Cross‐cultural epistemological orientations to socioscientific issues

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to examine, from a cross-cultural perspective, students' epistemological patterns of reasoning about socioscientific issues (SSI), and to identify potential interactions of cultural and scientific identity. Mediating factors associated with students' argumentation and discourse about SSI, as well as the public's understanding of science, has been identified as an important area of investigation in the field of science education. This mixed-methods design included over 300 students from Jamaica, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States. Students responded to instruments designed to assess their epistemological conceptualizations and justifications related to distributive justice, allocation of scarce medical resources, and epistemological beliefs over five dimensions related to scientific knowledge. Four iterations of a coding scheme produced over 97% inter-rater agreement for four independent coders. Results indicate there is a consistent trend toward epistemological congruity across cultures within inductively derived themes of: (1) Fairness;(2) Pragmatism; (3) Emotive Reasoning; (4) Utility; and (5) Theological Issues. Moreover, there were no discernable differences in terms of how students from these countries presented their beliefs on the sub-categories of each of the five major categories. It appears that students displayed a high degree of congruence with respect to how they frame their reasoning on this SSI as well as their justifications for their epistemological beliefs. There were statistically significant differences regarding the ability to raise scientifically relevant questions among countries. Commonalities as well as distinguishing characteristics in epistemological orientations are compared and contrasted and connections to a model of socioscientific reasoning with implications for research and pedagogy are discussed. ß 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50: 2013 The purpose of this investigation was to examine, from a cross-cultural perspective, students' epistemological patterns of reasoning about socioscientific issues (SSI), and to identify potential interactions of cultural and scientific identity. We derive our fundamental meaning of epistemological beliefs from the Greek term epistēmē, which expresses how individuals construe and justify meaning from their own personal knowledge and understanding about the world. In this context, epistemological reasoning refers to how individuals frame an issue and Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article.

Student Decision-Making about a Globally Familiar Socioscientific Issue: The value of sharing and comparing views with international counterparts

“…Zeidler et al (2013) compared the approaches taken by students from five countries (Jamaica, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States) in making decisions about the distribution of scarce medical resources. Their results indicated a high degree of congruence in the way the students framed their reasoning on this socioscientific issue and in their justifications for their epistemological beliefs.…”

Contextualization of Nature of Science Within the Socioscientific Issues Framework: A Review of Research

“…There has been a significant amount of research linking SSI with other important aspects of science education including argumentation (Jimenez Aleixandre & Pereiro Munoz, 2005), NOS , epistemology (Liu et al, 2011;Zeidler, Herman, Ruzek, Linder, & Lin, 2013), communication skills (Yoonsook, Yoo, Kim, Lee, & Zeidler, 2016), and reflective judgment (Zeidler, Sadler, Applebaum, & Callahan, 2009). All these areas of work also help demonstrate linkages between NOS and SSI in general and show how SSI can serve as a natural and effective context for the exploration of general and related contextualizations of NOS (Kampourakis, (2016).…”

Korean Secondary Students’ Perception of Scientific Literacy as Global Citizens: Using Global Scientific Literacy Questionnaire

“…global warming, genetically modified organism, stem-cell research, nanotechnologies, oil spills, etc. ), make a thoughtful decision using evidence with scientific ideas, and take socio-political actions to resolve issues for the larger good of the global society (Boyes, Skamp, & Stanistreet, 2009;Mueller & Zeidler, 2010;Roth & Lee, 2004;Zeidler, Herman, Ruzek, Linder, & Lin, 2013). Science educators in South Korea have reformed the National Science Education Standards, which aim to raise secondary school graduates with self-directed and creative talents who can deliver global leadership in the twenty-first century.…”