Socio-Scientific Issues – A Way to Improve Students’ Interest and Learning in Science?

1. Socio-Scientific Issues – A Way to Improve Students’ Interest and Learning in Science? Britt Lindahl Maria Rosberg Margareta Ekborg Malin Ideland Claes Malmberg Agneta Rehn Christina Ottander Mikael Winberg Eva Nyström www.sisc.se

2. Background SISC • declining student enrolment • women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented • science in school is boring and not relevant • strategies involving rote learning and reproduction are common • growing scientific ignorance in the general populace

3. Butstudies also show that young people think that science and technology are important So perhaps one way could be to bring in a humanistic perspective to focus more on scientific literacy than science literacy and work with socio scientific issues (SSI) in science education. SISC

4. SSI Characteristics SISC • authentic • unstructured • involve forming opinions • media-reported • address local, national and global dimensions • involve values and ethical reasoning • probability and risks • there are no right answers

5. Research questions SISC • What knowledge do the students (13 -16 years old) develop when working with socio- scientific issues? • How do interest, engagement and self-efficacy develop in the work? What importance do the tasks have? • How does students’’ argumentation develop? • What knowledge do the teachers develop and how does their view of teaching develop?

6. A research project in three steps SISC • Conceptual frameworkTeacher guideQuestionnaires • Quantitative approach • Classroom studies

7. Conceptual framework SISC • Starting point • School subject • Nature of scientific knowledge base • Social content • Use of scientific knowledge for… • Conflict of interest

9. All cases were introduced by current authentic situations

10. Teacher guide • What is SSI? • Why working with SSI? • Working with the cases • Motivation and learning • Six cases with • Students’ task • Information • Learning goals

11. You are what you eat Swedish Television 3 (TV3) broadcasts the programme You are what you eat. Programme host Anna Skipper helps people with various weight and health problems. She gives them advice on what they should do to loose weight and improve their health. But how wise are her suggestions? Task Your task is to watch en episode of the TV programme You are what you eat and critically assess Anna Skipper’s advice and how she motivates her suggestions. Write a short summary of the problem that the person participating in the programme has and how Anna Skipper helps him or her. What is the problem? What does one do to solve it? What is the result? Describe as well the things you find difficult to understand or things you wonder about. If you like, you can instead record your summary on an mp3 player. (To continue)

12. Me, my family and global warming You haven’t missed all the news about climate change? One important reason for this is the emission of carbon dioxide from cars, busses, aeroplanes and other forms of transport. Both young and old alike are worried about how our climate will develop in the future. Politicians and the mass media are heavily engaged in the problem. For example, you can read in the newspapers about tips on how to reduce our effect on the climate. Task You are to make some suggestions for how you and your family or how your town or city can reduce its emission of carbon dioxide. To be able to do that, you need first to find out what the situation is like today. How does your family travel around? (To continue)

13. Are mobile telephones hazardous? Headlines from two newspaper articles taken from the same daily newspaper, slightly over one month apart. One says that using mobile telephones increases the risk of brain tumours and the other that using mobile telephones do not cause cancer In recent years, newspapers, radio and TV have broadcast reports about the risks of using mobile telephones. Researchers disagree on how dangerous the radiation from mobile telephones and telephone masts really is and on ways in which people might be affected. As a newspaper reader, you get very mixed messages; newspapers can give conflicting information, sometimes even the same issue. Mobile telephones are an important means of communication for most of us today. How are we to know what is dangerous, and if so, how can we protect ourselves? Your task is now to find out what risks you expose yourself to when you use mobile telephones. Should you change the way you use your mobile? What do you think when you read this type of article? What more do you need to know to be able to decide what you want to do? Where do you find information about this? Where can you read more about it? Who can you ask?

14. Questionnaires SISC Development and evaluation of an instrument that simultaneously considers the multivariate characteristics of the student, the situation, and learning outcomes. Two questionnaires; one distributed before the SSI-work, and one immediately after. Items were taken from extant questionnaires and new items where constructed, based on research on motivation, epistemological beliefs, cognitive conflict, cognitive ad (i.e., mental effort) etc.

15. Questionnaire before Attitudes toward school and science. I like school Science and technology can help poor people Beliefs about, and attitudes towards, different ways to learn. Intelligent pupils do not need to work hard Learning science is about memorizing facts I like to discuss [science] during science class Self efficacy. I am good at geography I know when I am right Ordinary work forms in science class. In science class, we have discussions In science class, the teacher talks most of the time

16. Questionnaireafter Work forms during SSI I could influence the way the work was conducted We were allowed to formulate our own questions During the work, I occasionally encountered information that did not match my prior knowledge about this [phenomenon] My [class] mates did their share of the work The work was about a current issue We discussed a lot Affective and motivational outcomes I worked concentratedly with the task What we achieved/learned was important for me. The work was boring Cognitive outcomes I have learned new facts I have become better at judging the trustworthiness of information Facts

17. Quantitative approach SISC • 70 teachers worked with about 1500 students • One case – at least 5 hours • Student questionnaires before and after work • Teacher questionnaire after the work • 7 teachers were then interviewed

18. School in Sweden SISC • Goal driven curriculum • Lots of freedom • No compulsory national assessments or tests • No marks until grade 8 (14 y) only oral reports

19. Results SISC • From student questionnaires • Teacher questionnaires and interviews • Some examples from different articles and presentations

20. Results from Q1 SISC

22. RESULTS Interest to learn more and self-efficacy • Boys have more self-efficacy than girls in all subjects (in all grades) except

23. RESULTS Grade 7 (13-14 y) Grade 9 (15-16 y)

24. Interest and self-efficacy in physics and chemistry

25. Results from Q2 SISC • During the work with SSI students considered the cases interesting and relevant, especially the girls. • Almost all students claim that they have learnt new facts during the work. • The more interesting they found the case, the more they claimed they have learnt. • The students reported that they learnt to argue for their standpoint and to search for and scrutinize information. • The students considered the assignments easy to solve. • Not difficult to search for information, mostly from internet

26. Results multivariable analysis SISC Results show that SSI work forms are more important than personal factors for explaining outcomes. Relevant issues, autonomy and functioning group work are important aspects. In general, SSI seems to be most efficient for students who believe they learn from presenting and discussing their knowledge, focus on ‘the large picture’, acknowledges own responsibility for learning, finds school science personally relevant and are self-efficacious.

27. SISC To a lower degree students in multiethnic schools : • used internet during the SSI-work • discussed the task outside school • found the SSI-task topical and related to their everyday lives

28. And to a higher degree, students in multiethnic classes :: SISC • found the information too difficult to be useful • liked to work individually • found the lack of a single correct answer frustrating • thought that science is about learning facts • liked teacher-led lectures • thought that they had too many discussions in science class (generally – not in the SSI-work)

29. Similarities rather than differences between the student groups:: SISC • It is more important to be a successful student than a good learner and a competent citizen. • Assement forms important. Reproduction rather than production of knowledge. • Joint understanding on what is ”appropriate school knowledge”. This is not the same as democratic action competence in the society.

30. Results teacher questionnaire: SISC • SSI cases are about current topics and interesting in several aspects • The learning goals are appropriate in relation to the syllabus but less in relation to the students’ prior knowledge • Teachers felt more confident with the content than with the work forms • Common to teach the content before introducing the case • Group work was common but almost no lab work • Internet and then textbooks most important resource

31. Conclusions SISC The work with SSI might not so much raise students’ interest in science, but according to the students it strengthen generic skills as team-work, problem-solving and media literacy. The teachers’ way of introducing, structuring and assessing the work is important. Outcomes from SSI work are much in the hands of the teacher!

32. Next step Case studies in 5 classes Wellcome to follow our work on www.sisc.se SISC