Students’ Civic Engagement Self-Efficacy Varies Across Socioscientific Issues Contexts

Abstract

In STEM learning focused on science literacy, socioscientific issues instruction is often proposed as a way to bolster students’ civic engagement, however few studies in science education have explicitly examined this connection. We define civic engagement as the work of influencing legitimately public matters using means within the existing political structure. In this work we investigate students’ feelings of self-efficacy for this type of civic engagement in the context of four socioscientific issues (prairie dog conservation, food insecurity, biofuels and water conservation). This study was in the context of a large enrollment introductory science college course, where students used a structured decision-making process to examine alternative policy solutions to complex socioscientific issues. We qualitatively examined students’ response about their perception of the importance of the issue, their self-efficacy in exploring actions they could take to impact the issue, and the effectiveness of those actions. We found that students’ ideas about impact and effectiveness varied across the four different issues contexts due to students’ sense of the issues’ importance and scale. Generally, students’ ideas about actions they could take to impact the issue were narrow and rarely included political actions like voting. We also found post instruction increases in students’ civic engagement attitudes and skills related to social justice, interpersonal and problem-solving skills and political awareness. Finally, we suggest that socioscientific instruction must have an explicit connection to policy-level decisions and reveal how individual actions can influence the societal system. Our course using a structured decision-making process in the context of socioscientific issues is one model to help students make these connections.

College Students’ Civic Engagement Efficacy and Their Implementing Effects in Selected STEM Programs

“…Self-efficacy was first introduced by Bandura (1977, 1978), its applications have been extended to various academic disciplines. Previous studies found if individuals do not feel that their actions will be effective within the system they are engaging, they will avoid or reduce their involvement (Beaumont, 2010; Cicognani, 2014); It is also found that strong sense of self-efficacy positively predicts adolescents’ intentions to participate in civic activities (Ainley & Schulz, 2011; Manganelli et al, 2014; Schulz et al, 2010) as well as college students’ actual participation in civic activities (Dauer et al, 2021; Krampen, 2000; Pasek et al, 2008). Moreover, Pastorelli et al (2001) argued successful civic engagement requires motivation and continued actions on the part of the individual.…”

Using Critical Integrative Argumentation to Assess Socioscientific Argumentation across Decision-Making Contexts

“…In previous work, instruction using SDM has shown gains in many areas within STEM literacy, including socioscientific reasoning competencies (i.e., complexity, perspectivetaking, inquiry, and skepticism) [12], learner self-efficacy in finding and applying scientific evidence [24], use of explicit scientific evidence to support claims [37], awareness of multiple potential solutions to SSI [37], civic engagement attitudes [57], and social justice, interpersonal and problem-solving, and political awareness skills [57].…”

Predictors of Scientific Civic Engagement (PSCE) Survey: A Multidimensional Instrument to Measure Undergraduates’ Attitudes, Knowledge, and Intention to Engage with the Community Using Their Science Skills

“…Many examples of teaching with a scientific civic engagement approach are in practice today. For example, STEM educators have been incorporating different modes of activities in their courses, such as encouraging students to engage in decision making around socioscientific issues ( Dauer et al. , 2021 ), using citizen science to learn about diversity and its impact on the ecosystems ( Vance-Chalcraft et al.…”

“…, 2021 ) and/or emphasizing environmental education that helps strengthen school–community relationships by working on issues related to sustainability and climate change ( Flowers and Chodkiewicz, 2009 ). Experiences such as these help students develop their ability to use scientific rationale when making complex decisions about practices that affect their communities ( Dauer et al. , 2021 ).…”