Is the Earth Crying Wolf? Exploring Knowledge Source and Certainty in High School Students’ Analysis of Global Warming News

Abstract

The marked contrast between the scientific consensus on global warming and public beliefs indicates a need to research how high schoolers, as future citizens, engage with and make meaning from news articles on such topics. In the case of socioscientific issues (SSIs) such as global warming, students’ acquisition of knowledge from the news is mediated by their epistemic understandings of the nature of science (NOS) and use of informal reasoning in evaluating claims, evidence, and sources. This exploratory qualitative study examined twelve U.S. high school students’ understandings, opinions, and epistemic beliefs concerning global warming knowledge. Researchers examined microgenetic changes as students discussed global warming during semi-structured interviews and a close reading of global warming news texts. Although results showed that most students could articulate a working concept of global warming, in follow-up questions, a subset offered personal opinions that differed from or contradicted their previously stated understandings. Meanwhile, students who offered opinions consistent with the scientific consensus often argued that the dangers of global warming were exaggerated by politicians and scientists who wished to profit from the issue. This study suggests a need for more explicit focus on NOS and scientific news literacy in curricula, as well as further research into the interplay between epistemic beliefs and the informal reasoning students use to negotiate diverse sources of SSI knowledge—from the classroom to the news media and public life.

Comprensión y alfabetización científica en la escuela: Revisión sistemática

“…Comprensión y alfabetización científica en la escuela: Revisión sistemática La mayor parte de estudios realizados corresponden al nivel secundaria y pocos los estudios que se centran en las características de la ciencia en el nivel primaria, siendo generalmente la metodología de investigación de tipo descriptivo interpretativo (Ezquerra et al, 2019;García-Carmona, 2021) necesario un andamiaje metamotivacional para que el estudiante regule y permita la reflexión de su aprendizaje (Michalsky, 2021) , lo que permitirá entender y comprender información de tipo científica a fin de tomar decisiones informadas integrando y evaluando el contenido de diversas fuentes, aspecto fundamental para convertirse en ciudadanos responsables que tomen decisiones acertadas (Feucht et al, 2021). El hecho de tener una buena comprensión lectora permite a una persona a nivel virtual tener mejores estrategias para poder seleccionar y discernir sobre sitio de internet que brinde credibilidad e información veraz a fin de mejorar la calidad de la argumentación así como un buen rendimiento científico (Castells et al, 2022;Cruz Neri et al, 2021a;Härtig et al, 2022).…”