Why Chinese students are weak in research

Science is to discover the new truths, debate what are the truths and stick on what you believe are truths. Science means to be independent and deep thinking.

The soil of China, i.e. historical, social and political environments, does not cultivate independent souls. We are educated to obey the authority, even for practical reasons. We are eager to make compromises and keep superficial harmoniousness.

Spiritually, we are pragmatic people. We are too willing to adapt to the environment, and find excuses for doing this. One good thing is that this makes Chinese survives for thousands of years. The bad thing is that you find they are distracted from scientific research.

Practically, we are empirical people. The know-how was accumulated by the practices of generations. But no enough theories are built for the explanation.

Fundamentally, Chinese do not grasp enough corner stones that built the western scientific traditions. At least that is not the over-all knowledge among the people. Only a few know the methodologies. Most of the teachers in all levels of schools and even the university professors do not how the methodologies. What they can teach is just know-how. They do not know how to train students to do scientific study.

The Chinese students were trained well in China to know enough background knowledge. But they do not have enough training on how to study one topic systematically and do profound thinking. One symptom is that the Chinese students ask many questions that they can solve in 10 minutes or just think twice. They want to know the answers quickly from the professor. But what they get is just a piece of information. It is better to solve the problems themselves.