Most educational studies highlight the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Female students' interest and success in STEM are behind their male peers, especially in chemistry and physics classes. Females are less likely to pursue a STEM field in college. In addition, few women want to be scientists and engineers. The gender gap in STEM may be a result of traditional science teaching methods. Female students' expectations are not met, and as a result, their science interest decreases in these classrooms, as well as not pursuing STEM careers in specific chemistry, engineering, and physics. There is an increase in research and curriculum reform movements containing socioscientific issues (SSI) extending worldwide. SSI provides an opportunity to engage students in critical thinking. SSI-based science classrooms are based on real-world problems like climate change, genetic modification, and vaccination. Integrating SSI into science classrooms as a revolutionary method might renew the practices of our traditional science classrooms. However, few SSI-based educational research studies have focused on the gender gap issue. This dissertation investigated 216 middle and high school students' experiences in SSI-based classrooms with a mixed-methods approach. I investigated Model-Evidence Link diagram's effectiveness on the shiftiest in students' plausibility toward scientific model and scientific knowledge gaining in the quantitative part. I examined their experiences in SSI-based classrooms with the open-ended question survey in the qualitative part. SSI-based science activities provided gender equity conditions in science classrooms. Both genders evaluated the scientific model as more plausible by eliminating the alternative model as less plausible, and they gained scientific knowledge about Climate Change and Wetlands. The MEL diagram seemed more effective for the students' positive plausibility shifts toward the scientifically accepted model. Also, both genders had positive experiences in SSI-based classrooms in general. However, female students did not want to continue a STEM career except biomedical sciences. MEL design can be renewed by adding some initial and interval short activities and using some SSI topic-related posters and objects to prepare students for critical thinking and keep them more engaged during the activities. Also, adding student interviews and live recording the student discussions might give an understanding of the collaboration and student experiences in the SSI-based classrooms. / Math & Science Education

I dagens läroplan för grundskolan (Lgr 11) finns syftesbeskrivningar för de naturOrienterande (NO) ämnena som säger att eleverna ska utveckla kunskaper och redskap för att formulera och granska information och andras argument samt ta ställning i frågor som rör ämnen med naturvetenskapligt innehåll. Detta är formuleringar som speglar det man i dag anser att NO-undervisningen ska ge de elever som går ut grundskolan. I det här arbetet har elever i slutet av högstadiet fått argumentera kring användandet av genmodifierade grödor (Genetically Modified Organism, GMO). Detta är ett exempel på så kallade Samhällsfrågor med Naturvetenskapligt Innehåll (SNI) och den här typen av samhällsfrågor har lyfts fram som ett sätt att arbeta med de formuleringar som nu finns i läroplanen. Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka högstadieelevers användning av argument i en naturvetenskapligt grundad diskussion och hur användningen av SNI i undervisningen kan hjälpa elever att utveckla sin argumentationsteknik och sitt intresse för naturvetenskap. Elevernas argumentation kring frågan om GMO har analyserats utifrån en analysmodell som är utvecklad för granskning av argumentation om SNI. Den här studien har funnit att användandet av SNI fungerar väl för att testa delar av läroplanens kunskapskrav men att det kräver noga förberedelser och att övningarna är väl uppbyggda.

Scientific literacy is concerned with the informed citizens' ability to negotiate scientifically-related societal issues. The suite of skills necessary to negotiate these complex issues is referred to as Socioscientific Reasoning (SSR). SSR requires, among other things, perspective-taking abilities in order to consider the multi-faceted nature of these open-ended, debatable socioscientific issues (SSI). Developing interventions and instruments to foster and measure perspective taking in support of SSR is therefore critical to the promotion of functional scientific literacy through both research and practice. Although widely studied in many disciplines, perspective taking is a particularly tangled construct that has been used to describe a range of activities representing different psychological domains and applied interchangeably with related constructs such as role taking, empathy, and theory of mind. This ambiguity makes it difficult to ensure construct validity and prevents science education researchers from honing in on the precise skills they wish to study and promote. To clarify the construct of perspective taking, this study undertook a conceptual analysis to operationalize perspective taking, drawing comparisons and distinctions between it and related constructs. Further, by applying a method known as conception development, perspective taking was positioned in the context of SSR, particularly as it relates to moral development, in order to devise a more precise construct relating perspective taking to SSR called socioscientific perspective taking (SSPT). It is asserted that SSPT requires engagement with others or their circumstances, an etic/emic shift, and a moral context comprised of reflective and reflexive judgment. Finally, in order to identify promising interventions for promoting SSPT in the science classroom, the newly-developed SSPT construct was applied to a series of extensively researched curricular frameworks that promote perspective taking in three non-science disciplines including historical empathy (social studies education), method acting (theater education), and autism intervention (special education). The aim of this theoretical inquiry was to translate successful perspective-taking interventions into SSI contexts, yielding an array of promising approaches for fostering SSPT while assessing the feasibility of each of these fields as potential sources for novel and expansive work in SSI to promote scientific literacy. Implications for science education research and practice are discussed.

Abstract This thesis investigates the use of socioscientific issues (SSI) in the high school science classroom as an introduction to argumentation and socioscientific reasoning, with the goal of improving students' scientific literacy (SL). Current research is reviewed that supports the likelihood of students developing a greater conceptual understanding of scientific theories as well as a deeper understanding of the nature of science (NOS), through participation in informal and formal forms of argumentation in the context of SSI. Significant gains in such understanding may improve a student's ability to recognize the rigor, legitimacy, and veracity of scientific claims and better discern science from pseudoscience. Furthermore, students that participate in significant SSI instruction by negotiating a range of science-related social issues can make significant gains in content knowledge and develop the life-long skills of argumentation and evidence-based reasoning, goals not possible in traditional lecture-based science instruction. SSI-based instruction may therefore help students become responsible citizens. This synthesis also suggests that that the improvements in science literacy and NOS understanding that develop from sustained engagement in SSI-based instruction will better prepare students to examine and scrutinize socially controversial scientific theories (i.e., evolution, global warming, and the Big Bang).

Socioscientific argumentation has shown to be a feasible educational framework for promoting citizenship and for cultivating scientific literacy. However, there are several aspects of this educational framework that have been shown to be problematic. Consequently, in this thesis I investigated various aspects of quality of socioscientific argumentation from both an upper secondary student and a teacher perspective. By using students’ written argumentation on socioscientific issues (SSI) I studied how they justified their claims. The results showed that different SSI led students to use different subject areas in their justifications. I also compared science majors with social science majors and found that the number of justifications provided by the students is related to their discipline background. In these two studies, a new content focused analytical framework for analyzing content aspects of socioscientific argumentation, the SEE-SEP model, was used and shown to be suitable for this purpose. However, to ensure that students are able to produce high-quality arguments I suggest that both content and structural aspects need to be considered. As a result of this, I have presented a framework based on research literature and the Swedish curriculum, for analyzing and assessing both these aspects of socioscientific argumentation. Moreover, I investigated how science and language teachers assess students’ socioscientific argumentation and found that the science teachers focused on students’ ability to reproduce content knowledge, whereas language teachers focused on students’ ability to use content knowledge from references, and the structural and linguistic aspects of argumentation.   The complexity of teaching socioscientific argumentation makes it difficult to teach and assess comprehensively. In order to promote quality and include both content and structural aspects, I suggest that a co-operation among teachers of different disciplines is beneficial. / Socioscientific argumentation has shown to be a feasible educational framework for promoting citizenship and scientific literacy. In this thesis I investigated various aspects of quality of students socioscientific argumentation and how teachers assess this. The results showed that different SSI led students to use different subject areas in their justifications and that the number of justifications provided by the students is related to their discipline background. Moreover, to promote students high-quality arguments I have presented a framework for analyzing and assessing both content and structural aspects. I also investigated how science and language teachers assess students’ socioscientific argumentation and found that the science teachers focused on students’ ability to reproduce content knowledge, whereas language teachers focused on students’ ability to use content knowledge from references, and the structural and linguistic aspects of argumentation. The complexity of teaching socioscientific argumentation makes it difficult to teach and assess comprehensively. In order to promote quality and include both content and structural aspects, I suggest that a co-operation among teachers of different disciplines is beneficial. / <p>Article IV was in manuscript form at the time of the thesis defense and has been published afterwards.</p>

School is assumed to equip students with subject knowledge and contribute to their development as human beings and democratic citizens as well. In this article, the democratic dimension of the teaching assignment is brought to the fore, and an analysis tool for investigating students’ conversations on socioscientific issues that emphasises democratic aspects is presented. The DEQUAL-tool, where the acronyms stand for DEliberative QUALities, comprises both the content-related and formal aspects of the conversations, with a specific emphasis on the collective expressions of democratic qualities like questioning, consideration for others and conveying different dimensions and arguments. DEQUAL is based on an intersubjective and communicative understanding of democracy and meaning-making, and is theoretically inspired by John Dewey’s and Jürgen Habermas’ views on these matters. The development and function of DEQUAL is clarified using excerpts from upper secondary school students talking about how living in a certain place influences the greenhouse effect. By pointing out characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of students’ group-conversations, this methodological proposal can provide further guidance for an integrative understanding of the teacher’s assignment in science education.

This thesis focuses on upper secondary students’ use of resources in their supporting reasons when arguing socioscientific issues (SSIs). The skills of argumentation have been emphasized in science education during the past decades and SSIs are proven a good context for learners to enhance skills of argumentation and achieve the goal of scientific literacy. Research has shown that supporting reasons from various resources are embedded in students’ argumentation on SSIs, and also that multi-perspective involvement in reasoning is important for the quality of argumentation. To explore the reasons used by students in arguing about SSIs in this thesis, the SEE-SEP model was adopted as an analytical framework. The SEE-SEP model covers the six subject areas of sociology/culture, economy, environment/ecology, science, ethics/morality and policy, which are connected to the three aspects of knowledge, value and personal experience. Two studies covering four SSIs (global warming, GMO, nuclear power and consumption) explore how students construct arguments on one SSI topic chosen by them. In paper I, I investigated students’ use of resources in their informal argumentation and to what extent students made use of knowledge. The results showed that students used value to a larger extent (67%) than knowledge (27%). I also found that the distribution of supporting reasons generated by students varied from the different SSIs. In paper II, I explored students’ use of resources in relation to students’ study background (science majors and social-science majors) and gender. The results showed that social-science majors and females generated more numbers of reasons and also showed a larger amount of multi-disciplinary resources in their supporting reasons. From the findings of this thesis, the SEE-SEP model was established as a suitable model used to analyze students’ resources of supporting reasons while arguing about SSIs. Furthermore, the potential for applying the SEE-SEP model in teachers’ SSI-teaching and students’ SSI-learning is suggested. The implications to research and teaching are also discussed.

This study was conducted to investigate the extent to which the Life Sciences curriculum integrates green economy content, as functional green economy knowledge amongst South African citizens could address socio-economic challenges in South Africa. Primarily, document analysis of the Grade 10-12 Life Sciences Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) was conducted to determine whether green economy content was prescribed in the CAPS document and to what degree. Secondly, Grade 10 Life Sciences teachers completed questionnaires and participated in interviews to reveal their opinions on the integration of green economy content in the Life Sciences curriculum, their understanding of green economy and its implementation, as well as their opinions on the relevance of the current Life Sciences curriculum’s content for afterschool use. The research findings revealed that the Life Sciences curriculum can serve the purpose of introducing students to green economy aspects, however changes must be made to the curriculum so that functional green economy content is integrated. Currently, the curriculum does not provide guidelines for teachers on how to educate learners in such a manner that they will be able to participate in a green economy. Much of the content related to green economy topics is prescribed as extra content without the inclusion of student investigations or skill development activities. Furthermore, content on plants and human anatomy are prescribed and assessed in much greater detail than the environmental studies strand, resulting in the exclusion of much green economy related content. Findings indicate that socioscientific issues such as green economy are not linked to the environmental studies subject content, which means that daily-life application of content remains unclear to students. In addition to this, teachers revealed that they have knowledge of environmentally green practices but are unsure of how these relate to the economy. The researcher proposes that curriculum designers completely integrate green economy content into the Life Sciences CAPS document, including not only content for discussion purposes but also investigations and activities which will lead to skills development, compelling learners to modify their behaviour and seek solutions to the urgent problems faced by humanity in terms of environmental degradation and economic collapse. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / Unrestricted

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la possible contribution de l’étude des questions socioscientifiques (QSSs) à une Éducation Citoyenne (EC). L'EC est affichée comme l’enjeu éducatif des QSSs par la recherche en éducation aux sciences ainsi que par le curriculum du secondaire Français à travers l’enseignement des thèmes de convergence communs à plusieurs disciplines. Or le concept de citoyenneté est un concept dynamique et mouvant. En effet, le citoyen se présente dans une pluralité de profils au regard de la recherche en socio-politique et la visée d’EC n’est pas consensuelle dans le champ de recherche sur les QSSs quant au citoyen à construire. Notre travail de recherche pose alors la question de quel citoyen nous (au sens de société) voulons construire et quelle EC serait alors à privilégier. Si le projet est de construire un citoyen qui participe aux discussions et aux prises de décision en matière d’enjeux technoscientifiques dans le cadre d’une participation démocratique, orientation promue par certaines recherches sur les QSSs, alors il nous faut privilégier une EC émancipatrice et critique. C’est pourquoi, l’étude d’une QSS par le débat dans le cadre de la demande institutionnelle d’enseignement des thèmes de convergence nous a semblé une voie propice pour répondre à ce questionnement de possible contribution des QSSs à une EC critique. Nous positionnant dans cette orientation d’EC critique pour laquelle nous avons élaboré un modèle, nous avons construit une séquence pédagogique étayée par ce modèle et par le modèle de scolarisation des controverses de Albe (2007) dans une approche méthodologique des recherches « design-based ». Cette séquence est construite comme une conférence de citoyen pour des jeunes élèves de 11 à 12 ans. Ils ont alors été invités à s’exercer à une citoyenneté critique autour de recherches documentaires, d’un débat finalisé par une décision et d’ activités de formation à l’expertise documentaire, sur une question réelle d’installation de l’Internet dans leur établissement par le système Wi-Fi ou le système filaire. L’analyse des différentes données écrites ou orales a été effectuée dans le cadre analytique de notre modèle d’EC critique. Nous avons eu recours à la dimension épistémologique du modèle de Albe (2007) pour déterminer quels sont les savoirs que les élèves mobilisent lors de ce dispositif de débat. Pour déterminer comment les élèves expertisent l’information, nous avons eu recours aux travaux de Kolstø (2001) et de Klosterman et Sadler (2008). L’argumentation des élèves a été analysée suivant l’interaction argumentative développée par Plantin (1995, 2000). L’analyse de la prise de décision a été conduite en référence aux travaux de Ratcliffe (1999). Nous avons établi à travers nos analyses que les élèves mobilisent de façon importante des savoirs scolaires relatifs à la question des ondes Wi-Fi, qu’ils ont des argumentations construites, qu’ils évaluent peu les sources des documents mais qu’ils évaluent leur contenu. L’analyse de la prise de décision a montré différents niveaux de complexité dans le choix des critères. Par ailleurs, des modalités de prise de décision ont été construites et proposées par les élèves dans lesquelles les enjeux sanitaires et économiques liés à la question des ondes Wi-Fi ont été pris en compte. Notre étude montre que l’étude d’une QSS peut engager des jeunes élèves dans l’exercice d’une EC critique qui vise à construire un citoyen capable de participer aux discussions et aux prises de décisions en matière de QSSs. / This thesis focuses on a potential contribution of the study of socioscientific issues (SSIs) in school context to a Citizenship Education (CE). The CE is the declared aim of the SSI research movement. It is also the one of the French middle school curriculum, promoted through “convergence topics” teaching which are common to several academic subjects. But the concept of citizenship is a dynamic and moving concept. The socio-political research field highlights a plurality of citizen profiles. Also, regarding the citizen building, the SSI research movement is not consensual about the meaning of CE. Our research raises the question of what kind of citizen, we (according to society) want to build and what EC should be promoted. If the project is to build a citizen who participates in debate and decision-making about technoscientific issues through democratic participation, view also promoted by some researchers, then we need to focus on an emancipatory and critical CE. Therefore, the SSI study using debate through “convergence topics” teaching seems to be a good way to explore this potential contribution of the SSIs studies to a critical CE. Promoting a critical CE, for which a model has been build, we have developed a educative design, supported by this model and Albe’s model (2007) in the methodological approach of the design-based research. This design has been built such as a citizen conference for 11-12 years old students. They were asked to practice a critical citizenship through literature search, a debate finalized by a decision and an activity around the evaluation of the selected information in the web. They have to work on a real situation: the installation of an Internet connection in their school by the wireless system using waves or by the wire line system using cables. The various written or oral data were analysed in the framework of our model of critical CE. The epistemological dimension of Albe’s model (2007) was used to determine what knowledge were mobilized by the young students during the debate. To examine how students have evaluated the selected information, analytical tools were developed from Kolstø (2001) and Klosterman and Sadler (2008) researches. The student argumentation was analysed according to the argumentative interaction theory (Plantin, 1995, 2000). The decision-making analysis was conducted in reference to Ratcliffe (1999) studies. The different analyses show that students have mobilized a lot of academic knowledge related to the waves and built their argumentation. The sources of the different documents haven’t been evaluated while their content has. The decision-making analysis has shown different levels of complexity in the criteria choice. In addition, several decision-making processes have been proposed and developed by the students. The health and economical aspects related to the waves issues were considered. Our study shows that a QSS study can engage young students to express a critical EC in practice, which aims to enable citizens to participate in discussions and decisions regarding the QSSs.

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