Effective Classroom Pedagogy and Beyond for Promoting Scientific Literacy: Is There an East Asian Model?

Abstract

East Asian countries/regions including Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Japan, and Korea are often the strong performers in PISA’s assessment of scientific literacy. This study seeks to explore if there is a “pattern” that characterizes these East Asian countries/regions in terms of their scientific literacy performance, attitudes, and pedagogy. Based on the secondary analysis of the PISA 2006 data using HLM, we found some commonalities and differences between these top East Asian regions and the equally strong-performing Western countries. The East Asian students are relatively better in science contents, while the Western students are better in understanding the process and nature of science. East Asian students are lower in self-concept in face of science tasks, but they do enjoy science learning as their Western counterparts. East Asian science teaching tends to be more traditional: fewer hands-on activities, less interaction, and less emphasis on the application of science. Interactive teaching, however, seems not benefiting the East Asian students as it did for the Western students: the more interactive the lessons, the poorer the students performed within a region, particularly for the Japanese and Korean students. Common to the East Asian and Western regions are that student performance and enjoyment get enhanced when there is more application of science in class and more outside classroom science activities. But investigation is negative to both performance and attitudes for all countries/regions. These East Asian educational characteristics are further discussed in connection with the Confucian Heritage Culture.