Given the relative lack of research on the assessment of primary school students’ attitude towards science in China, this study designed and developed an assessment tool for primary school students’ attitude towards science and used this tool to conduct large-scale assessment and comparison among more than 60 000 fifth-grade students in 277 schools in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. The results show that Chinese primary students generally have a positive attitude towards science, with a small part that need to be improved. Students of different genders have no significant difference on their attitudes towards science. Students with other academic performances in science have substantial differences in their attitudes towards science, and students with higher academic levels have more positive attitudes towards science. Based on the above results, this study puts forward some suggestions to promote the development of students’ attitudes towards science and research and practice of science education.

Identifying and cultivating young talents for science and technology is an important task in the practice of science and technology education. This research explores the two questions of what mode to identify and what are the characteristics of each mode of identification. It sorts out and compares relevant domestic and foreign practice work, and finds that evaluation, competition-screening, and training-screening are three main modes to identify young talents for science, technology and innovation. Each mode has its specific characteristics and change with the development of practice. On this basis, an attempt is made to construct a multi-factor, multi-method, multi-stage and multi-dimensional identification system for young talents for technology and innovation. Practical suggestions are put forward.

Based on the foreign websites survey and existing studies, the science communication education of foreign universities is profiled. The typical practices of some countries (Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, etc.) are deeply studied, and the following suggestions and strategies for science communication education in Chinese universities are also proposed in the paper. Firstly, the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental characteristics of science communication are emphasized. Secondly, both effectiveness and professional demand should be promoted to form a link mechanism between training and employment. Thirdly, theoretical and practical training is emphasized, focusing on the training of multiple abilities. Fourthly, a comprehensive training system including training, activities and degree training should be constructed to ensure the continuity and expansibility of science communication education.

As one of the effective forms of science popularization, large-scale science popularization activities play a positive role in improving citizens’ scientific literacy, creating a good scientific and cultural atmosphere, and promoting innovation and development. Based on the investigation and analysis of literature and the implementation of domestic large-scale science popularization activities, this article gives an in-depth study of the current situation of domestic large-scale science popularization activities. The research status, characteristics, and development trends of large-scale science popularization activities are expounded. Taking Beijing science festival and other activities as research cases, this paper analyzes the problems of large-scale science popularization activities. Based on the above analysis, thoughts and suggestions are given on the planning, organization, implementation and improvement of communication effect of future large-scale science popularization activities.

The education of high-level science popularization professionals serves as the basis for how society embraces science and technologies. Our study aims to empirically present the challenges confronted with the master programs in science popularization in China. We theoretically framed the interaction mechanism between science education and science popularization professionals, and then surveyed the 2013—2019 entering cohorts in five pilot universities. Based on the descriptive statistics, this paper proposes several measures to improve the situation and to guarantee the quality of high-level talents in science popularization. First, science education should be distinguished from science popularization with varied curriculum systems. The direction of science education can be generated in the education or social-science-related departments, which nurtures science teachers for primary and secondary schools; the programs of science popularization, on the other hand, can be developed in colleges or departments of science and engineering, endeavoring to cultivate professionals who distill technical information of a certain field into understandable messages for public consumption. Second, the application-oriented principle should be emphasized in either the curriculum design or the graduation thesis. Third, the departments concerning science popularization may seek collaboration with colleges and universities to build featured scientific centers, which can not only provide students with more internship opportunities, but also make it possible for institutions to publicize their advanced researches.

Science communication is traditionally understood as an issue of communication science or a sociological relationship between scientists and public. It’s rarely understood as a process of knowledge transferring and communication, and studied in the way of epistemology. This paper introduced advanced Bala-Goyal model about knowledge communication network in social epistemology, and applied it to the knowledge communication among scientists-public-reporter, in which public updated their belief according to the evidences received from reporters and scientists. This model will get a solution in the level of epistemology about science communication problems.

Accelerating the training of high-quality and professional science popularization talents is the intrinsic requirement of the high-quality development of science popularization in Shanghai in the new era. Since the “13th Five-Year Plan”, the team construction of science popularization talents in Shanghai has achieved remarkable results, while there also exist outstanding problems such as insufficient talent pool, relatively low quality, lack of high-level talents and unsound mechanism of talent development. During the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan, we should uphold the ability orientation and problem orientation, focus on enhancing the science popularization talents’ professional capability and accelerate the promotion of the basic service capability of science popularization for the new era, to contribute to the high-quality development of science popularization.

Taking university students as research objects, this paper constructs a conceptual model of willingness of continuous participation of science popularization activities including intermediary model. Through investigating and data collection of 24 universities from 3 provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, and Jilin, analyzed by AMOS and SPSS, we found that willingness of continuous participation is directly influenced by content perception, service perception, cognition trust, social atmosphere and satisfaction, among of which that cognitive trust partially mediates the relationship between content perception and satisfaction. Based on the above, this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions: the activies of popularization of science in colleges and universities should make efforts from multiple dimensions; whole process management of science popularization activities should be paid attention to; scientists should be encouraged to join the queue of science popularization by means of system construction in order to improve the content perception level of science popularization activities; a professional team of collega students should be built to enhance the science popularization service ability in colleges and universities.