Teachers and Socioscientific Issues – An Overview of Recent Empirical Research

Nielsen, Jan Alexis

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-40229-7_2

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…(B) Instructors were asked to respond to the short-answer prompt: “What do you fear is the worst-case scenario implementing ideological awareness material in your course?” All responses were coded into categories, response frequency is represented by increasing percentage of occurrence. (C) Venn diagram displaying the overlapping fears between socio-scientific issues (SSI) and ideological awareness curriculum based on this study and SSI systematic reviews ( Nielsen, 2020 ; Chen and Xiao, 2021 ). Code definitions and examples from categories displayed in this diagram can be found in Table 2 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biology Instructors See Value in Discussing Controversial Topics but Fear Personal and Professional Consequences

Beatty

Driessen

Clark

et al. 2023

LSE

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biology Instructors See Value in Discussing Controversial Topics but Fear Personal and Professional Consequences

Beatty

Driessen

Clark

et al. 2023

LSE

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“…Therefore, the success of the ideological awareness curriculum used in our study could be due to the curriculum, the active learning format in which it was taught, or a combination. However, traditional course content rarely makes the explicit connections to society made by our ideologically aware curriculum (Tanner and Allen, 2007;Nielsen, 2020;Beatty et al, 2023), and students are often unable to make connections between science and society without explicit instruction (Hofstein et al, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embracing the inclusion of societal concepts in biology improves student understanding

Adams,

Driessen,

Granados

et al. 2023

Front. Educ.

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Understanding the relationship between science and society is included as a core competency for biology students in the United States. However, traditional undergraduate biology instruction emphasizes scientific practice and generally avoids potentially controversial issues at the intersection of science and society, such as representation in STEM, historical unethical research experiments, biology of sex and gender, and environmental justice. As calls grow to highlight this core competency, it is critical we investigate the impact of including these topics in undergraduate biology education. Here, we implemented a semester-long ideological awareness curriculum that emphasized biases, stereotypes, and assumptions that have shaped historical and contemporary science. We taught this curriculum to one section of a non-majors introductory biology course and compared the outcomes to a section of the same course taught using traditional biology content (hereafter the ‘traditional’ section) that did not emphasize societal topics. Both sections of students created concept maps for their final exam, which we coded for ‘society’ and ‘biology’ content. We then assessed (1) the amount of societal content included in the concept maps, and (2) which societal topics were mentioned in each section. We found that students in the ideologically aware section included more societal content in their concept maps than the students in the traditional section. Students exposed to the ideological awareness modules often mentioned the topics covered in those modules, whereas students in the traditional section most commonly mentioned faulty scientific information such as pseudoscience or non-credible research, which was emphasized in the first chapter of the required text-book for both sections. Our results show students who were not engaged in activities about ideological awareness in biology had fewer notions of how society impacts science at the end of the semester. These findings highlight the importance of intentionally teaching students the bidirectional impacts of science and society.

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“…There is an increasing body of research on SSI instruction and PSTs' professional learning. Much of the literature focuses on investigating the impact of a specific SSI instruction program [15][16][17] or intervention on the development of PSTs to help them incorporate SSI into their future classrooms [18][19][20]. The findings in previous research suggest that PSTs face significant barriers to understanding and implementing SSI instruction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, participating in a community of practice during SSI implementation also promotes teacher professional development [23]. Some research advocates that teacher education programs should provide more opportunities for PSTs to experience SSI instruction [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Understanding of Socio-Scientific Issues Instruction through a Co-Design and Co-Teaching Approach Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

Huang

2023

Sustainability

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This qualitative case study explores the development of pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs) understanding of Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) instruction. The study utilized a conceptual framework of SSI-based instruction and a three-phase approach involving co-designing solutions, co-designing curriculum materials, and co-teaching classes. Primary data sources included PSTs’ interviews and reflective journals, while artifacts, field notes, and curriculum materials served as secondary data sources. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data of six PSTs in a teacher preparation program. We found that the PSTs’ understanding of SSI instruction was enhanced in 12 features of three core aspects: design elements, learner experiences, and teacher attributes. “Engaging in higher-order practices” was the most prominent feature, observed across all three phases. The three-phase approach played a crucial role in promoting PSTs’ understanding of SSI instruction, with each phase guiding their understanding in distinct ways. Particularly, the co-designing solutions phase facilitated the development of PSTs’ “awareness of the social considerations associated with the issue”. While the co-designing curriculum materials phase was effective in promoting their understanding of “scaffolding for practice: providing scaffolding for higher-order practices. “The co-teaching classes phase played a crucial role in facilitating their understanding of “willingness to position oneself as a knowledge contributor rather than the sole authority”.

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Teachers and Socioscientific Issues – An Overview of Recent Empirical Research

Cited by 11 publications

References 26 publications

Biology Instructors See Value in Discussing Controversial Topics but Fear Personal and Professional Consequences

Biology Instructors See Value in Discussing Controversial Topics but Fear Personal and Professional Consequences

Embracing the inclusion of societal concepts in biology improves student understanding

Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Understanding of Socio-Scientific Issues Instruction through a Co-Design and Co-Teaching Approach Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

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