Chemical Education Today edited by
Jonathan R. Hill University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242
Undergraduate Chemistry Education in Chinese Universities: Addressing the Challenges of Rapid Growth by Xiaojun Gou College of Biotechnology Industry, Chengdu University, Chengdu, People's Republic of China 610106 by Haishi Cao* Chemistry Department, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, Nebraska 68849 *
[email protected] In China, university-level education in chemistry is one part of a broader educational system that includes basic education, polytechnic education, higher education, and continuing education (1). In the past 30 years, university-level chemistry education in China has been undergoing significant change because of the rapid expansion of the entire university education system. Undergraduate Enrollment Trends since 1990 In 1990, incoming first-year students' enrollment in China's universities was 0.61 million. This number has steadily increased to 5.99 million in 2008 (2) as shown in Figure 1. The average instructor-to-student ratio has remained around 1:18 across all higher education institutions. With rapid enrollment expansion in Chinese universities, the chemistry teaching quality has been rigorously challenged. In response to the greater demand for instructors, many universities have increased the number of faculty and staff, intensified the instructors' teaching skills, and reorganized the average instructor's profiles (3). In 2007, the Quality in Undergraduate Education Project was launched at the College of Biotechnology Industry at Chengdu University. The project requires that all instructors must hold a Ph.D. or an equivalent degree, a change enacted to enhance the quality of teaching. Currently, many students graduating from high school prefer to choose business-related or applied-technology majors such as finance, medicine, and computer science. Because of China's growing economy, jobs in these fields are abundant and high paying. How to attract talented students to chemistry is another serious challenge to the future of China's chemistry education (4). Chemistry Courses for Majors and Nonmajors As a fundamental science, chemistry is offered to students with diverse backgrounds. In China, most students choose a major prior to entering a university. Therefore, the typical university-level chemistry class is taught with a focus that is based on a specific student's major. Thus, Chinese universities typically classify chemistry students as belonging to one of the following groups: nonscience majors, engineering majors, and chemistry-related majors such as chemistry, biology, and medicine (1).
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Figure 1. Trend of first-year students' enrollment in Chinese universities, 1990-2008.
Engineering majors and students with nonscience majors typically take general chemistry, which in China is similar to a general studies or liberal arts class in the United States. During their first year, students majoring in chemistry or a related field typically take inorganic and analytical chemistry instead of general chemistry. Inorganic chemistry curricula typically cover general chemical principles such as thermodynamics, acid-base theory, and oxidation-reduction in more depth than does a general chemistry class in either China or the United States. Students in inorganic chemistry alone receive between 100 and 200 contact hours, which translates to between 6 and 12 credit hours in the United States. Depending upon a chemistry major's particular specialties, he or she may choose to take inorganic, analytical, organic, physical, and biological chemistry courses throughout the four-year university experience. Some Aspects of Chemistry Instruction Lecture-Based and Student-Centered Teaching In a typical Chinese university, lecture-based and studentcentered teaching approaches are the primary teaching methods for chemistry classes. Instructors explain chemistry theories and demonstrate experiments, usually in a daily, 100-min lesson that is divided
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 87 No. 6 June 2010 10.1021/ed1002527 Published on Web 04/16/2010
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into two 50-min sections. Some chemistry classes (e.g., organic chemistry) require an extra practice section in which problemsolving methods are introduced to students. (This is similar to the recitation section in U.S. institutions.) Although chemistry classes are designed as student-centered, students rarely interrupt the instructor's lecture with questions. This is because of a Chinese tradition that the teacher is the ultimate authority in the classroom. Especially with the wide use of computers, computer-assisted instruction (CAI) is becoming predominant in China (5). Many instructors use presentation software to prepare their lectures for chemistry class. Pictures, movies, and three-dimensional displays greatly help students understand chemical structures, bonding patterns, and reactions. These modes of instruction also make an instructor's explanation process much easier in the classroom. After class, there are many discussions and communications between students and instructors via office visits, e-mail, and messages on instructors' Web sites. To improve teaching efficiency and attract students' attention, cartoons and humor are usually used in classroom. For example, the use of humor in university classrooms might improve the efficacy of teaching because students pay closer attention and get more pleasure from the lecture. Humor appropriately used has the potential to humanize the instructional experience, reduce anxiety, and keep people thinking. The Growth of Bilingual Instruction Because Chinese is the only official language in China, university chemistry classes are typically instructed in Chinese. But within the past decade, the introduction of bilingual teaching has notably changed this situation. With the intention of encouraging students to communicate and collaborate with the international community, many classes in Chinese universities are taught in both Chinese and English. Bilingual teaching could take one of three forms in the class: using Chinese as the major teaching language and introducing important concepts to students in English; using Chinese half of the time and English half of the time as the teaching language; and using English as the only teaching language. On the basis of the data from “Bilingual Teaching Symposium in China University, 200400 , there are 164 courses (not just chemistry courses) using some form of bilingual teaching in Zhejiang University (6). The Importance of the Laboratory Experience Chemistry laboratory experiences are another important part of chemistry education in China. In fact, every chemistry course, including general chemistry, includes both a lecture and laboratory aspect. Although the laboratory experiments are highly structured and carefully designed, the laboratory skills of the students are highly emphasized in the final grades they receive in their chemistry courses. Generally, the success of a student in the laboratory is an important criterion by which chemistry majors are evaluated. Compared to most U.S. chemistry students, Chinese students spend more time in the laboratory. For example, in China, a chemistry experiment is usually designed to last 3.5 h; in the United States, most experiments last about 2.5 h (1).. The intense laboratory exposure greatly helps Chinese students enhance their experimental skills. However, the overemphasis of these practical skills may cause a serious negative effect; students may think chemistry is a more technologyoriented science and omit in-depth knowledge of chemical theories. 576
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In the past 30 years, contributions from the Chinese government have improved chemistry laboratory teaching conditions in most Chinese universities. For example, in 2006, RMB 22.6 billion (USD 3.2 billion) was invested for purchasing teaching equipment and instrumentation for use in Chinese universities (2). “We can provide enough advanced instruments for all of our students in chemistry classes”, says Yan Jun, a professor at Chengdu University's College of Biotechnology Industry (7). Characteristics of Chinese Chemistry Textbooks Textbooks play a vital role in chemistry education. As you would expect, chemistry textbooks are written in Chinese. These books are comprehensive, well organized, and focus on the introduction of theories and problem-solving methods; they also include a significant amount of chemical history and technology. In format and content, Chinese and U.S. textbooks differ significantly. Chinese university-level chemistry textbooks generally are published with a soft cover, have black-and-white print, are less thick (up to 300 pages), and are considerably lower in price (8). General Chemistry (Ren Liping) is an example of the type of chemistry textbook used by a general chemistry class for students who are nonmajors. Published by High Education Press in 2006, it has 292 pages and a commercial price of approximately RMB 20.00 (USD 3.00). Because Chinese chemistry textbooks are shorter than their U.S. counterparts, most of them are concise and omit many of the details found in U.S. books that explain chemistry theories. Such omissions cause some difficulty when students read the textbook by themselves. Compared to textbooks printed in color, textbooks printed only with black ink are low in cost but also considerably less attractive to students. More importantly, the update period for a textbook in China is generally more than 10 years, resulting in the not-so-rapid dissemination of the latest theories and developments in the field of chemistry. Many textbooks used in the United States include CDs that contain studying tools, self-quizzes, and online information. Such features are rarely found in Chinese chemistry textbooks. In many top Chinese universities, English-edition chemistry textbooks have been introduced to students as reference books. For example, there are 22 English-edition general chemistry textbooks that are available to students in the Jilin University library (9). In contrast to their U.S. counterparts, the chemistry textbooks used in Chinese universities are at a lower level of rigor and need to be improved by long-term and continuous effort. Trends in Research Opportunities for Undergraduates In China, universities have two functions: educating students and conducting research (both basic and applied). Commensurate with the rapid economic development occurring in China, more and more applied research requests of China's universities have arisen. As a result, the university's role as an institution for research has become more important. This, in turn, has dramatically increased the number of research opportunities at universities (10). In the United States, particularly in smaller colleges and universities, many undergraduates in chemistry-related majors have the opportunity to begin undergraduate research during their first or second year of college. Those opportunities include
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joining a faculty member's research group and working through the summer via an internal or external program, such as the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. But in China, undergraduate students rarely have the opportunity to conduct research until their senior year in college. Taking courses occupies most students' time in the first three years. In their senior year, students with chemistry-related majors are required to complete their senior thesis and defend it for graduation. This requirement means students work full-time in a research laboratory at least for one semester. Cultivating excellent chemists with creative ability is one of the goals of chemistry education in China (11). To achieve this goal, enough research opportunities must be provided to students in addition to high-quality courses and laboratory experiences. Recently, a trend to encourage undergraduate students to get involved in a research project as early as possible has begun to emerge (4). Conclusion Chemical education at the university level in China has made significant achievements in the past 30 years. The reform of chemical education in China has obviously lessened the gap in education level between China and developed countries such as the United States; such reforms will continue to improve chemical education in China in the future. However, chemical education in China also continues to face many problems related to China's economic growth and the increased demands placed on the nation's educational institutions. The success of chemical education in China is highly dependent on the continued growth and success of China's economic development. And, conversely, the continued growth and success of China's economic development depends, at least in part, on continued improvements in the practices of chemistry education in its universities.
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Acknowledgment We thank Michael D. Mosher for his helpful discussions, suggestions, and manuscript editing. Literature Cited 1. Hua, T.; Han, J.; Chen, Z.; Zhang, J.; Hu, M.; Wang, Y. Chemical Education in China. In Chemical Education in Asia Pacific; published jointly by The Federation of Asian Chemical Societies and The Chemical Society of Japan: Hiroshima, Japan, 1997; http://www. t.soka.ac.jp/chem/CEAP/China.html (accessed Apr 2010). 2. Statistical data from the Web Site of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. http://www.moe.gov.cn (accessed Apr 2010). 3. Gu, F.; Zhu, L.; Li, Q. Increasing Undergraduate Teaching Quality for Massification of China's Higher Education. Data of Culture and Education (in Chinese) 2007, 4, 7-9. 4. Jia, H. Chemical Education in Need of Reform. Chem. World 2008, July. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2008/July/21070801. asp (accessed Apr 2010). 5. Wu, X.; Shi, Z. The Instruction of Computer-Aided Chemistry Experiments. Journal of Hainan Normal University (in Chinese) 2003, 2, 106-107. 6. Wang, W.; Jiang, X.; Shi, S. Practice and Thinking of Bilingual Teaching. Journal of Changzhou Institute of Technology (in Chinese) 2005, 18, 63-66. 7. Yan, J. Chengdu University College of Biotechnology Industry, Chengdu, China. Private communication, 2009. 8. Peng, P.; Matkins, J. J. A Comparative Study of Chemistry Education in China and the United States. Virginia J. Sci. Educ. 2006, 1, 52–64. 9. Statistical data from the library of Jilin University in China, 2008. 10. Ma, L. Chemistry Education in China. Nachr. Chem. 2005, 53, 622–627. 11. Shangdong University Institute of Higher Education Web site. http:// gjs.wh.sdu.edu.cn/ShowClass2.asp?ClassID=19 (accessed Apr 2010).
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