The notion of family resemblance has recently emerged as a promising and fruitful approach to characterising the nature of science (NOS) in science education research, offering solutions to some perplexing challenges such as capturing both the domain-general and domain-specific features of science with a single framework. At the same time,…

Growing demands and expectations on the side of policy makers and the public have changed the conditions for academics' engagement in public discussions. At the same time, risks related to this engagement for the professional and even private lives of academics have become apparent. Conducting a survey experiment among 4091 tenured professors in…

We explored the potential for addressing nature of science through a historic narrative about disagreement between researchers concerning a socio-scientific issue, incidence of juvenile thyroid cancer following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. The narrative was developed from authentic sources and tested in two cycles. Eight groups of three…

This research aimed to assess the quality of arguments and informal reasoning abilities of pre-service science teachers concerning various socio-scientific issues (SSI), utilizing dilemma cards. The case study method, a qualitative research approach, was employed, involving 12 pre-service science teachers. Participants completed the dilemma cards…

During the unprecedented and rapid spread of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) around the World, students have been concerned about the disease as much as the rest of the global community. As a real-world problem, the COVID-19 pandemic with many different debatable facets has social and scientific components, impacts society, and shows…

This paper considers the adoption of computational techniques within research designs modeled after the extended case method. Echoing calls to augment the power of contemporary researchers through the adoption of computational text analysis methods, we offer a framework for thinking about how such techniques can be integrated into…

Although argumentation is a critical historical component of scientific literacy, the recent coronavirus pandemic and associated issues have highlighted the importance of argumentation in science practice. Argumentation that aligns with functional scientific literacy requires gathering evidence and reasoning to support or refute claims related to…

This article examines underdetermination as a key theoretical assumption in an emerging body of educational research. Underdetermination is described as a broad philosophical position that assumes that social, scientific and technological phenomena cannot be reduced to linear relationships between antecedents and consequences, for instance through…

This study investigates the effect of group collaborative argumentation on the quality of decision-making on waste incineration of socioscientific issues (SSI). To achieve this, fifty-nine high school students engaged with a lecture-style class that did not use any argumentation activities. They then completed an individual survey aimed at…

The ability to make evidence-based decisions, and hence to reason on questions concerning scientific and societal aspects, is a crucial goal in science education and science communication. However, science denial poses a constant challenge for society and education. "Controversial science issues" (CSI) encompass scientific knowledge…

Contemporary curricula are increasingly focused on broader framings of student outcomes such as 'competencies', 'capabilities' and '21st century skills', as we realise that declarative disciplinary knowledge no longer, on its own, confers the capacity to deal with the complex and fast-changing world that students are now entering. In mathematics,…

This investigation examined how a 6 week environmental topics course that included place-based socioscientific issues (SSI) instruction in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) in the United States of America influenced 21 postsecondary students' expressed socioscientific orientations of "Ecological Worldviews" (including…

A common practice amongst scientists is to evaluate the connections between evidence and claims about natural and human-induced phenomena. Teacher education coursework may improve understanding of this important activity and facilitate teachers to implement evidential thinking approaches into their future science teaching. Instructional scaffolds…

This study investigated the implementation of a place-based socioscientific issue curricular unit designed to improve rising middle school students' abilities to think critically about the pros and cons of hydraulic fracturing and engage in evidence-based reasoning on whether the practice should be banned in Massachusetts. Forty-three rising…