• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.135-145
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• 2018

In this study, we investigated the argumentations of group and classroom discussions in socioscientific issues (SSI) discussion classes. Twenty-seven high school students participated in the SSI discussion classes on nuclear power generation. We observed and recorded the classes and also conducted semi-structured interviews. For the analyses, we revised a previous framework that was developed to analyze dialogic argumentations in the context of SSI. The analyses of the results indicated that there were more discourse schemes in the classroom discussions than the group discussions which are related to awareness and openness to multiple perspectives, evidence based reasoning, and on-going inquiry and skepticism. And there were few discourse schemes related to moral and ethical sensitivity in the group and classroom discussions. Various grounds, data, and information were presented in the classroom discussions. Students concentrated on carrying their claims and were not able to sympathize with and accept other opinions. Therefore, there were few discourse schemes to reach consensus. In addition, they perceived classroom discussions as competitive and actively rebutted other claims or grounds. The levels of argumentation were also high in the classroom discussions. The group discussions were held in relaxed atmosphere, and they asked the opponents more for clarification or additional information and evidences. However, classroom discussions were held in serious atmosphere, and they actively queried the validity of the claims or grounds. Based on the results, some suggestions to implement SSI discussion classes were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.787-797
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• 2017

In this study, we investigated the features of using smart devices in socioscientific issues (SSI) debate classes. Twenty-seven high school students in Gyeonggi-do participated in this study. The processes of the SSI debate classes with smart devices were classified into five stages: data searching, data sharing, summary and organization of data, debate in the classroom, and online debate. Then some features at each stage were identified. It was found that they collected self-directed and in-depth data while reflecting their knowledge and experience, and selected data which were easy to understand at the stage of data searching. The specificity and validity of the evidences gathered and the clarity of the sources were improved at the stage of data sharing, although they shared more data offline than online. They organized their data by using paper rather than smart devices at the stage of summary and organization of data. Most of them failed to use the summary in debate. They argued and refuted based on concrete grounds at the stage of debate in the classroom, which raised students' interest in debate and led students to participate actively. At the stage of online debate, they were able to rearrange and review the arguments of both sides, and the participation of the students who were passive in classroom debate was enhanced. Based on these results, we suggest some effective teaching methods for SSI debate classes using smart devices.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.757-768
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• 2016

This study developed an SSI (Socio-Scientific Issue) discussion program that applies a creative technique called six thinking hats, and then investigated the differences in argumentation patterns and effects on the decision-making abilities of each character feature of students between SNS debate and existing face to face debate. There were three SSI themes - Designer Babies, embryonic stem cell study, and legitimacy of abortion. Students were divided into two groups, the debate group using SNS and face to face debate group. The character patterns of students were divided to 'extraversion,' 'agreeableness,' and 'conscientiousness' through test sheets for character features for each student. Both groups were educated for creative discussion methods using six thinking hats and then, the class progressed. As a result of analyzing argumentation patterns used in SNS debate and face to face debate, the most used argumentation pattern was the "cause pattern." But comparing to face to face debate, other patterns (mark, inference, authority, motive) were also used in SNS debate. The study analyzed three factors of decision-making ability for each character feature of students such as complexity, perspectives, and inquiry. As a result, for 'complexity' factor, there was a significant difference between SNS debate group and face to face debate group only in the student group of Agreeableness. For 'perspectives' factor, there were significant differences between SNS debate group and face to face debate group in all three characters. Finally, for inquiry, there were no significant differences between SNS debate group and face to face debate group in all three characters. Accordingly it would be necessary to apply SNS debate using the six thinking hats in SSI education to enhance perspectives.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.523-534
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• 2014

This study aimed to develop collective intelligence (CI) based instructional models for teaching socioscientific issues on the basis of intimate collaboration with science teachers, and to investigate the participating teachers' perceptions on the effectiveness of the instructional models. Adapting the ADDIE model, we suggested three types of SSI instructional models (i.e. generative model, exploratory model, and decision-making model). Generative models emphasized the process of brainstorming ideas or possible solutions for SSI. Exploratory models focused on providing students opportunities to explore various SSI cases and diverse perspectives to understand its controversial nature and complexity. Decision-making models encouraged students to negotiate or develop a group-consensus on SSI through the dialogical process. After implementing the instructional models in the science classroom, the teachers reported that CI-based SSI instructional models contributed to encouraging students' active participation and collaboration as well as to improving the quality of their argument or discourses on SSI. They also supported the importance of developing collective consciousness on the issues in the beginning of the SSI class, providing independent time and space for reflecting on their personal values and opinions with scientific evidence, and formulating an atmosphere where they freely exchanged opinions and feedback for constructing better collective ideas.

• 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 Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.79-93
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• 2013

This study examined value-judgement and decision-making process of middle school students on three biotechnology related socioscientific issues (SSI) (i.e. designer baby, amniotic fluid test, and embryonic stem cell research). In particular, it focused on the level of consistency in their value application to the decisions. Twenty 8th grade students participated in the SSI program. The participants were asked to mark their positions on each issue before and after the debates. All classroom and sub-group debates were audio-recorded. The researcher conducted individual interviews with 10 students after the program. The results show three patterns emerging. First, five students applied their personal values in a consistent manner when making decisions on the three consecutive issues. Second, three students demonstrated incremental resoluteness in their value application as the sessions proceeded and had tendency to be oriented towards a specific value, more so towards the end of the program than the beginning. And third, four students gradually showed ambivalence in their decisions as they participate in the program. The results suggest that science teachers addressing SSI need to encourage students to be aware of their own values and to engage in internalized decision-making in light of those values. They also need to be aware of the possible challenges that students might feel in their decision-making process caused by the complexity of SSI.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.296-305
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• 2023

This study analyzed the information-seeking behavior of preservice science teachers by observing the process of seeking information needed in a Socioscientific issues (SSI) debate class. Twenty-four fourth-year preservice science teachers participated in the study, and the SSI debate was conducted on the topic of biofuels. The results of the study revealed that preservice teachers go through the process of 'Searching', 'Reviewing', 'Interpreting', and 'Evaluating and Reorganizing' stages when seeking information. The searching stage is divided into identifying topics, role division, and standard setting for a search. The reviewing stage is divided into reviewing sources and reviewing contents. The interpreting stage is divided into interpreting an information and interpreting information from an integrating aspect. In addition, the evaluating and reorganizing stage is divided into evaluating information and reorganizing information. It was found that preservice teachers have difficulty reviewing information and interpreting multiple sources of information in an integrated aspect. Also, it was found that evaluating information activity among preservice teachers' information-seeking behavior affects the level of argumentation in discussions.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.861-879
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to explore the science gifted students' value-judgments and decision making writing on the space exploration enterprise. Sixty-four first graders of a gifted science school took the seminar-style decision making instruction for 10 hours in one month. After having the seminar-style decision making instruction, we have analyzed science gifted students' value-judgments and decision making process utilizing questionnaires and their writings. As a result, gifted students were aware of both sides of the space exploration enterprise, benefits and risks, and showed different decision making depending on their priorities of evidence interpretation. Although the majority of gifted students were very well aware of the importance of space exploration enterprise, they would still need to know the background information of space exploration enterprise. Based on this study, implications of SSI education and future research about space exploration enterprise were discussed in the result.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.303-315
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• 2016

Socioscientific issues (SSI), by their nature, are conceptually embedded in technology. Previous research reported that nature of technology (NOT), unlike nature of science, was quite explicitly manifested in SSI decision-making, and NOT could be a promising construct for promoting SSI reasoning. In this study, authors introduced an integrated conceptual framework for NOT, which consisted of four dimensions (i.e., artifacts, knowledge, practice and system) as diverse modes of technology. We adapted the framework to investigate students' conceptualizations of NOT in the context of various SSIs. Data was collected from 45 college students enrolled in a liberal arts course on science and technology. The students participated in a team project, where they prepared and led discussions for SSI topics in class. Seven topics concerning SSIs were selected by students themselves. The preparation and class discussion of each student group were audio-recorded, and final reports were also analyzed. As a result, NOT sub-components in the dimensions of artifacts and system were explicitly represented in most contexts of SSI with various ranges of understanding. Other sub-components under the dimensions of knowledge and practice were rarely or implicitly shown in the discussion. The depth of students' understanding on NOT varied. Implications for science education were discussed.