Science and Language Teachers’ Assessment of Upper Secondary Students’ Socioscientific Argumentation

Researchers and policy-makers have recognized the importance of including and promoting socioscientific argumentation in science education worldwide. The Swedish curriculum focuses more than ever on socioscientific issues (SSI) as well. However, teaching socioscientific argumentation is not an easy task for science teachers and one of the more distinguished difficulties is the assessment of students’ performance. In this study, we investigate and compare how science and Swedish language teachers, participating in an SSI-driven project, assessed students’ written argumentation about global warming. Swedish language teachers have a long history of teaching and assessing argumentation and therefore it was of interest to identify possible gaps between the two groups of teachers’ assessment practices. The results showed that the science teachers focused on students’ content knowledge within their subjects, whereas the Swedish language teachers included students’ abilities to select and use content knowledge from reliable reference resources, the structure of the argumentation and the form of language used. Since the Swedish language teachers’ assessment correlated more with previous research about quality in socioscientific argumentation, we suggest that a closer co-operation between the two groups could be beneficial in terms of enhancing the quality of assessment. Moreover, SSI teaching and learning as well as assessment of socioscientific argumentation ought to be included in teacher training programs for both pre- and in-service science teachers.     

Socioscience and ethics in science classrooms: Teacher perspectives and strategies

This study explored teacher perspectives on the use of socioscientific issues (SSI) and on dealing with ethics in the context of science instruction. Twenty‐two middle and high school science teachers from three US states participated in semi‐structured interviews, and researchers employed inductive analyses to explore emergent patterns relative to the following two questions. (1) How do science teachers conceptualize the place of ethics in science and science education? (2) How do science teachers handle topics with ethical implications and expression of their own values in their classrooms? Profiles were developed to capture the views and reported practices, relative to the place of ethics in science and science classrooms, of participants. Profile A comprising teachers who embraced the notion of infusing science curricula with SSI and cited examples of using controversial topics in their classes. Profile B participants supported SSI curricula in theory but reported significant constraints which prohibited them from actualizing these goals. Profile C described teachers who were non‐committal with respect to focusing instruction on SSI and ethics. Profile D was based on the position that science and science education should be value‐free. Profile E transcended the question of ethics in science education; these teachers felt very strongly that all education should contribute to their students' ethical development. Participants also expressed a wide range of perspectives regarding the expression of their own values in the classroom. Implications of this research for science education are discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 353–376, 2006     

Exploring preservice elementary teachers’ critique and adaptation of science curriculum materials in respect to socioscientific issues

The work presented here represents a preliminary effort undertaken to address the role of teachers in supporting students’ learning and decision-making about socioscientific issues (SSI) by characterizing preservice elementary teachers’ critique and adaptation of SSI-based science curriculum materials and identifying factors that serve to mediate this process. Four undergraduate preservice elementary teachers were studied over the course of one semester. Results indicate that the teachers navigated multiple learning goals, as well as their own subject-matter knowledge, informal reasoning about SSI, and role identity, in their critique and adaptation of SSI-oriented science instructional materials. Implications for science teacher education and the design of curriculum materials in respect to SSI are discussed.     

Examining tensions in the socioscientific issues classroom: Students' border crossings into a new culture of science

In the socioscientific issues (SSI) classroom, students need to cross the border between the subcultures of science (i.e., school science vs. everyday science). Traditional school contexts tend to present science as positivistic knowledge and unshakable truth unaffected by sociocultural factors. In contrast, everyday science, including SSI, is more nuanced, context-based, socially and culturally embedded. Thus, learning in an SSI classroom requires students to make additional efforts to successfully navigate between the subcultures of science. The expected norms located within these two educational contexts can create academic and sociocultural tensions for students. It is therefore necessary to explore the tensions caused these differential norms in order to successfully implement SSI. Through the lens of cultural-historical activity theory, we attempted to identify possible tensions that originate by implementing SSI instruction in a setting where teachers and students are accustomed to traditional lecture-based classroom instruction. One hundred thirty ninth graders at a public middle school located in Seoul, South Korea, participated in SSI programs on genetic modification technology during seven class periods over three to 4 weeks. Data was collected by classroom observation, audio-taping while students participated in various types of discourse, and semistructured interviews. We identified four noteworthy phenomena including intolerance of uncertainty, scientism, a sense of rivalry, and reaching an expedient and easy consensus. By revealing and understanding these tensions and phenomena, we aim to help inform teachers (and teacher educators) recognize instructional clues that can change not only students' epistemological views and attitudes toward science and science classes, but also better navigate the norms of classroom culture.     

A Pedagogical Model for Ethical Inquiry into Socioscientific Issues In Science

Internationally there is concern that many science teachers do not address socioscientific issues (SSI) in their classrooms, particularly those that are controversial. However with increasingly complex, science-based dilemmas being presented to society, such as cloning, genetic screening, alternative fuels, reproductive technologies and vaccination, there is a growing call for students to be more scientifically literate and to be able to make informed decisions on issues related to these dilemmas. There have been shifts in science curricula internationally towards a focus on scientific literacy, but research indicates that many secondary science teachers lack the support and confidence to address SSI in their classrooms. This paper reports on a project that developed a pedagogical model that scaffolded teachers through a series of stages in exploring a controversial socioscientific issue with students and supported them in the use of pedagogical strategies and facilitated ways of ethical thinking. The study builds on existing frameworks of ethical thinking. It presents an argument that in today’s increasingly pluralistic society, these traditional frameworks need to be extended to acknowledge other worldviews and identities. Pluralism is proposed as an additional framework of ethical thinking in the pedagogical model, from which multiple identities, including cultural, ethnic, religious and gender perspectives, can be explored.     

Stickers to Facts,Imposers, Democracy Advocators,and Committed Impartialists: Preservice Science Teachers’ Beliefs About Teacher’s Roles in Socioscientific Discourses

For science teachers using the discourse of socioscientific issues (SSI), it is important to make a decision as to whether when and how to disclose their own positions. The existing limited literature shows that science teachers prefer one of four roles during SSI discourse: sticker to facts, imposer, democracy advocator, and committed impartialist. The purpose of the present research is to understand the nature of preservice science teachers’ (PST) beliefs underlying such selection. Based on existing literature, we developed a teacher’s belief questionnaire including vignettes representing four teacher’s roles in discussion of genetically modified (GM) foods. Three hundred twenty-four (324) PSTs from a Turkish context experiencing SSI-based reforms completed these questionnaires, selected one of the teacher’s roles, and justified their selection by writing reasons. Content analysis procedures were used in data analysis of this qualitative study. The results show that most PSTs selected dialogical roles (democracy advocators and committed impartialists). Looking at their beliefs, epistemologies and teaching goals work together in PSTs’ selection of their preferred role. In addition, we argue that there is no desired alignment between teachers’ existing beliefs and expectations of SSI reforms. We conclude by indicating certain implications that may enhance such alignment.     

论“国际汉语教师教育者”的国际视野

"国际汉语教师教育者"有别于一般师范教育者,要在中华民族重视师德的师范教育基础上,进一步强调这类教育者应当具备世界各民族教育文化多元的意识。加强国际汉语教师教育者国际视野的培养,有助于汉语二语教学在转型中获得中外对比在教育、语言与文化领域的营养补充,改变目前"汉语国际教育"学历教育与国际汉语教师赴外培训"双轨并行"的态势。提升国际汉语教师教育者的国际视野将有助于中国的教育改革引领世界潮流。在人类命运共同体构建的前景下,具备国际视野应是未来教师教育者共同努力的方向。     

Developing Character and Values for Global Citizens: Analysis of pre-service science teachers’ moral reasoning on socioscientific issues

Character and values are the essential driving forces that serve as general guides or points of reference for individuals to support decision-making and to act responsibly about global socioscientific issues (SSIs). Based on this assumption, we investigated to what extent pre-service science teachers (PSTs) of South Korea possess character and values as global citizens; these values include ecological worldview, socioscientific accountability, and social and moral compassion. Eighteen PSTs participated in the SSI programs focusing on developing character and values through dialogical and reflective processes. SSIs were centered on the use of nuclear power generation, climate change, and embryonic stem cell research. The results indicated that PSTs showed three key elements of character and values, but failed to apply consistent moral principles on the issues and demonstrated limited global perspectives. While they tended to approach the issues with emotion and sympathy, they nonetheless failed to perceive themselves as major moral agents who are able to actively resolve large-scale societal issues. This study also suggests that the SSI programs can facilitate socioscientific reasoning to include abilities such as recognition of the complexity of SSIs, examine issues from multiple perspectives, and exhibit skepticism about information.     

Professional aspirations among pre-service teachers: personal responsibility,time perspectives,and career choice satisfaction

Exploring the direct and indirect effects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility on their professional aspirations through affective (i.e., career choice satisfaction) and cognitive (i.e., time perspectives) variables may enable teacher educators and policy makers to better describe the factors influencing teacher development in an era of teacher accountability. Indeed, current teacher accountability movements rather neglect the ‘teacher’ as a person who has professional aspirations, a sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction and time perspectives within which these professional aspirations are contextualized and/or interpreted/reinterpreted. This indicates that it is important to consider pre-service teachers’ professional intentions together with their sense of responsibility, professional satisfaction, and time perspectives in order to inform current accountability movements more comprehensively. Thus, the current study examined whether pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, time perspectives, and career choice satisfaction were significantly related to their professional aspirations, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of their time perspectives and career choice satisfaction. A total of 511 pre-service teachers voluntarily participated in the study. Correlation, multiple regression, and structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in order to analyze the data in a comprehensive manner. The results showed that aspects of pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility were significantly and positively related to their professional aspirations, career choice satisfaction, and future time perspective. The results also showed that career choice satisfaction and future time perspective played significant mediating roles in the relationships between personal responsibility and professional aspirations. Notably, the mediating role of career choice satisfaction was stronger than that of the mediating role of future time perspective. Overall, the results of the study reveal that the correlational patterns, derived from the links between pre-service teachers’ sense of personal responsibility, career choice satisfaction, future time perspective, and professional aspirations, have clear potential to inform teacher educators and policy makers regarding the factors influencing pre-service teachers’ engagement with the teaching profession and professional development aspirations.     

Perceptions,challenges and coping strategies of science teachers in teaching socioscientific issues: A systematic review

Science education in recent years has increasingly emphasized the connections between knowledge and matters of social importance. Socioscientific issues (SSIs)—complex, often controversial issues linked to the development of science and technology—are widely recognized as a valuable arena for the school curriculum to foster students’ scientific literacy. This paper reviews the research literature on how science teachers teach socioscientific issues with 25 empirical studies published between 2004 and 2019. The results show that teachers generally hold a partially informed understanding of SSI-based teaching. Multifarious challenges facing teachers in teaching SSIs are mainly at the teacher, student, and policy levels. However, our findings suggest that teachers lack explicit strategies to cope with these challenges and that SSI-based teaching should not rely on individual teachers alone. We argue for more support for teachers to improve the quality of their implementation of SSIs. This review has implications for education policymakers, teacher educators, school leaders, and teachers to respond to the challenges facing teachers in teaching SSIs collaboratively. Potential directions for further research are also discussed.     

Secondary School Students’ Understanding of Science and Their Socioscientific Reasoning

Research in socioscientific issue (SSI)-based interventions is relatively new (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004; Zeidler et al. in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 46:74–101, 2009), and there is a need for understanding more about the effects of SSI-based learning environments (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004). Lee and Witz (International Journal of Science Education 31:931–960, 2009) highlighted the need for detailed case studies that would focus on how students respond to teachers’ practices of teaching SSI. This study presents case studies that investigated the development of secondary school students’ science understanding and their socioscientific reasoning within SSI-based learning environments. A multiple case study with embedded units of analysis was implemented for this research because of the contextual differences for each case. The findings of the study revealed that students’ understanding of science, including scientific method, social and cultural influences on science, and scientific bias, was strongly influenced by their experiences in SSI-based learning environments. Furthermore, multidimensional SSI-based science classes resulted in students having multiple reasoning modes, such as ethical and economic reasoning, compared to data-driven SSI-based science classes. In addition to portraying how participants presented complexity, perspectives, inquiry, and skepticism as aspects of socioscientific reasoning (Sadler et al. in Research in Science Education 37:371–391, 2007), this study proposes the inclusion of three additional aspects for the socioscientific reasoning theoretical construct: (1) identification of social domains affecting the SSI, (2) using cost and benefit analysis for evaluation of claims, and (3) understanding that SSIs and scientific studies around them are context-bound.     

Students' environmental NOS views,compassion, intent,and action: Impact of place‐based socioscientific issues instruction

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 nondonating 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.     

Risk and school science education

In this paper I consider a role for risk understanding in school science education. Grounds for this role are described in terms of current sociological analyses of the contemporary world as a ‘risk society’ and recent public understanding of science studies where science and risk are concerns commonly linked within the wider community. These concerns connect with support amongst many science educators for the goal of science education for citizenship. From this perspective scientific literacy for decision making on contemporary socioscientific issues is central. I argue that in such decision making, risk understanding has an important role to play. I examine some of the challenges its inclusion in school science presents to science teachers, review previous writing about risk in the science education literature and consider how knowledge about risk might be addressed in school science. I also outline the varying conceptions of risk and suggest some future research directions that would support the inclusion of risk in classroom discussions of socioscientific issues.     

Developing an appreciation of what it means to be a school-based teacher educator

The nature of partnership between schools and higher education institutions is changing in many countries, with experienced teachers taking on more responsibility for teacher education whilst remaining in their school as teachers, rather than entering the higher education sector to become teacher educators. This research considers the perspectives of these school-based teacher educators (SBTEs) in England, exploring the impact that this role has on them, their student-teachers and their schools. Some benefits and challenges that they face in the dual role of teacher and teacher educator are revealed. The research takes an interpretive perspective, listening to the meanings being constructed by the participants through use of a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and a focus group of student-teachers who learned from these SBTEs. Possible impacts on student-teachers’ learning and implications for the development of high-quality teacher education are examined.     

The role of socioscientific issues in biology teaching: from the perspective of teachers

ABSTRACT

Previous research has documented that students who engage with socioscientific issues can acquire some of the complex competences and skills typically related to scientific literacy. But an emerging field of research on science teachers’ understanding and use of socioscientific issues, has documented that a range of challenges hinders the uptake of socioscientific issues. In this study, we investigated the interpretation and implementation of socioscientific issues among Danish biology teachers. We conducted five in-depth group interviews and validated the emergent themes from the teachers’ talk-in-interaction by distributing a questionnaire. Our findings suggest that the participating teachers generally harbour a content-centred interpretation of socioscientific issues which manifests itself in at least three separate ways. First, the teachers generally use socioscientific issues as a vehicle to teach factual biological content. Second, the teachers emphasised mastery of factual content in their assessment. Third, the teachers tended to reduce socioscientific issues to specific biological contents in a way may preclude students from engaging with the real socioscientific issue. Our findings are particularly significant for science educators, policy-makers and curriculum designers, as we argue that key aspects of this content-centred interpretation may be a coping strategy used to navigate a divided curriculum.     

The Coherence Between Epistemologies and SSI Teaching

Science & Education - The purpose of the present study was to understand the nature of the link between science teachers’ epistemologies and their socioscientific issue (SSI) teaching...     

Science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge development during enactment of socioscientific curriculum materials

The purpose of this study is to provide insight into short-term professionalization of teachers regarding teaching socioscientific issues (SSI). The study aimed to capture the development of science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for SSI teaching by enacting specially designed SSI curriculum materials. The study also explores indicators of stronger and weaker development of PCK for SSI teaching. Thirty teachers from four countries (Cyprus, Israel, Norway, and Spain) used one module (30–60 min lesson) of SSI materials. The data were collected through: (a) lesson preparation form (PCK-before), (b) lesson reflection form (PCK-after), (c) lesson observation table (PCK-in-action). The data analysis was based on the PCK model of Magnusson, Krajcik, and Borko (1999). Strong development of PCK for SSI teaching includes “Strong interconnections between the PCK components,” “Understanding of students' difficulties in SSI learning,” “Suggesting appropriate instructional strategies,” and “Focusing equally on science content and SSI skills.” Our findings point to the importance of these aspects of PCK development for SSI teaching. We argue that when professional development programs and curriculum materials focus on developing these aspects, they will contribute to strong PCK development for SSI teaching. The findings regarding the development in the components of PCK for SSI provide compelling evidence that science teachers can develop aspects of their PCK for SSI with the use of a single module. Most of the teachers developed their knowledge about students' understanding of science and instructional strategies. The recognition of student difficulties made the teacher consider specific teaching strategies which are in line with the learning objectives. There is an evident link between the development of PCK in instructional strategies and students' understanding of science for SSI teaching.     

What Do Students Gain by Engaging in Socioscientific Inquiry?

The question of what students gain by engaging in socioscientific inquiry is addressed in two ways. First, relevant literature is surveyed to build the case that socioscientific issues (SSI) can serve as useful contexts for teaching and learning science content. Studies are reviewed which document student gains in discipline specific content knowledge as well as understandings of the nature of science. SSI are also positioned as vehicles for addressing citizenship education within science classrooms. Although the promotion of citizenship goals seems widely advocated, the specifics of how this may be accomplished remain underdeveloped. To address this issue, we introduce socioscientific reasoning as a construct which captures a suite of practices fundamental to the negotiation of SSI. In the second phase of the project, interviews with 24 middle school students from classes engaged in socioscientific inquiry serve as the basis for the development of an emergent rubric for socioscientific reasoning. Variation in practices demonstrated by this sample are explored and implications drawn for advancing socioscientific reasoning as an educationally meaningful and assessable construct.     

How to Help Teachers Develop Inquiry Teaching: Perspectives from Experienced Science Teachers

This study has two purposes: the first is to explore experienced science teachers’ perspectives on inquiry teaching, and the second is to categorize these perspectives into patterns. Fifteen junior high school science teachers experienced at inquiry teaching were selected, and a semi-structured interview was conducted to collect the teachers’ perspectives on inquiry and inquiry teaching. The findings indicate that these experienced science teachers hold multiple perspectives on inquiry and inquiry teaching. The two patterns generated from these teachers’ perspectives of inquiry and inquiry teaching were systematic-based inquiry instruction and learning-based inquiry instructions. Suggestions for science teacher educators are discussed in this paper.