The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness of a Science Technology and Society (STS) approach in terms of student understanding of major processes of science. Participants included twelve teachers who agreed to participate in an experimental study where Science, Technology, and Society (STS) strategies were utilized with one class…

Although the goal of developing school students' understanding of nature of science (NOS) has long been advocated, there is still a lack of research that focuses on probing how science teachers, a kind of major stakeholder in NOS instruction, perceive the values of teaching NOS. Through semi-structured interviews, this study investigated the views…

Science and technology are argued to have controversial consequences on individuals, societies and environments. Citizens' socio-political activism seems paramount to address these consequences. This paper reports on Venezuelan students' socio-political actions on socioscientific issues highly relevant to them. It particularly focuses on students'…

This study aimed at improving the decision-making (DM) skills of 11th graders by incorporating a DM framework, visualisation tools, collaboration, and metacognitive guidance into a socioscientific issue context. Two classes, the experimental group (embedded metacognitive guidance, N = 42) and the comparison group (no metacognitive guidance, N =…

Scientific literacy has been focused on the construction of students' knowledge to use appropriate and meaningful concepts, critically think, and make balanced, well-informed decisions relevant to their lives. This study presents the effects of integrating socio-scientific issues to enhance the bioethical decision-making skills of biology…

This study explores how web-based scaffolding tools provide instructional support while implementing a socio-scientific inquiry (SSI) unit in a science classroom. This case study focused on how students used web-based scaffolding tools during SSI activities, and how students perceived the SSI unit and the scaffolding tools embedded in the SSI…

Background: Despite a growing body of research and curriculum reforms including socioscientific issues (SSI) across the world, how preservice science teachers (PST) or in-service science teachers can teach SSI in science classrooms needs further inquiry. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the abilities of PSTs to teach SSI in middle…

Science educators have presented numerous conceptual and theoretical arguments in favor of teaching science through the exploration of socio-scientific issues (SSI). However, the empirical knowledge base regarding the extent to which SSI-based instruction supports student learning of science content is limited both in terms of the number of…

This paper describes the development and implementation of a three-pillared model for teaching socioscientific issues: teacher professional development; curriculum resources; and classroom support. A professional development program and curriculum resource based on the socioscientific issue of climate change was trialled with 75 Western Australian…

Background: For the past decade, science educators have been exploring the use of Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) as contexts for science teaching and learning, and research indicates that doing so can support significant learning gains. However, research related to how teachers take up the practice of SSI-based instruction is far more limited, due…

This study investigated two science teachers' meta-strategic knowledge (MSK) of argumentation teaching by applying the repertory grid technique (RGT). One teacher was a novice, while the other was experienced in teaching argumentation. Using the RGT, we elicited the objectives and strategies of the two teachers regarding their argumentation…

Educating future scientists and citizens is more effective if students are guided to correctly apply what they learned in school to their daily lives. This experience-based work is focused on the study of a well-known commercial product: cat litter. This material offers different starting points for a critical examination. Questions related to…

This study aims to explore students' argumentation and decision-making relating to an authentic socioscientific issue (SSI)--the problem of environmental toxins in fish from the Baltic Sea. A multi-disciplinary instructional module, designed in order to develop students' skills to argue about complex SSI, was successfully tested. Seven science…

The aim of this research was to explore the effects of two approaches, designated as the historical and the contemporary one, on the level of students' understanding of the properties and the practical use of gases. Our research hypothesis was that the historical context of the discovery of gases and the study of their properties would deepen…

This research focuses on the gender difference in attitude and academic performance of students in selected public secondary schools in Akoko Land. The population for this study was made up of all the Junior Secondary Schools Three (JSS3) students in Akoko Land. Three hypotheses were raised to guide this study. 1626 student, (810 males, 816…