• Journal of Science Education
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.180-191
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to investigate the preferred SSI topics of students and teachers in elementary, middle, and high schools. It analyzed the similarity of students' and teachers' preferred SSI topics by school level using the cosine similarity measure. A total of 566 students and 327 teachers from elementary, middle, and high schools participated in the study. Sixty topics were identified and listed in the areas of environment, science and technology, health and medicine, and other social issues based on the literature and SSI programs. Students and teachers were asked to select five of their favorite topics. The data was collected online using SurveyMonkey. The collected data was divided into six groups of students and teachers, and the frequency of topic selection was analyzed within each group. The topic preference similarity was analyzed by calculating vector values based on the frequency of the selected topics and measuring the cosine similarity between students, teachers, and teachers and students by school level. The results are as follows: First, the cosine similarity of SSI Preferred Topics between students' school-level cohorts was higher between middle and high school students (0.982) than between elementary and middle school students (0.651) or between elementary and high school students (0.662). Second, the cosine similarity of SSI Preferred Topics between teachers' school-level cohorts was similar for all comparison groups between elementary, middle, and high school. Third, the SSI topic preference similarity between students and teachers by school level had a higher cosine similarity between the elementary student and teacher cohorts (0.974) than the other school level comparisons, middle school (0.621) or high school (0.645). Access to topics of interest to students in SSI education is strongly associated with motivation and persistence in learning, as well as an enjoyable learning experience and positive attitudes toward learning. Therefore, when designing SSI lessons, it is important to examine topics from the perspective of student interest, especially if the teacher has selected SSI topics that are different from students' preferences. Careful instructional design will be needed to overcome the gap.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.111-122
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school students' awareness about socio-scientific issues and solutions about environmental topics by using their drawings. For this study, 489 students were participated in 3 provincial regions, Incheon, Dangjin and Pohang in Korea. The students participated in a drawing activity to express their ideas of the socio-scientific issues and solutions related to 'environmental problems.' The analysis of the data include that the students displayed most awareness towards air pollution, water pollution and trash problems. However, the global environmental problems such as global warming and climate change were perceived very low. The interesting thing was about 8% of the students, who drew global environmental problems, tried to explain their drawings using scientific knowledge. But they revealed misconceptions as well. For instance, they were not good at connecting their science knowledge with environmental problems. About 80% of the students drew the pictures, showing solutions in personal context. They mainly drew 3 kinds of solutions: 'Reduce trash', 'Preserve ecosystem' and 'Saving of resources & energy'. Most students suggested to administrate the action plans. About 19% of the students drew 'campaign to save the forest' or 'develop alternative energy' in social context. And only 1 student drew UN conference to solve the environmental problems in national context.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.421-433
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• 2023

This study examined the reasoning of gifted elementary science students in a socioscientific issues (SSI) classroom discussion on COVID-19-related trash disposal challenges. This study aimed to understand the characteristics of evidence use and decision-making difficulties in each type of SSI-related reasoning. To this end, the transcripts of 17 gifted students of elementary science discussing SSIs in a classroom were analyzed within the framework of informal reasoning. The analysis framework was categorized into three types according to the primary influence involved in reasoning: rational, emotional, and intuitive. The analysis showed that students exhibited four categories of evidence use in SSI reasoning. First, in the rational reasoning category, students deemed and recorded scientific knowledge, numbers, and statistics as objective evidence. However, students who experienced difficulty in investigating such scientific data were less likely to have factored them in subsequent decisions. Second, in the emotional reasoning category, students' solutions varied considerably depending on the perspective they empathized with and reasoned from. Differences in their views led to conflicting perspectives on SSIs and consequent disagreement. Third, in the intuitive reasoning category, students disagreed with the opinions of their peers but did not explain their positions precisely. Intuitive reasoning also created challenges as students avoided problem-solving in the discussion and did not critically examine their opinions. Fourth, a mixed category of reasoning emerged: intuition combined with rationality or emotion. When combined with emotion, intuitive reasoning was characterized by deep empathy arising from personal experience, and when combined with rationality, the result was only an impulsive reaction. These findings indicate that research on student understanding and faculty knowledge of SSIs discussed in classrooms should consider the difficulties in informal reasoning and decision-making.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.581-596
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• 2013

The aim of this study was to identify students' views on the orientation of science and to investigate the relationship between their views and decision-making on socio-scientific issues (SSI). In this study, 27 university students attending a science course were asked to discuss four controversial issues: the Toyota recall, the green car, the global warming and swine influenza (influenza A (H1N1)). The study was comprised of two stages. At the first stage, we examined students' views on the nature of science and on the orientation of science with the open-ended questionnaire based on VNOS and VOSTS. While they held relatively similar views on the nature of science, their views on the orientation of science were distinct as pragmatic, intrinsic, communal and ethical views. At the second stage, to examine the role of their views on the orientation of science in decision-making, we selected four students who had similar views on NOS but different views on the orientation of science. The four students were selected from each group of views on the orientation of science and their decision-making processes were analyzed following grounded theory. Across SSIs, they relied upon their views on the orientation of science as the strategies for decision, though considered different perception, and causal and contextual conditions. This study indicates that understanding students' views on the orientation of science would be helpful for achieving scientific literacy for informed decision.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.61-75
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• 2022

Recently, lifelong learning ability was newly proposed as scientific literacy, the goal of the science curriculum. To solve various science-related problems students encounter in life, lifelong learning abilities related to science beyond school science education are required, but empirical evidence shows that students can solve problems they actually face through scientific literacy. It is not easy to find in the existing science education research. In addition, there is a lack of discussion on how to cultivate lifelong learning ability suggested in the curriculum through school science education. In this study, attention was paid to SSI education as a method for students to cultivate lifelong learning ability through school science education and to develop their ability to solve science-related problems encountered in life. In this context, statements in the existing SSI education studies were reviewed to discover discourses related to lifelong learning, and their types and characteristics were distinguished. It was possible to confirm lifelong learning and its applicability with focus on science education research through this. For the study, 18 literature materials on the subject of SSI education were selected, and the discourses related to lifelong learning in the SSI education research were discovered by examining the statements revealed in the data. As a result of the study, there are four categories of discourses related to lifelong learning: 'awareness of science,' 'connection between science and everyday life', 'promotion of participatory citizenship', and 'construction of identity'. Various SSI education studies have already had lifelong learning perception in various contexts, and the four types of discourses related to lifelong learning could be linked to the four types of learning presented in the UNESCO Lifelong Learning Report. SSI education tends to view students' life experiences as part of their learning and aims to help students develop the character and capacity to make responsible decisions on social issues related to science and put them into practice. This competency can be continuously connected to the real-life of students outside of school as a lifelong learning ability. This study requires expanding the discourse related to lifelong learning in science education and operating and managing the overall educational system to foster students' lifelong learning ability.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.294-309
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• 2013

This study addressed the awareness of social issues related to science of future elementary school teachers. Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident was used by concrete issue connected with SSI for this study. Twelve second-year students attending a university of education participated in the study, who were taking a class of science teacher preparation at that time that consists of the content of the elementary science education courses. The study revealed that all the pre-service elementary teachers recognized Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and received such information through various medias. In particular, they were receiving more information about the Nuclear Power Plant Accident through the internet than any other media by using the internet a lot, and also gained additional information through the internet. However, despite the fact that they recognized Nuclear Power Plant Accident, they neither had much information about it nor had been interested in SSI such as the Nuclear Power Plant Accident. Moreover, they had been basically uneducated about SSI. Despite of having no interest in SSI such as Nuclear Power Plant Accident, the study revealed that the pre-service elementary teachers recognized that scientific problems such as Nuclear Power Plant Accident may affect a society closely. In addition, they together sympathized with the point that SSI education should be applied on the current education courses by identifying the problem in application. As the study revealed above, the application of SSI education to the formal education courses as well as more lively research on that subject is very important and urgent for boosting interest in science subjects and enlightening the nature of science that is one of the objectives of science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.203-217
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• 2018

The research objective of this study is to analyze the aspects of small group decision-making process based on reading news reports in the context of the socio-scientific issues (SSI) activity related to climate change. Twenty-two high school students from Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, were asked to read two news reports on the UN climate change conferences and take a stance on joining the Paris Agreement both as an individual and as a small group. The news reports were analyzed in terms of genre, discourse, and style adapting the critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the decision-making processes of the small groups were examined on recognizing a problem and evaluating alternatives and decisions. The results from analyzing the news reports denoted that the Paris agreement is not only related to finding ideal solutions to climate change, but rather, connected to political or economic interests and power relationship. In the stage of recognizing a problem, meanwhile, different frames which students recognize the Paris agreement and discourses in the foreground of the news reports were the critical causes in terms of identifying the problem. In the stage of evaluating alternatives and decisions, the equity and fairness were the criteria for the small group discussions. This study implies the necessity of the scientific literacy instruction to develop the ability to critical reading in the context of the SSI.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.338-346
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• 2014

In this study, find out of recognition of the effect of science, society and ethical aspects on natural disasters and understanding degree of knowledge applying for SSI class aimed at elementary pre-service teachers by developing SSI training program of the 'Earth and Space' field. Also, after SSI class application we examined the change perceptions of elementary pre-service teachers. SSI training program was that elementary pre-service teachers participated in the SSI class of a variety of subjects in the field of 'Earth and Space' and directly joined in the decision-making process and reflectional discussion with colleagues as conducted in this class reflective discussion with the pre-primary teachers pre-service teachers. Elementary pre-service teachers were understanding of the nature of the science and to understand in more depth about the SSI class characteristics. This study, second grade 115 people who was taking 'science and teaching materials' course in B National University of Education at B city participated. In order to apply for SSI class, one semester based on 15 weeks until seven weeks were science and teaching materials and based on the nature of science, after 8 weeks we set the theme of the contents related to the Earth and space and give lesson applied for SSI. During 8 weeks, test subjects 4 classes were taking 50 minutes a week 100 minutes. First time has theoretical lessons in topics related to the 'Earth and space' and on the second week, each classes participate in the decision-making processes respectivly by dicussing and debating on the first week's topic as regarding social and moral aspects of it. We obtained the following results. First, elementary pre-service teachers were acquiring the results of 67% in the knowledge aspects of the 'Earth and space'. This result was determined that most of the elementary pre-service teachers were liberal arts in high school. Second, while participating in the SSI class, elementary pre-service teachers were concretely aware of the nature of SSI and the characteristics of the class. Third, the elementary pre-service teacher are thaught that introduction education courses about 'Earth and space' are needed but most of the students responded that this would require a lot of effort of teachers. This was derived from not familiar class form that did not fulfill in the science teaching methods until now.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.467-480
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate how flipped learning-based socioscientific issue instruction (FL-SSI instruction) affected middle school students' key competencies and character development. Traditional classrooms are constrained in terms of time and resources for exploring the issues and making decision on SSI. To address these concerns, we designed and implemented an SSI instruction adopting flipped learning. Seventy-three 8th graders participated in an SSI program on four topics for over 12 class periods. Two questionnaires were used as a main data source to measure students' key competencies and character development before and after the SSI instruction. In addition, student responses and shared experience from focus group interviews after the instruction were collected and analyzed. The results indicate that the students significantly improved their key competencies and experienced character development after the SSI instruction. The students presented statistically significant improvement in the key competencies (i.e., collaboration, information and technology, critical thinking and problem-solving, and communication skills) and in two out of three factors in character and values as global citizens (social and moral compassion, and socio-scientific accountability). Interview data supports the quantitative results indicating that SSI instruction with a flipped learning strategy provided students in-depth and rich learning opportunities. The students responded that watching web-based videos prior to class enabled them to deeply understand the issue and actively engage in discussion and debate once class began. Furthermore, the resulting gains in available class time deriving from a flipped learning approach allowed the students to examine the issue from diverse perspectives.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.284-296
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• 2020

This study investigates the effect of SSI debate on first-year high school student's opinions about environmental issue, their judgment grounds, and solutions to regional environmental problems. The SSI debate was about white heron habitats near the village where students live. As the main data of the study, environmental perception questionnaires, and students' workbook including open-ended questions were collected before and after class. The environmental perception questionnaire was analyzed by descriptive statistics, and the response of the open-ended questions was analyzed through inductive qualitative research methods. First, the results of this study shows that the SSI debate has a statistically significant impact on students' environmental attitude. Second, a majority of students agreed on the idea that villagers should drive the birds out of town and they did not change their after the discussion class. However, after the discussion class, students' solutions about the issue were changed in a way that more short-term, feasible, concrete, and less time-consuming solutions to the problem. Based on the results of this study, this study implies that SSI issue debate using local problem should be used more often in science classroom so the students recognize local SSI and improve real world problem solving skills.