacy clearly, but refers to American theories of scientific literacy.This type particularly investigated projects of the AAAS or NSTA.The former type separated into two sub-types in the 1990s.One sub-type focused on literacy as ability and attitude, while the other sub-type focused on literacy as knowledge and comprehension.These two sub-types of scientific literacy continue to survive in Japan even now.In Japan, research on scientific literacy is mainly individualized.Although there had been some attempts to organize research in cooperative projects,