• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.646-659
• /
• 2006

This study explored, through informal, conversation-type interviews, how college students relate to science in general as well as to two specific socioscientific issues: human cloning and animal dissection/experimentation. How students "relate" includes what kinds of attitudes they have toward science and socioscientific issues, how seriously they consider and want to engage with these issues, and how they express their opinions or make a decision. The sample (16 college students) was heterogeneous in terms of academic background, ethnicity, and school year. Each interview lasted for about one hour with audiotaping. Results indicated that most participants immediately brought in their own values and feelings in implicit or explicit ways. However, the depth of their personal engagements varied. Most of the participants either did not take socioscientific issues seriously or merely quoted their own values in resignation, seemingly not able to deal with the issues and overwhelmed by many other aspects of the issues. By reflecting on the participants' reactions, the discussion addresses some of the larger issues for current secondary science teaching that involve raising responsible democratic citizens.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.253-266
• /
• 2009

This study was focused on analyzing students' informal reasoning patterns and their considerations in decision-making on socioscientific issues. This study involved 20 undergraduate students (10 biology majors and 10 non-biology majors) and showed how the two groups responded on socioscientific issues. Semi-structured interviews were conducted twice respectively based on six scenarios of gene therapy and human cloning. The result showed 93% of the total number of participants' decisions were made by rationalistic reasoning, whereas emotional reasoning was 49%, and intuitive reasoning was 27%. Students usually used two or three informal reasoning patterns together. Most of the students took more consideration on social factors. Some perceived ethical and moral implications of the issues, but they did not consider them seriously. They made their decisions depending on their own values, etc. 65% of the participants got their information on socioscientific issues from the mass media. Biology majors hardly used intuitive reasoning compared to non-biology majors. The Biology major group took into deep considerations on socioscientific issues while the non-biology major group seemed to interpret the given scenarios simply. This implied that the content knowledge was a significant factor of their decision-making. Therefore, it is necessary to develop proper science courses for non-major students to improve their decision-making on socioscientific issues. So, when we develop educational materials or programs, we should consider students' reasoning patterns, their considerations in decision-making, and their content knowledge. And because the mass media has the potential to play a key role for an effective education, we need to make a plan to make a practical application.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.30 no.7
• /
• pp.887-900
• /
• 2010

This study aimed to identify some tendencies when college students got to making a decision on socioscientific issues. The guiding research questions were as follows. First, what are college students' tendencies in terms of their moral reactions and attitudes toward SSI when they get to making a decision? And second, how do their own circumstances, personalities, and values play a role in shaping their stance on SSI? Data was collected by individual interviews with thirty college students. The results indicated that most participants immediately brought in their own values, worldviews, and feelings in implicit or explicit ways when talking about SSI. Their reactions were influenced by their backgrounds such as religion, and family background, personality, past experiences, personal interests, and prior knowledge. In addition, the responses of the participants presented some tendencies in their decision-making process. The tendencies can be categorized into 1) bringing in personal values without further engagement, 2) being confused with incompatible values, 3) being overwhelmed by too many aspects to consider, and 4) trying to be detached from the issues.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.253-268
• /
• 2008

This paper has two major purposes. One is to introduce the essentialist methodology as a way to articulate subjective aspects of human beings (e.g. teachers' personal values and concerns, philosophies, subjective experiences, etc.) at a deeper level. And the other is to present two portraits, as examples, of science teachers who actively address socioscientiifc issues (SSI) out of their own motivations. The primary data source was consecutive in-depth interviews with two science teachers, Jenna and Thomas, and the interviews were conducted on the basis of the principle of the "participant as ally" (Witz, 2006). The articulation based on the essentialist methodology shows that teachers' deep-rooted values and convictions often play a significant role as a personal social capital enough to expand their teaching practice (i.e. teaching SSI). Namely, this study confirms that teachers who are motivated out of their own convictions are likely to actively develop their own personal practical knowledge, and to implement particular topics or teaching strategies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.7
• /
• pp.1124-1138
• /
• 2012

This study investigates Korean middle school students' perceptions as global citizens (i.e. ecological worldview, social and moral compassion, and socioscientific accountability) of Socioscientific Issues (SSI). We developed questionnaires that consisted of 20 Likert-type items to gauge their preceptions of the three different SSI contexts (i.e. nuclear power generation, bio-technology, climate change), and administered them to 225 9th grade students in Seoul. The results revealed that participants showed relatively high scores for ecological worldview but scored low on social and moral compassion across the SSI contexts. In addition, participants presented much higher scores for ecological worldview and socioscientific accountability regarding the issues of climate change. The participant responses indicated that they perceived more inter-connectedness with the environment and felt the responsibility of promoting sustainable development more to prevent further devastation in the context of climate change compared to nuclear power generation or biotechnology.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.453-464
• /
• 2017

The purposes of the study are to investigate the experiences of major stakeholders (i.e. science teachers, program instructors, local experts, etc.) who participated in implementing Community-Based Socioscientific Issues Programs (SSI-COMM) and to provide educational implications for further implementation. SSI-COMM dealt with three issues (i.e. abandoned pets, fine dust, and recycling) that students often encountered in their local community. Each program, lasting over 16 class periods in a free semester, included in-school and out-of-school activities in order to promote their interest and participation in community. Four teachers, four program instructors, and six local experts joined the interviews to explain their experience of participating in the programs. As a result, school teachers, program instructors, and local experts positively appreciated their experiences of the program implementation and perceived educational potentials of SSI-COMM. All the stakeholders mentioned that they became more interested in local socioscientific issues and strongly perceived the need for the implementation of such programs linked to their own community. The science teachers appreciated the opportunities to identify students' potentials through SSI-COMM and believed that SSI-COMM would contribute to reducing the gap between learning and practice. The program instructors, observed that out-of-school activities contributed to enhancing students' self-confidence and fulfillment in learning. Finally, the local experts obtained a sense of belonging to their community and were very satisfied with their contribution. The SSI-COMM programs are expected to be one of the educational models that will help to encourage the participation of students and stakeholders in facilitating educational activities in relation to the community.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.395-405
• /
• 2017

This study aims to investigate the effects of socioscientific issues (SSI) instruction on promoting college students' character and values as citizens, and to compare the effects based on the psychological factor - idiocentrism and allocentrism. Thirty-one college students who enrolled in the SSI course participated in this study. The SSI course provided the students with opportunities to explore various aspects of five topics, to express and share their own opinions, and to identify reasonable alternatives. The students with distinct tendencies were classified into two groups (i.e. idiocentric and allocentric groups) based on the personal value orientation scores before the instruction, and they responded to the questionnaire to examine their character and values as citizens before and after the instruction. The results showed that the students' social and moral compassion and socioscientific accountability improved significantly after the SSI course. The overall effects of the SSI program on students' character and values were not significantly different between two groups. However, the post-mean score of the allocentric group in socioscientific accountability was higher than the one of the idiocentric group. This study shows that SSI instruction could positively affect character development regardless of psychological tendencies, and could be implemented in the science classroom as a good instructional approach to integrating science education and character education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.59-70
• /
• 2021

Ability to make informed decisions by critically evaluating media information on socioscientific issues (SSI) is one of the crucial elements of scientific literacy that citizens should obtain. This study aims to investigate how middle school students evaluated media information about socioscientific issues (SSI) when they faced two different types of information (i.e., numerical and empathic information). To achieve the aim, 96 middle school students responded to the questionnaires asking them to evaluate reliability and persuasiveness of SSI media information. The questionnaires consisted of two sets of newspaper articles on each SSI (pro-numerical/empathic, against-numerical/empathic). After reading the articles, the students evaluated reliability and persuasiveness of each article and wrote the reasons for their evaluation. The results were as follows: First, the students believed that news articles with numerical information were more reliable than the ones with empathic information in all SSI contexts. They tended to trust scientific evidence and data from numerical information, and real cases, societal problems, expressions, and values from empathic information. In addition, they evaluated their reliability based on the logic of information, accuracy of information, breadth and depth of data, and quantity and quality of sources both numerical and empathic information. Second, in case of evaluating persuasiveness of the articles, they focused more on the values that information contained, richness and logicality of the information, rather than the types of information, regardless of the type of information.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.353-365
• /
• 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 earth science society
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.506-519
• /
• 2008

This article explores the potential learning materials and methods of science practice from exhibits, and how those are presented in natural history museums as a feasible science inquiry community. The idea of science inquiry community was offered as a form of science practice that ended with science learning. A grasp of 'scientific practice to learning' is understood as a way to conceive scientific methods as well as facts and understanding knowledge. To get educational implications on the scientific practice of 'earthquake' as a socioscientific topic in the communities, we analyzed 1) the relationship between earth science curriculum and exhibits related to 'earthquake', 2) the educational goals and intentions of educators, and 3) the characteristics of the exhibits in the American Museum of Natural History and in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The results of this study showed that those museums presented the exhibits consisting of various and practical cases and events of 'earthquakes' as a socioscientific topic related to their curriculum. At the target museum, it was clearly stated that the pursuing educational goals focused on relations with local interests and socioscientific issues. For making earthquakes relevant to visitors, delivering lived experiences with raw data and interactive media was emphasized in exhibit characteristics.