英文摘要 |
This study seeks to analyze patterns of gender difference in scientific literacy of Macao's 15- year-old students participating in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 Study, organized by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Unlike a number of high-performing countries or economies in the East Asian region, comparing between PISA 2015 and past cycles of PISA scientific literacy assessment, Macao's females reverted the inferior trend and started to outperform males in scientific literacy performance. This study attempts to investigate Macao's trend of gender difference in scientific literacy from three vantage points: (1) Analyze Macao students' scientific literacy performance from international comparative education perspective; (2) Compare Macao students' scientific literacy performance in PISA 2006 and PISA 2015 from the local education system perspective, focusing on gender difference in the performance of the high-, medium- and low-performing students on the various subscales of scientific literacy; (3) Analyze gender difference in scientific literacy performance in terms of the conceptual change of PISA assessment framework and the operational change of mode of assessment, paying particular attention on the effect of student reading literacy on gender difference in scientific literacy. This study uncovers the reason behind why Macao's females in a decade's time were able to revert the inferior trend and started to outperform males in scientific literacy. This study not only possesses internal research validity, but also external research validity signifying that Macao's findings are also applicable to all other participating countries/economies exhibiting similar trend of gender difference in scientific literacy as Macao's. |