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Strengthening Science Education Through Attention to Student Resources: A Conceptualization of Socioscientific Capital
Journal of Research in Science Teaching
Abstract
In this position paper, we introduce the concept of socioscientific capital (SSC) to denote students' resources that unequivocally play a part when students learn about and make decisions regarding socioscientific issues (SSIs). Students use a variety of resources when they engage with SSI. Our conceptualization of SSC expands on current conceptualizations to refer to resources related to both the scientific and the non-scientific aspects of SSI, including internal resources (personal experiences, values, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and skills), external resources (family, friends, communities, and media), and meta-level resources (dominant frames and cultures). Aiming to strengthen SSI education, we argue for taking into account how students' resources impact their SSI-related learning and decision-making. To this end, insight into students' SSC is needed and is imperative for teachers. By bringing together literature about SSI education and literature about students' resources, we provide a conceptual view on students' SSC and describe implications for SSI education.
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... Previously, we introduced the concept of socioscientific capital to refer to students' SSI-related resources (Klaver et al., 2022), inspired by research about science capital (e.g., Archer et al., 2015). Science capital, as introduced in the ASPIRES projects and Enterprising Science project, is seen as a "conceptual device" that collates students' science-related resources (Archer et al., 2014, p. 5). ...
... In our earlier work, we conceptualized the SSI-related resources that play a part in students' interpretation of and learning and decision-making about SSI as socioscientific capital (Klaver et al., 2022). While the concept of science capital refers to science-related resources, socioscientific capital also includes resources related to the other dimensions of SSI (Klaver et al., 2022). ...
... In our earlier work, we conceptualized the SSI-related resources that play a part in students' interpretation of and learning and decision-making about SSI as socioscientific capital (Klaver et al., 2022). While the concept of science capital refers to science-related resources, socioscientific capital also includes resources related to the other dimensions of SSI (Klaver et al., 2022). In addition, while science capital refers to resources that specifically support students' science achievement, engagement, and participation, socioscientific capital refers to those resources that play a part in students' learning and decision-making about SSI. ...
The current study is about students' engagement with socioscientific issues (SSI). We explored the use of sources of knowledge about SSI and attitudes toward SSI among a sample of 1676 Dutch 8- to 16-year-old students. First, we developed a questionnaire that measured students' use of four sources of knowledge about SSI: Social Resources (online media use and talking with parents and friends), In-Class Resources (in-class talk and in-class offline media use), Visit Resources (visiting the zoo or a science museum with parents or school), and Offline Media Resources (engaging with issues or the news via books, magazines, newspapers, or TV). Second, we performed a latent profile analysis to explore students' patterns of use of these sources. This resulted in five profiles: Social Visitors (5.9%), Offline Media Consumers (10.6%), Media Discussers (14.3%), In-Class Users (21.0%), and Non-Users (48.3%). Third, we related these profiles to students' attitudes toward SSI, as measured with the Pupils' Attitudes toward Socioscientific Issues (PASSI) questionnaire. In line with the sources of knowledge profiles, the Non-Users felt and thought most negatively about engagement with SSI, while the Media Discussers showed the most positive attitudes. We believe that our exploration of the profiles adds to the discourse about students' socioscientific capital. Moreover, this study informs teachers about the resources that students may bring into the learning environment and their decision-making about SSI. The study concludes with practical suggestions about stimulating the use of sources of knowledge for certain groups of students and fostering positive attitudes toward engagement with SSI.
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... Tabak and Dubovi (2023) showed that scientific knowledge and trust in science are essential to the ability to include scientific data in reasoning about COVID-19. Moreover, reasoning about immunology-related issues has been shown to involve using knowledge to interpret media reports related to immunology (Klaver et al., 2022;Martin et al., 2000). Yet, while vaccine literacy is an important component of immune literacy, it represents only a small portion of this domain. ...
... As already noted, patients, stakeholders, and the general public need some knowledge of immunology (Mixter et al., 2023). It is therefore also relevant as a socioscientific issue and indeed, educational studies mention vaccination as a classical example of a socioscientific issue (Klaver et al., 2022;Lundström et al., 2012). However, the main conclusion of this scoping review about teaching immunology as a biological field is that research at the secondary school level is insufficient. ...
Immunology, a complex and rapidly evolving biological field, serves dual educational goals: training healthcare professionals and immunologists as well as promoting immune literacy among laypeople. This study conducted a scoping review of the literature to explore different aspects of immunology education, examining various contexts, levels, and content areas, including cognitive and motivational challenges. In addition, analysis covered different teaching strategies and research methodologies.
Eight hundred and seventy-four articles were screened, and 20 articles proceeded to full-text analysis. Notably, the majority of the analysed studies concentrated on undergraduate education, emphasising strategies for teaching immunology, with a heavy reliance on quantitative research methods. Teaching strategies that were influential for improving the knowledge of the students were, for example, using games, using simulations and visualisations, using hands on experiments and self-directed learning.
The content of the reviewed articles primarily revolved around topics related to innate and adaptive immunity, basic immunology, and immune system diseases. There was less emphasis on advanced immunology and on addressing the inherent complexity of the subject and even less on methods to motivate students to engage with immunology.
Practical implications and suggestions for future research are described considering both healthcare practitioner training and immune literacy for laypeople.
... Y también destacamos que los estudios más conocidos de capital científico ni siquiera se han aplicado a estudiantes universitarios (ver Tabla 4). Klaver et al. (2022), que se centra en los recursos disponibles a los estudiantes, "incluidos los recursos internos (experiencias personales, valores, actitudes, creencias, conocimientos y habilidades), recursos externos (familia, amigos, comunidades y medios) y meta-recursos (frames y culturas dominantes)". ...
... Por lo mismo, queda la impresión que la literatura de identidad científica está sobrevalorada. De tal forma, avenidas más promisorias de análisis se sitúan en la validación o legitimación (Black y Hernandez-Martinez 2016, Gonsalves et al. 2021, Klaver et al. 2022. ...
Using life stories of students and graduates of PhD in engineering the research question of this thesis was
‘How they arrive and what experience they live ?’
To answer this question, I investigated the processes, resources, and experiences in the life stories of students and recent graduates using the Varieties of Identity and Legitimation model that we developed in Chapter 2, after which I used thematic analysis to collect data and my findings were that:
(1) There are structural elements in the programs that produce segregation between Chileans and foreigners and reproduce advantages for students who do a doctorate directly from the undergraduate or master's degree, in relation to those who return from a work experience to take a doctorate.
(2) The extraordinary advantages of direct path students often translate into higher levels of validation and status. This finding could also support the effectiveness of recruitment methods in this segment of students.
(3) When supervisors stand out for the element of intellectual affirmation and emotional support, they tend to create an environment conducive to better scientific production and, therefore, to greater validation for their students. While absent supervisors or with busy schedules do not boost the careers of their students.
(4) The presence of abusive supervisors or extreme levels of economic and labor precariousness are precursors of damaged identities.
... It encourages them to question the values embedded in curricula and recognise how habitus-the ingrained dispositions shaped by social experiences-affects cognitive biases and scientific perspectives. Reflexive educators foster critical inquiry, enabling students to challenge dominant paradigms and explore alternative perspectives (Klaver et al., 2023). Reflexivity moves beyond the inclusion of everyday experiences in science lessons; it calls for a deeper interrogation of the power dynamics within classrooms and the broader societal context (Archer et al., 2018a(Archer et al., , 2018b. ...
The Nature of Science (NOS) has long been a central focus in science education, with scholars examining its processes and structures from diverse perspectives. One influential approach builds on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s family resemblance concept, which conceptualises NOS as an interplay between cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional systems. While this framework offers valuable insights into the fluid boundaries between these domains, it overlooks critical aspects such as power dynamics, cultural influences and institutional structures that shape scientific practice. To address these gaps, this paper integrates Wittgenstein’s ideas with Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, particularly his concepts of habitus, field and capital. Bourdieu’s framework complements Wittgenstein’s emphasis on the fluidity and variability of practices by highlighting how cultural norms, power relations and institutional structures influence both the cognitive and social dimensions of science. The philosophical alignment between these perspectives is explored, alongside counterarguments to critiques, demonstrating their compatibility in analysing scientific practices. Building on this synthesis, the paper expands the family resemblance approach to NOS framework, emphasising the dynamic interactions between scientific practices and their broader social contexts. It advocates for a more inclusive and reflexive model of NOS that acknowledges the role of power and cultural influences in shaping scientific knowledge and supports reflexive pedagogy for a more equitable and dynamic science education framework.
... Abbas and Khan, 2023). Second, knowledge gained from internal community sources may have already been successfully implemented in other areas of the community, making it more relatable and easier for the citizen to comprehend and adopt (Klaver et al., 2023). Even if the knowledge is new to the citizen, the easy access to internal sources promotes effective communication, aiding in the understanding and adaptation of this knowledge. ...
... The affordances of resources are important to investigate because of gaps in theoretical and empirical knowledge, which Agarwal and Sengupta-Irving (2019) acknowledged when they identified resources as the least articulated principle in the framework. This gap is also identified in socioscientific issue (SSI) based approaches to science education; while we know students bring rich resources to their learning and attention to those resources is part of effective instruction (NRC, 2000), the roles of those resources in learning and later decision making remains unclear (Klaver et al., 2023). I focus here on students' personal, out-of-school experiences as important resources in learning about science issues with social dimensions (Warren et al., 2001). ...
... Published scholarship demonstrates SSI engagement and decision-making is a complex process guided by a plethora of interacting factors internal and external to those engaged with the SSI (Herman et al., 2021;Klaver et al., 2022). Some scholars have demonstrated that having or acquiring a deeper science content and NOS understanding plays a significant role in peoples' socioscientific engagement. ...
Informed scientific thinking is a vital component of engaging all socioscientific issues (SSI) such as climate change and the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, socioscientific engagement may be influenced by sociocultural factors and mis/disinformation efforts to the widespread detriment of human and environmental well‐being. The purpose of this mixed‐methods study was to determine how 506 post‐secondary life science majors' COVID‐19 related nature science (NOS) views and COVID‐19 vaccine acceptance/support and conspiracy resistance changed through pandemic responsive instruction on COVID‐19 science, viral biology, and vaccines with integrated focus on NOS and mis/disinformation. This investigation also sought to reveal factors (e.g., sociocultural group membership, NOS views) that associated with changes in those students' COVID‐19 vaccine acceptance/support and conspiracy resistance. After experiencing the pandemic responsive instruction, the students' COVID‐19 vaccine acceptance/support and conspiracy resistance and trust in COVID‐19 science and cognizance of its reliable and revisionary character (i.e., NOS) significantly improved from a small to large extent. Through the pandemic responsive instruction, the students' development of NOS views significantly associated with their development of higher levels of vaccine acceptance and conspiracy resistance and increases in students' vaccine conspiracy resistance significantly associated with increases in vaccine acceptance. Changes in students' vaccine acceptance and conspiracy resistance from before to after the pandemic responsive instruction also varied significantly based on sociocultural grouping (e.g., race/ethnicity and political orientation). Despite the promising impact demonstrated by the pandemic responsive instruction, vaccine conspiracy views and resistance appeared to linger among the students who notably were entering fields that deal with viruses, vaccines, and public health. Implications discussed include the importance for helping students to understand NOS relevant to SSI and analyze how sociocultural membership, motivated and identity protective reasoning processes, mis/disinformation, and trust in science influence socioscientific decision‐making.
The low chemical literacy ability of students is the main problem in chemistry learning today. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the guided inquiry learning model with the socio-scientific issues (SSI) approach in improving students' chemical literacy skills. This study uses a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental method and a pretest-posttest control group design to measure the effectiveness of the learning model on salt hydrolysis materials. The research sample was selected using random sampling, with a total of 70 students in grade XI MIPA in one of the high schools. Data collection techniques are carried out through pretest and posttest tests to measure students' chemical literacy skills. Data analysis includes normality tests, homogeneity, and hypothesis tests using parametric statistics. The results of the study show that context-based learning with a guided inquiry model and the SSI approach is effective in improving students' chemical literacy skills. This was shown by a significant improvement in the chemical literacy ability profile in the experimental class compared to the control class, which used a scientific approach. Overall, the percentage of students' chemical literacy abilities increased, with most students being in the good and excellent categories in each topic tested. In addition, students who received learning interventions with SSI-based guided inquiry showed improved higher-order thinking skills and greater awareness of environmental issues. This study has implications that the use of the SSI approach in the guided inquiry model can be an effective alternative learning strategy to improve students' chemical literacy and build their concern for the environment.
This dissertation aims to strengthen socioscientific issues (SSI) education by focusing on the resources available to students. SSI education is a type of science and citizenship education that supports students’ informed and critical engagement with social issues that have scientific or technological dimensions. This dissertation explores students’ SSI-related resources relevant to their engagement with SSI, such as their attitudes and social resources.
SSI education and students’ resources are two separate fields of research that are rarely bridged. In addition, a comprehensive overview of the resources that students bring to learning and decision-making about SSI has not been previously provided. Lida Klaver combines literature on SSI education with studies on students’ resources to introduce the concept of socioscientific capital, emphasizing the importance of considering students’ resources in SSI-based teaching.
To enable researchers to study and account for students’ SSI-related resources, and to help teachers to get to know their students’ resources, this dissertation includes the development and validation of two questionnaires: the Pupils’ Attitudes towards Socioscientific Issues (PASSI) questionnaire and the Use of Sources of Knowledge (USK) questionnaire. These questionnaires were used to get insight into student differences regarding engagement with SSI, resulting in differing patterns of students’ USK that were shown to be related to their attitudes.
The final study builds upon the arguments and findings of the first three studies. This study is an exploration of the effects of SSI-based teaching on students’ attitudes toward SSI, considering socioscientific capital (as indicated by students’ USK profile). The overall discussion of this dissertation focuses on the feasibility of SSI-based teaching and a socioscientific capital approach in the Netherlands. This discussion provides valuable points of departure for the implementation of a socioscientific capital approach in primary and secondary education, keeping in mind the challenges and opportunities that teachers face.
La obra colectiva que hoy se concreta con el título Tender
puentes y caminar juntos: Trayectorias académicas de egresados.
Doctorado en Investigación e Innovación Educativa, FFyL-BUAP forma parte de los resultados de la investigación denominada
“Funciones sociales de la Universidad en el contexto de pospandemia”, registrada en la Vicerrectoría de Investigación y
Estudios de Posgrado de la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (2023-2024)
Socioscientific issues require practical decisions that use knowledge and emotions as inputs for the decision-making process. To examine how these resources influence decision-making, this investigation was conducted from a constructionist epistemological stance, a symbolic interactionism theoretical perspective, and a grounded theory methodology. Twenty-five informants were purposefully selected based on the study's selection criteria. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, transcribed, and analyzed using Hennink and Kaiser's strategies to achieve theoretical saturation. The analysis revealed that: (1) Knowledge of socioscientific issues was associated with emotion-related objects that elicited negative emotional responses from decision-makers; (2) These negative emotions triggered the use of related conceptual and contextual knowledge in generating decision alternatives; (3) Positive emotions motivated decision alternatives toward specific goals; (4) Decision alternatives contained both cognitive and affective components; and (5) Decisions were based on the appraisal of the overall cognitive and affective baggage of these alternatives. The findings underscored the importance of decision-makers enhancing their cognitive and affective resources and incorporating both when making practical decisions to effectively address socioscientific issues, thereby contributing to positive outcomes for individuals, societies, and the global community.
Engagement with socioscientific issues (SSI) is seen as an important citizenship goal of SSI-based science education. In this experimental study, Dutch students (age 8 to 13) participated in lesson series in which they learned about and discussed SSI, such as issues related to the textile industry and wastewater. Attitudes toward SSI indicating engagement were measured among relatively large experimental (n = 236) and control (n = 192) groups prior to and after the intervention. Multilevel analyses showed a positive effect of SSI-based teaching on collective efficacy and no effects on the other seven attitude components. Furthermore, we investigated whether the effects depended on students’ SSI-related resources. Students’ profiles for use of sources of knowledge (USK) moderated the effect of condition on self-efficacy and—depending on analysis type—on personal relevance, positive feelings, and collective efficacy. The positive impact occurred mainly for students with low USK. We discuss implications thereof for SSI education.
Bu araştırmanın temel amacı, okul öncesi öğretmen ve öğretmen adaylarının sosyobilimsel konuların (SBK) öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimlerini incelemektir. Araştırmanın ikincil amacı ise katılımcıların SBK öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimlerinin sınıf seviyesi ve kıdeme göre değişiminin istatistiksel anlamlılığını ortaya çıkarmaktır. Ayrıca okul öncesi öğretmen ve öğretmen adaylarının SBK öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimleri arasındaki farkın anlamlılığı da incelenmiştir. Betimsel tarama modeli aracılığıyla gerçekleştirilen bu araştırmaya 208 okul öncesi öğretmeni ve 173 okul öncesi öğretmen adayı katılmıştır. Tüm katılımcılara SBK öğretimine Yönelik Duyuşsal Eğilim Ölçeği yöneltilmiştir. Katılımcıların bu ölçeğe verdikleri yanıtlardan elde edilen nicel veriler üzerinde normallik testleri, betimsel istatistik analizi, Mann Whitney U ve Kruskal Wallis H testleri gerçekleştirilmiştir. Veri analizleri sonucunda, katılımcıların SBK öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimlerinin yüksek düzeyde olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca okul öncesi öğretmenlerinin SBK öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimleri, öğretmen adaylarınınkine göre daha yüksektir. Detaylı gerçekleştirilen betimsel istatistikler, her iki katılımcı grubunun da SBK içeriğine ilişkin sınırlı bilgilere sahip olduklarını göstermiştir. Son olarak sınıf seviyesi, okul öncesi öğretmen adaylarının SBK öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimlerini anlamlı olarak etkilerken meslekî deneyim ise okul öncesi öğretmenlerinin SBK öğretimine ilişkin duyuşsal eğilimlerini anlamlı olarak etkilememektedir. Ulaşılan sonuçlar, mevcut literatür temelinde tartışılarak öneriler verilmiştir.
This study aimed to develop and validate a scale of parental competency of science-gifted students in South Korea. The parental competency of science-gifted students is constructed in three dimensions (Learner, Fosterer, Scientist) from the literature review. We in-depth-interviewed science-gifted students and parents to discover the competency behavior indicators. To confirm the content validity, 15 experts in Korea conducted a Delphi method. We were determined lifelong learning, information utilization as the sub-elements of learner, partnership, parenting attitude, empathy of fosterer, and science capability, responsibility in science, and career preparation of scientist. As a result, we developed the initial instrument with 45 items. To validate the instrument, we carried out an online survey with 512 parents. Finally, 23 items of the measurement instrument for parental competency underwent development with three dimensions and eight sub-dimensions. This study provides a reliable instrument for parental competency and contributes to its enhancement for science-gifted students.
In dialogue with science education and learning sciences research, in this article we develop a disciplinary‐specific view on youth and community agency for community‐based technology education. Cultivating agency is a central principle in our design and empirical study of the Young People's Race, Power, and Technology Program (YPRPT), a program designed to engage youth in critical inquiry about the technologies impacting their local communities. In this article, drawing from our multiyear partnership with a community‐based youth organization, we examine how agency was supported and constrained as a function of the practices we engaged in as a research team committed to participatory and justice‐centered education. Our findings illustrate ways that the emergence and enactment of agency, at both individual and community levels, works to interrupt, subvert, and creatively “jam” systems of power. We argue that cultivating agency in community‐driven science and technology learning requires an honest reckoning with the deeply entrenched racial and economic oppression in the United States. We contend that it is equally essential to commit to learning from, co‐designing with, and working in solidarity alongside the youth and communities that are most impacted by technologies that mediate our experiences—toward unveiling, resisting, and reimagining their powerful roles in our collective lives.
Sociocultural diversity in classrooms can result in inequality, when discontinuities between school and home make children perform below their abilities. Funds of knowledge/identity theory makes a plea for building on the skills and knowledge that students acquire in their families, communities and peer groups, and that may not be recognised by teachers, when they are from different sociocultural backgrounds to their students. In a collaborative action research project the authors investigated how primary school teachers can use students’ funds of knowledge/identity (FoK/I) in their superdiverse classrooms. Data were collected through pre-structured logbooks, teacher interviews and focus groups. The analyses result in a framework that suggests ways to find students’ FoK, and that categorises FoK/I-related teaching practices along two dimensions: (1) individual students’ resources vs. collective resources; and (2) scope of the teaching activities. The authors also identify sources of FoK/I and discuss the pedagogical competences teachers need to integrate FoK/I into their teaching.
In a pandemic era, it is necessary to equip individuals with the ability to make informed decisions about health issues, especially in relation to viruses and vaccines. In order to achieve this goal, science educators need to explore students’ decisions and reasoning about vaccination. The aim of the study reported in the paper, therefore, is to explore eighth graders' reasoning about vaccination throughout a 4-week implementation of small group and plenary discussion of false claims about vaccinations. The implementation consisted of a five-phase procedure including teacher presentation of false claims and related evidence texts about vaccination, small group discussions, a plenary discussion, and finally, an introduction to valid scientific content about vaccination. The explanations of the representatives from each group during the plenary discussion were video-taped and analyzed by the researchers independently to examine student decisions on each claim. Another data source of this study included student interviews in which the researchers videotaped and analyzed eight interviewees’ responses. The findings revealed that including well-informed students in small group and plenary discussions may have a positive impact on other students’ reasoning. This result indicated the benefit of encouraging students to provide evidence about vaccines during small group and plenary discussions in terms of their reasoning. The implications of this study suggest the necessity of emphasizing on scientific knowledge as well as argumentation for further investigations of students’ reasoning on vaccination.
Students’ argumentation skills are considered a central tool to contribute to scientific controversies in the science classroom. Scientific controversies of social relevance (socioscientific issues; SSI) are subject to multiple viewpoints that are often rooted in diverse disciplines. However, the relationship between issue familiarity and students’ multidisciplinary argumentation is still a matter under discussion. This study: (1) explores whether the selection of a particular issue (animal testing) enables students’ engagement in multidisciplinary argumentation without additional issue familiarisation, i.e., using only their existing knowledge; and (2) clarifies the relationship between increased issue familiarity and students’ multidisciplinary argumentation. One hundred and sixty three ninth and tenth graders participated in this study, of whom one hundred and six took part in a teaching unit to familiarise themselves with the issue of animal testing. The study’s results demonstrate that animal testing constitutes an effective issue to engage students with the complexity of SSI without requiring more than basic familiarity prior to engagement. The results further demonstrate that increased issue familiarity can enhance the overall diversity of discipline-related arguments amongst students; however, not all disciplines were enhanced equally. The findings suggest that more instructional guidance seems to be needed to assist students in broadening their arguments.
This review study synthesises 28 empirical research articles emphasising the learning of morality aspects in the context of addressing socioscientific issues (SSI) in secondary science education. The key interrelated questions we seek to address in this study are how morality is conceptualised in the science classroom in the light of emerging sustainability issues and how it can be developed. We used the Four Component Model of Morality to create a knowledge base for how morality has been conceptualised in the literature on secondary science education and how it can be developed. The findings of this review study show that not all studies have used concrete, explicit conceptualisations of morality and that the role of sense of place and the situatedness of morality have often been neglected. It also emerged that studies focusing on students’ moral character and action-taking were underrepresented. We recommend that further research be carried out on the interrelationships between moral character and enacted moral reasoning. The review also reveals a gap between morality research and teaching. Based on the outcomes of this review, we propose a set of recommendations aimed at guiding and encouraging students’ morality within secondary science education.
In this study, Q methodology was used to explore science teachers’ socioscientific decision-making. In Q methodology, participants are presented with a number of statements about a topic and are asked to sort these statements according to a guideline. The methodology allows researchers identify more information about participants’ decision-making by putting them at the center of analysis. The participants of the study consisted of 8 science teachers (5 females, 3 males), who were asked to sort a number of 22 statements about socioscientific issues; and as they completed their sorting, they were interviewed. Findings revealed two distinct perspectives that science teachers had about socioscientific decision-making: (i) traditional and (ii) universal. Even though all science teachers were aware of the value and importance of environment and human health, their perspectives differed in the subject areas of science, policy and sociology/culture, and in the intellectual baggage of experience and value.
Background: Assets-based research is becoming more widespread and may be particularly important as we continue to work towards equity within engineering education. It is important to understand how assets-based theoretical frameworks have been taken up in STEM education research in recent years. Purpose: We examine how funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992), an assets-based framework, is applied in STEM education and can be used to advance engineering education research. Funds of knowledge was created to help K–12 teachers adapt their classroom teaching and curriculum to better serve their students. Scope/Method: Scoping review procedures resulted in 42 qualifying studies. We analyzed characteristics of the qualifying studies and qualitatively coded the use of the funds of knowledge framework. Codes included the following categories: identification, curriculum, teaching, and learning. Conclusions: Funds of knowledge is prevalent in the STEM education literature. Studies tended to be qualitative, with observations and interviews as the most common research methods. Research often took place both in the classroom and at after-school programs. Most studies centered on K–12 students and teachers, often focusing on how to improve teaching, curriculum and lesson plans, or the connection between the community and schools. Funds of knowledge may assist curriculum change in K–16 if used more widely in engineering education, which could have important implications for equity in engineering. Gaps and opportunities in the application of funds of knowledge in STEM education include assessing the efficacy of funds of knowledge interventions on students by connecting to student learning outcomes or theories of identity, self-efficacy, and belonging.
The focus of this paper is on the Science-Technology-Society (STS) initiative, developed in the 1980s, subsequently expanded to STSE to acknowledge environmental concerns and later expanded further to include the provision of opportunities for students to confront socioscientific issues (SSI), often of a controversial and certainly of a topical nature.
The article focuses on the key issues that need to be addressed in building such a curriculum, including selection of appropriate SSI, ensuring access to the necessary scientific knowledge, developing the necessary media literacy to access other material relevant to the issues, fostering the political awareness needed for critical interpretation of issues and building the ethical understanding needed to address the complex issues raised by controversial SSI. Teachers introducing SSI into the curriculum need to be sensitive to the profound emotions that can be generated among students encountering controversial issues for the first time. An understanding of emotional intelligence , emotional literacy and emotional competence is essential, and building students’ capacities in these matters is crucial to helping them deal with potentially stressful and disconcerting learning situations that will inevitably arise.
I argue that a curriculum to build students’ capacity for sociopolitical action on SSI can be developed through a 4-stage model: (1) appreciating the societal and environmental impact of scientific and technological change, and recognizing that science and technology are, to some extent, culturally determined; (2) recognizing that decisions about scientific and technological development are taken in pursuit of particular interests, that benefits accruing to some may be at the expense of others and that developments in science and technology are inextricably linked with the distribution of wealth and power; (3) addressing controversy, clarifying values, resolving ethical dilemmas, formulating and developing one’s own views and justifying them through discussion and argument; and (4) preparing for and taking action on socioscientific and environmental issues. Stage 4 is further divided into learning about action, learning through action and learning from action. Learning about action focuses on learning the skills and strategies of sociopolitical action through movies, biographies and autobiographies, case studies and simulations, role-play and dramatic reconstructions. Learning through action comprises direct involvement in action-oriented projects outside the classroom that are likely to have tangible outcomes and consequences.
The prime purpose of this action-oriented approach to addressing complex and controversial SSI is to enable young citizens to look critically at the society we have and the values that sustain it, and to ask what can and should be changed in order to achieve a more socially just democracy and bring about more environmentally sustainable lifestyles. It almost goes without saying that teachers who introduce SSI into the curriculum need to be sensitive to the need to assist students in dealing with potentially stressful and disconcerting learning situations. It is here that notions of emotional intelligence , emotional literacy and emotional competence can be helpful. Furthermore, there are many reasons why the translation of this kind of curriculum rhetoric into practical action in real classrooms will be extraordinarily complex and difficult. Such a radical change in the nature of the school curriculum puts a whole raft of new demands on teachers; it challenges many of the assumptions on which schooling is traditionally based; it is predicated on a commitment to bringing about extensive and wide-ranging social change at local, regional, national and international levels.
Knowledge that students acquire outside school may not be recognized in school when teachers have different social-cultural backgrounds than their students. The theory of funds of knowledge/identity (FoK/I) makes a plea for teaching that draws on students' knowledge, skills and experiences. We investigated how using students' FoK/I affected their personal and social functioning and the social cohesion in the classroom, using a mixed-method quasi-experimental design. Thirteen teachers applied several ways of drawing on their students' FoK/I; eight teachers and their students participated as a control group. Student questionnaire data were collected (N = 299; pre-post control group) and students from the intervention group were interviewed (N = 67). Teachers from the intervention group completed logbooks and were interviewed individually twice during the intervention, and in a focus group setting after the intervention. The quantitative data did not show significant effects. However, teachers and students reported effects on students' engagement, learning behavior, learning attitudes, collaboration skills, self-confidence, general well-being in the classroom, ambitions and perspective taking. Also positive effects on the climate in the classroom were reported: students getting to know each other better, increased respect among students, improved interactions, increased involvement in learning, and a more positive atmosphere in the classroom.
This paper presents the results of a large-scale study to validate a questionnaire that measures pupils’ attitudes towards socioscientific issues (the PASSI questionnaire). We define socioscientific issues (SSI) as those topics that are about complex societal and technological developments that may induce ethical dilemmas. In this study, the term attitudes describes a combination of attitude components that relate to pupils’ engagement with SSI. Based on a literature review within social and educational psychology and sociology, on topics such as attitude development, scientific citizenship, social or civic engagement, and SSI teaching and learning, we developed a framework that describes several underlying components of pupils’ attitudes towards SSI. These components were translated into nine scales that comprise the PASSI. Results of a validation study among 1370 pupils (age 8–15), using exploratory factor analyses on subsample 1 and subsequently confirmatory factor analyses on subsample 2, indicated an eight-factor structure that showed good convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the PASSI instrument showed adequate measurement invariance for boys and girls, pupils in primary and secondary education, and for pupils at different secondary educational tracks. The results are discussed in terms of directions for future research to further investigate the validity of the PASSI questionnaire. To conclude, the PASSI questionnaire validly measures eight attitudes towards SSI and could serve as a tool that raises awareness of pupils’ engagement with SSI. It can be used by researchers and teachers as a diagnostic instrument, to compare groups, and to study effects of SSI education.
The study investigated how explicit instruction of argumentation-in the context of socioscientific issues (SSI)- and explicit instruction of NOS, compared with explicit instruction of argumentation only, can develop grade 10 students’ argumentation skills and NOS conceptions. Participants were 36 grade 10 students enrolled in two sections that were randomly assigned into two groups: Treatment and Comparison. The treatment lasted for 4 months and involved two units about autotrophy and the nervous system. Both the Treatment and Comparison group participants received explicit instruction of argumentation -in the context of SSI. Yet, the Treatment group participants experienced explicit instruction of NOS. To assess participants’ argumentation skills and NOS conceptions, they were pre- and post-tested using two open-ended questionnaires as well as individual semi-structured interviews. Results indicated that there were improvements related to the learning of argumentation skills for participants in both the Treatment and Comparison groups, who experienced explicit argumentation instruction. Yet, the degree of improvement varied between the two groups, favoring the Treatment group. Results also showed developments in the NOS conceptions of the Treatment group participants who experienced explicit instruction of NOS and argumentation. These results were interpreted along the following themes: instruction of argumentation, instruction of NOS, and coupling of instruction for argumentation and NOS.
Galvanized by Greta Thunberg’s idea for Friday school strikes, “climate strikes” emerged in 2018 and 2019 as a form of youth social movement demanding far-reaching action on climate change. Youths have taken various actions to combat climate change, but academics have not paid sufficient attention to youth climate mobilization. This study thus examines the questions of what has motivated youth to mobilize and how they have shaped global climate politics and governance. This study focuses particularly on the narrative of youth activists to address their understanding of climate change and their ideas regarding how to respond to it. Youth collective action has succeeded in problematizing global climate inaction and inertia and in framing climate change from a justice perspective, but activists have faced limitations in converting their moral legitimacy into the power required for sweeping changes. Overall, this study demonstrates the emergence of young people as agents of change in the global climate change arena and the urgency of engaging them in climate change governance and policymaking.
Learning science in the context of socio-scientific issues (SSI) is widely advocated for achieving the goal of scientific literacy that values using science in daily lives. While prior research suggests that SSI-based learning can promote students’ disciplinary knowledge and practices, less is known about students’ perceptions of SSI-based learning and how to support students in considering the epistemic aspects of SSI learning. In this study, we seek to address the research gap by examining students’ perceptions of their learning and how they appropriate the epistemic tools for systems thinking in an issue-based unit on the regulation of e-cigarettes. We used semi-structured interviews from 33 students in a midwestern U.S. high school as our primary data. The results suggest that students in general held positive attitudes towards SSI-based learning experiences and found SSI work to be 1) relevant, 2) interesting, 3) promoting agency, and 4) beneficial for their science learning. Also, we found that students differed in how they appropriated the epistemic tools for systems thinking ranging from lack of appropriation, to appropriating surface features, and to appropriating epistemic purposes. We conclude the paper by discussing how engaging students in meaningful learning activities may support students’ productive engagement in SSI learning.
This article seeks to identify the role of science education in promoting an active, scientifically literate, citizenry ready to address sustainable development goals as envisaged by the United Nations (2015). In so doing, a conceptual model is put forward to address citizenry development, extending beyond an informed scientific and technological decision making ability and encompassing constructive activities addressing sustainable development at the local, national and global level. The operationalisation of the model builds on an initial student-relevant, societal issue-related contextualisation involving STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) while focusing on developing science conceptual learning. The model extends to not only considering socio-scientific issues, but seeks to promote trans-contextualisation beyond the school setting, seeking to raise awareness of an active informed citizenry, related to environmental, economic and social sustainability. The components of active informed citizenry are described and a trans-contextual science teaching example based on the model is put forward in this article.
We engaged 47 eighth-grade students in a newly developed learning environment that integrates mobile augmented reality (AR) technology to support students’ learning of nuclear energy use and radiation pollution, a topic related to a socioscientific issue (SSI) that involves complex reasoning considering scientific evidence and multiple perspectives. We employ the partial least squares structural equation modeling to investigate how the students’ context-specific epistemic justification and prior knowledge contributed to their engagement in the learning environment and socioscientific reasoning (SSR) performance after the learning. Data collected include students’ responses to the knowledge pretest that assessed students’ prior knowledge related to the SSI, the pretest survey that measured students’ context-specific epistemic justifications, the Cognitive and Emotional Engagement Survey (CEES) right after the end of the AR activities that measured students’ self-reported cognitive and emotional engagement, and the posttest that measured students’ socioscientific reasoning performance. The results indicate that students’ context-specific epistemic justifications can predict their engagement in the environment, and that prior knowledge and belief in justification by authority can predict students’ SSR performance, but in different directions. The results provide insights into how to support students with different personal characteristics to learn with AR technology about SSI, and contribute to a model of personal epistemology within the environment of integrating AR technology for the learning of SSI.
The study's purpose was to evaluate the quality of argumentations presented by students in relation to local socioscientific issues (SSIs). The participants, 36 seventh‐grade students from state schools, were divided into three learning groups—outdoor group, newspaper group, and presentation group. Five local environment‐related SSIs were selected: an artificial lake, chicken coops, leather tanneries, base stations, and hydroelectric power plants (HPPs). Different data sources were provided to each group pertaining to their SSIs. The outdoor group learned through field trips, the newspaper group acquired information through newspapers, and the presentation group learned via presentations. Each group gathered data from their unique learning sources, which then formed the basis of their arguments. After a pilot study, each group experienced the same argumentation practice within smaller groups. The recorded discussions were transcribed, and the qualities of 582 argumentation episodes chronicled over a period of 10 weeks were evaluated using an analytical assessment tool. It emerged that the quality of argumentations of each group varied by the data sources and the contexts of the SSIs. While the newspaper group displayed the best performance in 4 out of 5 issues, the outdoor group had the lowest performance overall. In terms of generating high‐quality argumentations about the artificial lake, chicken coops, and base stations, the newspaper group ranked top, followed by the presentation group, and then the outdoor group. HPPs proved to be the most challenging context for students across all groups. The study sums up with discussions of the differences between the quality of argumentations of the various groups and the implications of the study's conclusions.
The socioscientific issues framework has proven to have a significant impact over the last two decades on many areas related to the development of functional scientific literacy in students. In this article, we summarize and synthesize recent trends in socioscientific issues research that impact both disciplinary and interdisciplinary science education research. These trends represent science-in-context investigations that we propose are advanced by three broad and interrelated areas of research including: 1) Socioscientific Issues and the Central Role of Socioscientific Reasoning; 2) Socioscientific Issues and the Primacy of Socioscientific Perspective Taking; and, 3) Socioscientific Issues and the Importance of Informal and Place-Based Contexts. We discuss the most recent research in those areas and explore the educational significance these new trends.
Perspective taking is a critical yet tangled construct that is used to describe a range of psychological processes and that is applied interchangeably with related constructs. The resulting ambiguity is particularly vexing in science education, where although perspective taking is recognized as critical to informed citizens’ ability to negotiate scientifically related societal issues, or socioscientific issues (SSI) via socioscientific reasoning (SSR), the precise nature of perspective taking remains elusive. To operationalize perspective taking, a theoretical conceptual analysis was employed and used to position perspective taking within the context of SSR. The resulting, more precise construct identified as socioscientific perspective taking (SSPT) requires engagement with others or their circumstances, an etic/emic shift in one’s viewpoint, and a moral context guided by conscience.
Genetically modified (GM) foods constitute a hotly debated socioscientific issue in China, yet the topic is ostensibly absent from Chinese official media. Flourishing social media platforms appear to fill the void. To understand how the Chinese public engages in the GMO debate on various nationwide social media platforms, this study examines the role of social media and social capital (i.e., resources derived from social relationships, particularly in online communities) as predictors. Results of a large-scale online survey (N = 1,370) using a stratified quota sample showed that bridging social capital is a significant predictor of respondents’ likelihood of expressing opinions on the controversy on Chinese social media platforms. Moreover, this relationship was found to be mediated by use of social media for GMO-related information—greater bridging capital leads to more informed respondents about GMOs, which in turn predicts their willingness to speak their mind about the issue online. Our study also discusses the implications for social media as an emerging networked sphere for public deliberation in media-rich, information-poor China.
The purpose of this study is to examine the quantity and quality of the data component used by seventh-grade students in their arguments related to issues unique to the city of Bolu: Seben Lake, chicken coops, leather tanneries, base stations, and Hydroelectric Power Plants (HPP). Three different study groups, with 12 participants in each group (in total 36 participants), were the subject of this research, which was conducted over a total of 10 weeks. Each study group interacted with a different data source: The outdoor group collected data on field trips, the newspaper group read and examined related articles in the press, and the presentation group listened to visual presentations. The groups reflected the data obtained from their data sources to the argumentation implementations. The resulting of content analyses, based on the items in Toulmin's (1958) argument model showed that, of the total of 847 data components generated in the participants' argumentations, the newspaper group used the most data in their arguments, while the presentation group employed the least data. The outdoor and presentation groups generally utilized data based on the data cited in their data source, while the newspaper group used more data based on their daily life experiences. The highest amount of data was employed in relation to the issue of leather tanneries based on data acquired during field trips in the outdoor group, in relation to HPP based on visual presentations in the presentation group, and in relation to Seben Lake based on daily life experiences in the newspaper group. In conclusion, the quantity and the quality of the data component used in students' arguments with regard to local socioscientific issues changed according to the data source with which they interacted and the content of the socioscientific issue. In light of this, a few suggestions are made in this paper's conclusion.
Participation in society can be promoted through science education. This study considers an example of how a lower secondary school teacher integrated participation in society into physics studies and how students (n = 20) perceived the participation exercise. In the learning process, students exchanged knowledge and tools with others and produced knowledge for the community in the form of a citizen’s initiative leading to an action by the municipality: the painting of a pedestrian crossing. The students were keen to exercise participation and produce information through inquiries for their citizen initiative. After the intervention, most of the students expressed their willingness to participate in society and act as active citizens, they perceived that they have the means and opportunities, as well as the possibility to find support to participate and influence. Students were willing to participate particularly in their local communities. Students perceived that they learned and gained competences while participating. Students acknowledged knowledge as a base of the decision, which may promote perceived value of physics and associated careers. Students also highlighted collaboration and shared experiences, which may create engagement and participation concerning the scientific issues to which they relate. Similar participation exercises are possible in other contexts and countries. Further studies should focus on different participation exercises to gain more knowledge about young people’s experiences on participation.
In this research, it was aimed to investigate the decisions of gifted students regarding particular socio-scientific issues with their warrants and information sources on those decisions. The research was qualitative in nature and the participants were 36 (21 male, 15 female) elementary school students who had training at Sinop Science and Art Centre. The data source of the research was a written from consisted nine open ended questions regarding four socio-scientific issues and the data obtained were analysed by content analysis technique. The findings of the study revealed that students concluded differently in different socio-scientific issues with varying warrants and considered media as the primary information source in that process. Media was followed by authority, education and social environment as other information sources. Based on those results, it was proposed to develop instructional activities for Science and Art Centres aiming the integration of media literacy with socio-scientific issues.
The integration of socioscientific issues (SSI) in science education calls for emphasizing dialogic classroom practices that include students’ views together with multiple sources of knowledge and diverse perspectives on the issues. Such classroom practices aim to empower students to participate in decision-making on SSI. This can be accomplished by enhancing their independence as learners and positioning them as legitimate participants in societal discussions. However, this is a complex task for science teachers. In this study, we introduce positioning theory as a lens to analyse classroom discourse on SSI in order to enhance our knowledge of the manners by which teachers’ interactions with students make available or promote different positions for the students, that is, different parts for the students to play as participants, when dealing with SSI in the classroom. Transcripts of interactions between one teacher and six student groups, recorded during two lessons, were analysed with respect to the positioning of the students as participants in the classroom, and in relation to the SSI under consideration. The results show that the teacher-student interactions made available contrasting student positions. The students were positioned by the teacher or positioned themselves as independent learners or as dependent on the teacher. Furthermore, the students were positioned as affected by the issue but as spectators to public negotiations of the issue. Knowledge about the manner in which teacher-student interactions can function to position students seems important for dialogic classroom practices and the promotion of student positions that sustain the pursuit of intended educational outcomes.
Science educators are typically dismayed by the failure of students to use relevant scientific knowledge when reasoning about socioscientific issues. Except for the well-documented association between having more knowledge about a topic and a tendency to use that knowledge, the influences on students’ evaluation of information in socioscientific issues are not well understood. This study presents an initial investigation into the associations between upper elementary students’ attitudes towards science and their evaluation of information about a socioscientific issue. We surveyed the science attitudes of 49 sixth grade students and then asked them to evaluate information about a socioscientific issue (alternative energy use). Positive attitudes were associated with a more scientific approach to evaluating information in the task. When trying to make judgments, students with generally positive attitudes towards science were more likely to attend to scientific information than other sources. Scientific information, nonetheless, served a variety of socially oriented goals in students’ evaluations. These findings warrant further research on the relationship between science attitudes and reasoning about socioscientific issues and support the argument for connecting school science more clearly with everyday concerns.
The current study is about students' engagement with socioscientific issues (SSI). We explored the use of sources of knowledge about SSI and attitudes toward SSI among a sample of 1676 Dutch 8- to 16-year-old students. First, we developed a questionnaire that measured students' use of four sources of knowledge about SSI: Social Resources (online media use and talking with parents and friends), In-Class Resources (in-class talk and in-class offline media use), Visit Resources (visiting the zoo or a science museum with parents or school), and Offline Media Resources (engaging with issues or the news via books, magazines, newspapers, or TV). Second, we performed a latent profile analysis to explore students' patterns of use of these sources. This resulted in five profiles: Social Visitors (5.9%), Offline Media Consumers (10.6%), Media Discussers (14.3%), In-Class Users (21.0%), and Non-Users (48.3%). Third, we related these profiles to students' attitudes toward SSI, as measured with the Pupils' Attitudes toward Socioscientific Issues (PASSI) questionnaire. In line with the sources of knowledge profiles, the Non-Users felt and thought most negatively about engagement with SSI, while the Media Discussers showed the most positive attitudes. We believe that our exploration of the profiles adds to the discourse about students' socioscientific capital. Moreover, this study informs teachers about the resources that students may bring into the learning environment and their decision-making about SSI. The study concludes with practical suggestions about stimulating the use of sources of knowledge for certain groups of students and fostering positive attitudes toward engagement with SSI.
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Research calls for teachers to integrate students’ funds of knowledge to bridge the gap between students’ lived experiences with that of learning science – that is, to make science relevant for students. Based on this critical practice, this exploratory study focuses on how pre-service science teachers integrate relevance, specifically students’ funds of knowledge, within the lessons they intend to implement. Drawing on the literature, this study developed a coding scheme to identify the ways in which pre-service teachers (PSTs) attempted to make science relevant to students. We distinguished between constructed relevance (i.e. relevance that does not consider students’ funds of knowledge) and relevance that drew on students’ funds of knowledge. Findings indicated that 48% of lessons contained some aspect of attending to students’ funds of knowledge highlighting that pre-service science teachers understand the need to make science relevant to students beyond constructed relevance. However, lessons that did attend to funds of knowledge, were most often done through attending to how students understand how knowledge is constructed. Across PSTs, there was a significant difference in the use of relevance over time during the semester. Findings indicated productive beginnings in PSTs’ orientations to funds of knowledge without explicit instruction in this area.
Consideration of socioscientific issues (SSIs) promotes the development of moral and sociocultural perspectives that encourage a rich understanding of the nature of science. The use of moral reasoning to approach SSIs is known to influence how students justify arguments and persuade others; less is known about how student moral reasoning is influenced by both content knowledge and demographic identities. We performed an exploratory study to investigate how students use moral reasoning when considering an SSI about the use of CRISPR/Cas9 technology for nonmedical enhancement in humans. Using content analysis, we examined written responses from 279 undergraduate students from three content knowledge levels and a variety of demographic populations (socioeconomic, gender, and first‐generation status). We identified instances of consequence and principle‐based moral reasoning and categorized commonly employed moral considerations under these broad themes. Students opposed nonmedical enhancement with CRISPR/Cas9 technology and perceived it as fraught with moral controversy primarily related to eugenics, equity, diversity, risk, and the authority of nature. Content knowledge level, gender, socioeconomic status, and first‐generation status influenced which moral considerations were employed by students and these carried interaction effects that indicate complex relationships between content knowledge level and demographic variables. We suggest more explicit instruction about complex societal issues linked to the history of science and genetic engineering, such as eugenics and inequity, and further investigation of moral perspectives for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and underrepresented groups so that these perspectives can be integrated into curricula to foster diverse classroom environments.
Socio-scientific reasoning (SSR) is key to helping students take informed positions around socio-scientific issues (SSI). SSR comprises four competencies: recognising complexity of SSI’s, multiple perspectives around SSI’s, the need for ongoing inquiry around SSI’s, and skepticism around different parties’ claims made about SSI’s. The Quantitative Assessment of SSR (QuASSR) provides a promising measurement framework, but there are still important questions around the ability of this instrument to measure transfer across different scenarios and change in SSR over an intervention. Further, prior work suggests that the four competencies may constitute a progression. We explored the ability of the QuASSR to measure transfer of SSR across three different SSI’s using 2-faceted and multi-faceted Rasch models. We used path analysis to test the hypothesis that competencies associated with SSR formed a progression. We found transfer or neartransfer of SSR across the three scenarios, and that the competencies comprise a unidimensional hierarchy. Perspective-taking is a necessary bridge between students’ understanding of complexity and the higher-level competencies of inquiry and skepticism. Inquiry and skepticism were found to be conditionally independent upon accounting for perspective-taking, supporting the idea that seeing multiple perspectives around SSI’s is central to development of the other SSR competencies.
Individuals generally revise their misconceptions when corrected with carefully designed educational materials. However, early reports suggest that correcting COVID-19 misconceptions may be especially challenging, which may be due to conflicts with individuals’ moral values and emotions. This study explores the mechanisms and boundaries of correction effectiveness. Those highest in moral concerns for group cohesion or for individual freedoms were more likely to affectively or cognitively reject corrective information. Corrections of COVID-19 misconceptions should be carefully framed to connect with the morality of recipients and anticipate their emotional and cognitive reactions.
This study investigates whether university students' epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge about controversial socio-scientific issues (SSIs) can predict the different types of arguments that students construct. Two hundred forty-three university students were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments-social, ethical, economic, scientific, ecological-as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a scenario on a SSI. Participants' epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge were assessed separately. Results showed that students' epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge predicted the quantity, quality and diversity of the different types of arguments the students constructed. In particular, students who held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge and exhibited relatively more robust prior knowledge scores, produced arguments of greater quantity, better quality and higher diversity than students with less sophisticated epistemic beliefs and low prior knowledge scores. Educational implications are discussed.
The possible roles of culture, gender, and age-related factors in decision making about socioscientific issues (SSIs) have been underexplored. To study the impact of culture and cross-cultural understanding on students’ decision-making, and how these impacts are possibly mediated by age and gender-related variables, 106 11–13 year old students and 60 15–17 year old students from three Hong Kong schools and four UK schools were engaged in decision-making about shark fishing. Data were collected on how students make decisions before and after interacting with their own peers and considering the views of their international counterparts, using discussion records, supplemented with focus group interviews. The findings show that students associated with the culture of shark eating do not necessarily identify with shark fishing. Three dimensions characterise students’ decisions: the human activities to be controlled, the ways to address issues arising from shark fishing, and the concerns underlying students’ decisions. Although students showed support for conserving sharks, there were nuanced differences between the two cultural groups, which were possibly mediated by gender and age factors. The findings provide support to the impact of cultural exchange on their own and others’ views on broadening students’ perspectives and stimulating their critical reasoning.
The Science Capital Teaching Approach is designed to support teachers in helping students find more meaning and relevance in science and, as a result, engage more with the subject. The ideas for the approach were co-developed and trialled over four years between Enterprising Science researchers and 43 secondary science teachers in England.
The ubiquitous use of social media by children offers a unique opportunity to view diverse funds of knowledge that may otherwise be overlooked. We have iteratively designed a social media app to be integrated into our science learning program which engages families in science in their community. This case study highlights how three focal learners (ages 9–14) revealed scientific funds of knowledge through social media sharing. Their teachers noticed occasional funds of knowledge in the children's posts that they could connect to formal science concepts. However, other scientific funds of knowledge were not obvious by observing the posts alone. Rather, these latent funds of knowledge emerged through our triangulation of posts, interviews and observations of their learning experiences in our life-relevant science education program. Our findings suggest implications for the design of technology and learning environments to facilitate the connection of children's implicit and more unconventional scientific funds of knowledge to formal science concepts.
There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults. © 2018 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Science education is an important dimension of the European Commission’s Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) objectives; however, RRI is not an explicit focus of biology teaching and few biology teachers have experience in integrating RRI in classroom practice. This study examines the impact of a three 80-minute RRI and active citizenship module on 11th grade biology students, based on the SSIBL pedagogical framework. A representative national sample of 11th grade biology students in Cyprus (n = 398) participated. A pre-post research design examined impact in relation to students’ conceptual understanding regarding cholesterol and its regulation, their understanding of the controversy about cholesterol regulation, awareness of RRI components, feeling of responsibility and willingness to act. Analyses indicated statistically significant gains in conceptual understanding and the understanding of the controversy about cholesterol regulation and awareness of RRI components, as well as in students’ socio-scientific accountability (feeling of responsibility and willingness to act). Conceptual understanding showed increased correlations with Controversy understanding and RRI understanding forming the three of them the cognitive elements of individuals understanding. All of the examined variables are deemed, as of great importance for the design, implementation and evaluation of innovative biology RRI and active citizenship modules.
In this study we investigated how a newly developed learning environment that integrates mobile augmented reality (AR) technology supported students’ socio-scientific reasoning (SSR). Drawing upon the reasoned action theory, we consider the roles of students’ attitudes toward SSR before learning, and their cognitive and emotional engagement during learning in the students’ actual performance of SSR. The implementation results indicate the impact of the learning environment on students’ scientific knowledge and attitude change. Moreover, we identified a significant path of how the students developed their SSR by the interactions among their attitude toward SSR, and their cognitive and emotional engagement in the mobile AR learning environment. On the other hand, the students’ post-learning attitudes toward SSR were dominated by their pre-learning attitudes. Implications and suggestions are discussed.
Within the broad range of literature on the funds of knowledge approach, several positive impacts have been documented. In particular, participating teachers have reported meaningful changes in their relationships with students’ families as a consequence of the home visits. However, few studies have assessed the limitations of the approach, or areas for improvement. Hence, the aim of the study described here was to identify what teachers felt were the strengths and the weaknesses of the approach and to record their proposals for improvements. The teachers involved had participated in all phases of the program: from the initial training to the creation and implementation of educational activities based on the funds of knowledge identified from home visits. The positive aspects identified include improved family–school relationships; a better understanding of student behavior and attitudes, and the support of their colleagues and the University staff in the context of the study group created.
This article proposes a theoretical framework for conceptualizing socioscientific decision making, reviews current research in this area, and intends to shed some light on the instructional design for the classroom implementation of socioscientific decision making. The framework involves 3 phases: formulate the decision-making space, posit a decision-making strategy, and reflect on the decision-making process. A total of 24 articles that specifically focused on socioscientific decision making were included. They were classified into 2 groups. The first group explored students’ socioscientific decision-making behavior and its relationships with their cognitive conditions. The second examined the effectiveness of the interventions, that is, task conditions. The analysis showed that most of the studies in both groups focused on phase 1 and studied 3 research themes: informal reasoning, evidence-based reasoning, and social interactions. The findings indicated the challenges phases 1 and 2 posed to students, such as prioritizing criteria and employing a suitable decision-making strategy. Two cognitive conditions, scientific knowledge and scientific epistemological beliefs, appeared to have a more direct impact on evidence-based reasoning rather than on informal reasoning. Group 2 studies designed various interventions and looked into divergent socioscientific decision-making performances across 3 phases. The framework helps conceptualize socioscientific decision making in a more structural and holistic way. The content review provides instructional insights for the socioscientific decision-making process and suggests several future research directions.
The complex environmental challenges humanity faces require citizens who are scientifically and environmentally literate. Many environmental education programs are situated in the field where students are immersed in their learning. These field-based activities are engaging but may lack opportunities for students to develop critical thinking and reasoning skills necessary to be environmentally literate. We suggest a socio-scientific issue (SSI) based teaching approach can increase epistemic engagement and lead to student gains in scientific and environmental literacy. This study describes how we modified an existing field-based ecology course, framing the learning around a local environmental socio-scientific issue. We used a convergent parallel mixed-methods approach to examine the changes in socio-scientific reasoning (SSR) over time for high school students in this course as a measure of scientific and environmental literacy. Results indicate that a focused SSI field-based environmental education curriculum can support development of socio-scientific reasoning and environmental literacy competencies among high school students.
Preparing students to achieve the lofty goal of functional scientific literacy entails addressing the normative and non-normative facets of socioscientific issues (SSI) such as scientific processes, the nature of science (NOS) and diverse sociocultural perspectives. SSI instructional approaches have demonstrated some efficacy for promoting students’ NOS views, compassion for others, and decision-making. However, extant investigations appear to neglect fully engaging students through authentic SSI in several ways. These
include: (i) providing SSI instruction through classroom approaches that are divorced from students’ lived experiences; (ii) demonstrating a contextual misalignment between SSI and NOS (particularly evident in NOS assessments); and (iii) framing decision-making and position-taking analogously—with the latter being an unreliable indicator of how people truly act. The significance of the convergent parallel mixed-methods investigation reported here is how it responds to these shortcomings through exploring how place-based SSI
instruction focused on the contentious environmental issue of wolf reintroduction in the Greater Yellowstone
Area impacted sixty secondary students’ NOS views, compassion toward those impacted by contentious
environmental issues, and pro-environmental intent. Moreover, this investigation explores how those
perspectives associate with the students’ pro-environmental action of donating to a Yellowstone environmental
organization. Results demonstrate that the students’ NOS views became significantly more accurate and
contextualized, with moderate to large effect, through the place-based SSI instruction. Through that
instruction, the students also exhibited significant gains in their compassion for nature and people impacted
by contentious environmental issues and pro-environmental intent. Further analyses showed that donating
students developed and demonstrated significantly more robust and contextualized NOS views, compassion
for people and nature impacted by contentious environmental issues, and pro-environmental intent than their
non-donating counterparts. Pedagogical implications include how place-based learning in authentic settings
could better prepare students to understand NOS, become socioculturally aware, and engage SSI across a
variety of contexts.
Awareness of various arguments can help interactants present opinions, stress points, and build counterarguments during discussions. At school, some topics are taught in a way that students learn to accumulate knowledge and gather arguments, and later employ them during debates. Prior knowledge may facilitate recalling information on well structured, fact-based topics, but does it facilitate recalling arguments during discussions on complex, interdisciplinary topics? We assessed the prior knowledge in domains related to a bioethical topic of 277 students from Germany (approximately 15 years old), their interest in the topic, and their general knowledge. The students read a text with arguments for and against prenatal diagnostics and tried to recall the arguments one week later and again six weeks later. Prior knowledge in various domains related to the topic individually and separately helped students recall the arguments. These relationships were independent of students' interest in the topic and their general knowledge.
In this design case, we describe our work to design and develop a socio-scientific issue (SSI) based unit of instruction for use in high school biology. Our team includes university based science educators, an experienced classroom teacher, and a microbiologist. The unit focuses on antibiotic resistant bacteria as a context for student exploration of natural selection and engagement in modeling practices. Our team recently presented a model for SSI instruction that highlights: (a) a focal issue, (b) interaction of science ideas and practices, (c) social considerations, (d) use of information and communications technologies, and (e) a culminating experience that encourages students to synthesize their ideas. We use this model to frame the design case and discuss key decision points that influenced design and development of the unit. The design product is a three-week unit that we implemented in the spring of 2014. Key challenges presented in the case include continually evolving notions of scientific modeling practices and implications for related learning activities, developing supports for student negotiation of the social dimensions of antibiotic resistance, and determining how much emphasis to place on student use of information and communications technologies.
This paper traces the development of a program of work that seeks to understand the teacher practices that promote productive dialogue and learning in mathematics classrooms. This work originated in cooperative/collaborative learning research, with a focus on understanding group dynamics effective for student learning. Over time, it layered on increasing attention to the teacher's role, and branched out to consider the multiple participation structures in the classroom (whole-class discussion, small-group collaborative work, private student-student conversations). Each phase of this work brought in a heightened focus on the details of classroom interaction around mathematics-both in the thinking that students share and in the practices teachers use to support student participation-to better understand the development of students' mathematics learning.
When engaging with socio-scientific issues, learners act at the intersection of scientific, school and other societal communities, drawing on knowledge, practices and identities from both in and out of the classroom to address problems as national or global citizens. We present three case studies of high school students whose classroom participation in a unit on the politically-polarizing topic of climate change was informed by their political identities and how they situated themselves in climate change’s sociocultural, historical and geologic context. We describe how these students, including two who initially rejected human-influenced climate change but revised their understandings, negotiated dissonant identities in the classroom through repeated engagement with conflicting political and scientific values, knowledge and beliefs. These case studies problematize building bridges between formal and informal learning experiences and suggest that it may be necessary to leverage disconnections in addition to building connections across settings to promote productive identity work. The results further suggest that supporting climate change learning includes attending to identity construction across eco-social time scales, including geologic time.
This multiple case study examines how teachers request students’ use of their content knowledge and conceptual understandings from out-of-school experiences while reasoning about science concepts and the ways in which students perceive and respond to these requests. Three middle school teachers and a total of 57 middle school students participated in this study. The data collection involved classroom observations and multiple interviews with each of the teachers individually and with small groups of students. The findings indicate that the students appreciate the usefulness of making relevant connections between their in-school and out-of-school learning, but seldom do so during science lessons. We also found that teachers’ attempts to facilitate these types of connections during classroom discourse events involved the use of analogies, examples, or questions. Finally, the findings also indicate that students often recognize teachers’ requests but seldom relate to these requests in the way the teacher intends.
Teacher agency is considered key in shaping teachers’ professional identities and decision-making capabilities. We suggest that the concept of agency also constitutes a useful tool for evaluating the successful implementation of new teaching approaches. In this paper we discuss findings from a teacher professional development programme aimed at enabling science capital building approaches in the classroom. By applying the lens of agency we identified developments in teachers’ sense of purpose, mastery, reflexivity and autonomy. We also identified factors which appeared to either promote or constrain the acquisition of agency. The science capital pedagogy is underpinned by a social justice agenda. In supporting teachers to ‘tweak’ their practice in ways that provide more opportunities for more students to identify with science, we suggest that the agency fostered by the intervention may best be defined as critical teacher agency.
In the European Union, educational policy-making bodies are encouraging projects of inquiry-based learning to stimulate interest of young people in science and broaden the science and technological skills base. In this chapter, I discuss how a project that incorporates socio-political
questions as the object of its inquiry can critically address issues of consumerism and unequal distribution that affect contemporary neoliberal economies. Components of this model of inquiry draw on substantive scientific knowledge incorporating Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), Critical Citizenship Education, Socio-Scientific Issues, as well as Inquiry; hence, the acronym, SSIBL (Socio-Scientific Inquiry Based Learning). Social values at the heart of this project are science inquiry as for and with people, recognising that we live in a diverse world where technological change should be underpinned by social justice and political responsibility. We describe how authentic activities, those that stem from students’ concerns, can be derived from these values to lead to non-trivial action which takes into account social, political and cultural constraints and uncertainties. Inquiries reflect issues that have personal, social and global relevance. A sensitive assessment strategy is developed, which incorporates knowledge about the issue, skills of organising, values that reflect the underlying principles of compassionate justice and dispositions of inclusivity and criticality.
This article aims to describe and illustrate how the curriculum can be contextualised through different educational experiences based on the funds of knowledge approach. Educational contextualisation is understood to be the linking of curricular content (literacy, science, mathematics, social sciences) with students’ lives, including prior learning experiences from their homes and communities. The literature review began by surveying 59 articles retrieved from the ERIC database after entering the search terms “funds of knowledge” and “teaching methods”. Out of these, 22 peer reviewed papers were selected based on the following criteria: the paper should illustrate how artefacts produced by students (photographs, texts, artistic productions, digital stories) can be put to pedagogical use by turning them into resources to mobilise knowledge and experiences inside and outside school. The results are discussed in light of the CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy, as well as the notion of funds of identity, which has been proposed recently within the context of the funds of knowledge approach.
In this article we share insights from our ongoing research on the concept of ‘science capital’ – a term that refers to an individual’s science-related resources and dispositions. We have been working in collaboration with secondary teachers in England to explore the applications of the concept in science teaching practice. Underpinned by a social justice agenda, our aim is to meaningfully engage students from diverse backgrounds with science. We present our developing work as an orientation point for science capital informed approaches in the classroom, which include eliciting, valuing and linking students’ own experiences and interests, embedding science capital dimensions, and reflecting on the ‘field’ of the science classroom.
This article discusses an attempt at a Bourdieusian-inspired form of praxis, developed and implemented in collaboration with nine London teachers, aimed at developing a socially just approach to engaging students with science. Data are discussed from nine months of classroom observations of nine secondary science classes from six inner London schools (approximately 200 students, aged 11–15), interviews and workshop data from the nine teachers and 13 discussion groups conducted with 59 students. The approach resulted in noticeable changes in practice, which were perceived by teachers and students to improve student engagement, cultivate a range of science-related dispositions and promote wider student participation and ‘voice’ in classes. Issues, limitations and possibilities for sociology of education are discussed.