국가 수준의 과학문화 실태 진단을 위한 지표 체제 개발

초록

During the past two decades or so, science (or scientific or scientific & technological) culture has become one of the main themes not only of policy makers but also of science educators. Although, the idea of science culture has been taken as a desirable goal, there is little agreement about what it means and how to measure it. Particularly in Korea, there has been a rapid growth of science culture projects and programs, either by governmental or non-governmental, but with little systemic monitoring and evaluation for its practice. The purpose of this study is, thus, to explore a model of measuring science culture and develop a comprehensive indicator system for it. We reviewed many literatures on definitions of science culture and the surveys for related terms, particularly, of recent national and international surveys (e.g. US Science and Engineering Indicators, Eurobarometer, Japanese Science and Technology Indicators). Based on this review, a model for science culture is proposed and then used to define the Science Culture Indicators (SCI). This model encompasses two dimensions(i.e. individual and social), which are further divided into two aspects (i.e. potential and practice). Each dimension is expected to represent citizen literacy of and national infrastructure of science culture respectively. Each category in this 2 2 matrix is further divided into several sub-categories. The discussion concerning how the model and the indicators can be used to check the states of science culture at social as well as individual levels will be given with some concrete examples, such as indicators particularly related to science education.

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