Attitudes toward Science and Scientific Literacy Among Romanian Young Adults

Abstract

The paper explores attitudes toward science and scientific literacy among Romanian young adults, through an online survey following key dimensions -attitudes toward science, integration of science in everyday life, beliefs in pseudoscientific phenomena and knowledge of the scientific method. Moreover, the study focuses especially on healthcare students and professionals' scientific literacy, exploring the level of scientific reasoning within the medical field. Analysis includes multiple comparisons across different fields of study, professional areas and age groups. The novelty of the study consists in shifting the assessment of scientific literacy from general scientific knowledge toward the understanding of the scientific method. Results of the present study confirmed a deficit in scientific knowledge, but more importantly, demonstrated that the relationship between scientific literacy and attitudes toward science was a non-linear one. In fact, the study found a gap between what people accept to be scientific fact and what they choose to integrate into everyday life. Given these results, we argue that science education's focus should be on developing scientific reasoning rather than providing scientific knowledge.

The scientistic worldview and its relationships with fear of COVID, conspiracy beliefs, preventive behaviors, and attitudes towards vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic in a Polish sample

“…Another limitation involved measuring only the scientistic worldview without measuring similar variables: the general trust in science ( Hendriks et al, 2016 ), perceived credibility of science ( Hartman et al, 2017 ), scientific literacy, and reasoning ( Čavojová et al, 2020 ; Laugksch, 2000 ; Motoki et al, 2021 ) and the tendency towards analytical thinking ( Pennycook et al, 2015 ). Having positive attitudes towards science is not directly related to knowing what science is and how it works ( Bauer, 2009 ; Daniela-Luminița, 2016 ; Evans & Durant, 1995 ; Lee & Kim, 2018 ). Therefore, in future research on the relationship between attitudes towards science and aspects of everyday life, it would be worth considering the broader context of such attitudes.…”