• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.127-148
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• 2023

In this study, we used an analysis of the literature on socio-scientific issues (SSI) classes to examine domestic SSI class research and to determine the characteristics of SSI class research for each subject. A search for papers related to SSI classes published in Korea Citation Index-listed journals and candidate journals of the Korea Research Foundation found 95 relevant papers, which were then categorized according to participants and topics. Studies with both pre-service and experienced teachers attempted to investigate SSI-related perceptions. Studies of pre-service teachers tended to examine the level and development pattern of argumentation or to analyze decision-making characteristics and informal reasoning. Studies of experienced teachers tended to analyze instructional expertise in SSI teaching activities, focusing on teachers with substantial SSI teaching experience. Middle and high school students-related studies examined student decision-making and reasoning processes in SSI learning activities, developed SSI class programs, and analyzed educational effects. Examining the characteristics of SSI classes for elementary school students was difficult because few such studies have been published. However, the characteristics that elementary school students show in SSI learning situations could be inferred. A plan to revitalize SSI classes in the elementary science education field from the perspective of teacher education and class research is suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.431-440
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the K Teachers' Community, which brought about changes in the perception of SSI education by teachers with experience in SSI, and to explore its relevance to the development of SSI professions. This is a case study that describes in depth the characteristics of the K teachers' community. The study conducted semi-structured as well as in-depth interviews with six teachers who have more experience in SSI education activities for over 20 years. The K teachers' community has three characteristics. First, the K teachers' community formed identity by discussing the nature of science and technology, which allowed teachers to share a common orientation toward the goals of science education. Second, the teachers who participated in the K teachers' community formed professionalism and confidence in SSI teaching in the course of producing, sharing, and spreading SSI through its various practices. Third, the K teachers' community is continuously growing by opening themselves to external communities and co-evolution through solidarity. The success of K Teachers' Community may inform other teachers how the community of teaching practices can develop and maintain, and in turn can help the members of the community develop their professional identity as teachers.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.313-323
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• 2024

This study aims to explore educational methods to help students and citizens, who are exposed to numerous manufactured risks, better understand the nature of science and technology. It also seeks to develop their ability to identify, analyze, and evaluate the risks associated with science and technology, ultimately enabling them to live safer lives in society. To achieve this, through an extensive literature review, we explored the definition of risk, the necessity of risk education, and the relationship between SSI (Socioscientific Issues) education and risk education. Based on the results, we proposed the SSI-CURE (Socioscientific Issues Centered on the Understanding of Risk and its Evaluation) model, which can systematically educate about risks in the context of SSI. The SSI-CURE model proceeds through the following four steps: 1) Confrontation of SSI, 2) Understanding the Nature of Science and Technology with SSI, 3) Risk Assessment in SSI, and 4) Enactment of Countermeasures for SSI. These steps represent the key elements for education on risks in the context of SSI: Conceptual understanding of risks (risk knowledge), competencies necessary for discussing or addressing risk situations (risk competency), scientific content knowledge needed to understand risks (knowledge in science), and knowledge required to understand the causes of risks and their impacts (knowledge about science). We expect that the SSI-CURE model can be used not only as a guide for instruction but also as a representative framework for developing programs to educate about risks in the SSI context.

• 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 Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.11-23
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to analyze the degree of argumentation structure development and factors of development of preservice teachers through SSI related argumentative writings. The study was conducted with 16 preservice teachers that students taking elementary science education theory class in K university located in Chungbuk. The testees wrote six SSI related argumentative writings (once a week), and we examined the degree of argumentation structure development and the change in the recognition of SSI of the preservice teachers by comparing the writings before and after the experiments. The experimental results showed that argumentation structure of the preservice teachers'writings improved and argument level (argument capability) of them also increased as the number of writing was increased. Factors that affect the argumentation structure improvement are mainly argumentation structure education, a number of writings, feedbacks, and subjects related to SSI. In this aspect, the argumentative writing on SSI has the effect of developing scientific sophistication and enhancing the decision-making power of students, and it has positive impacts in science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.323-334
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• 2017

Current science education aims to guide students as future responsible citizens to make informed decisions on socioscientific issues (SSI). In the authors' previous study, it was found that conceptions of nature of technology (NOT) were explicitly represented in various contexts of SSI with differentiated levels of understanding, and cases of the informed NOT understanding included the key features of well-reasoned SSI decision-making. Therefore, enhancing NOT understanding could be one of the elements to leverage students' informed SSI decision-making. In this study, we developed a rubric to assess NOT understanding in the context of SSI and applied it to evaluate the impact of SSI instruction. Participants were 58 college students who took an SSI course for 6 weeks. Before and after the SSI course, they were asked to write decision-making essays on the Golden Rice issue (a type of genetically modified food). As a result of analyzing the pre- and post decision-making essay using the rubric, it was found that NOT understanding was improved after the SSI course; in addition, the salient patterns of NOT changes were analyzed in detail in order to gauge the influence of the SSI classes. Implications for science education were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.679-691
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• 2017

Despite the growing importance of socio-scientific issues (SSI), little work has focused on teachers' pedagogical knowledge, and few studies have examined how in-service teachers use and apply SSI-related instructional methods and strategies. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to explore how science teachers with lots of SSI teaching experience determined teaching orientation, selected and revised instructional methods, and devised assessments in science classroom. We used a case study approach aimed at a deep description of these teachers' teaching experiences and employed semi-structured and in-depth interviews with five experienced teachers. Our findings indicate that teaching orientation and learning objectives seemed to influence the selection and modification of instructional strategies and methods. In addition, students' learning experiences or classroom environment were considered and modified in light of achieving these learning objectives. However, introducing SSI into the classroom assessment is not seriously considered by most teachers. This study can provide teachers with useful information when designing and developing SSI classes, taking into account various aspects of the PCK such as learning orientation, instructional methods, learner expereince and curriculum standards.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.353-365
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• 2010

This study explored the accumulated personal practical knowledge of six experienced science teachers in teaching SSI. The guiding research questions were: 1) how did they develop their understanding of SSI and their goals for teaching SSI over many years, and 2) what are the practical issues that the teachers have experienced while addressing SSI in science classrooms. The data source included individual interviews with six science teachers. Each interview lasted 50-70 minutes long and was audio-taped. Data was analyzed based on the methods suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994). Results indicated that, although their motivations for teaching SSI were personal and different, two major categories emerged. One group of teachers was mainly motivated by SSI itself, and the other group was motivated by the teaching aspects that SSI brings. The SSI-oriented group was very sensitive to SSI as it occurs in contemporary society. The teaching-oriented group paid more attention to the educational benefits that addressing SSI could bring to students. Their motivations for teaching SSI influenced how they set up their purposes for teaching, and their purposes for teaching guided them to use appropriate teaching strategies to make their SSI teaching more effective. All of their practical concerns were also connected to their basic motivations for teaching SSI.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.113-128
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• 2012

This study explored to what extent Korean science teachers perceived socioscientific issues (SSI) as an effective instructional tool for creativity and character (CreActer) education; which was recently announced as a main goal for the Korean National Science Curriculum 2009. The guiding research questions were as follows. (1)How do science teachers conceptualize the relationship between creativity and character in the context of science classes? (2) What do science teachers think about the possibility of CreActer education through SSI in science classrooms? Thirty science teachers participated in individual interviews (each lasted 20-90 minutes). In the results, the teachers' perceptions on CreActer education and SSI for CreActer education were categorized into four profiles. Eleven teachers in Profile A thought that creativity was positively correlated with character education because their understanding of creativity and character embraced a very broad range of elements. They mentioned that addressing SSI in the science classes would be satisfactory to cover those elements of CreActer education. Six teachers in Profile B mentioned similar elements of creativity and character of Profile A, but reported that, in their experience, creativity was often inversely correlated with character. However, they responded that addressing SSI would be a good way to integrate creativity and character in the science classes. Ten teachers in Profile C believed there was no relationship between creativity and character, but took a positive stance on CreActer education through SSI. Unlike Profile A and Profile B, they tended to regard character as only an interpersonal virtue. And three teachers in Profile D had a narrow perspective on CreActer education. Not only did they think creativity had no relationship with character, but also disagreed that CreActer education would be activated by addressing SSI in science classrooms. The results imply that SSI could be used as an effective instructional tool for CreActer education, but this can be possible when science teachers expand their view on CreActer education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.446-459
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• 2024

This study aims to examine the development and learning process of the argumentative abilities in elementary school students with regards to learning science. Toward this end, the SSI argumentation education program was implemented in conjunction with the science curriculum for sixth-grade students across 10 months. In this process, the scoring criteria in terms of formal and content aspects were developed and used to assess their argumentative text analysis and expression abilities. The results were as follows: First, the type of SSI influenced their ability to analyze argumentative texts. However, their formal and content aspects improved as learning progressed. Second, with regards to the formal aspect associated with the ability to express argumentative texts, reasons were initially most frequently cited. Over time, incorporating evidence to support these reasons and the use of rebuttal also increased. Third, in terms of content aspect, the level of use of all elements increased as learning progressed; however, level of acknowledgments and rebuttal elements exhibited a relatively slower progress. In summary, ability of the students to analyze and express argumentative texts improved as they increasingly gained experience in learning about argumentation. The study deduced that elementary school students can develop their argumentative abilities through appropriate learning support, such as teacher feedback, along with implementation of the SSI argumentation education program over an extended period. Based on these results, the study proposes the development of SSI materials and incorporation of SSI argumentative writing in the science curriculum.