Session Information
09 SES 04 A, Assessment of Competencies and Attitudes in Science Classrooms
Paper Session
Contribution
Research Questions
Today’s society is continuously coping with science and sustainability-related issues such as global climate change, food scandals or genetic engineering. To deal with so called open-ended socio-scientific issues the competence of decision-making is necessary: students have to identify different courses of action and consider suitable criteria for comparing these alternative courses of action (e.g. Ratcliffe, 1997). Furthermore, as socio-scientific issues are inherently complex, problems in this area can have a serious effect on a student’s quality of argumentation (Sadler, 2004).
This project deals with the question of modelling and assessing decision-making competence and scientific argumentation by high school students in chemistry contexts. Thus it is of special interest to what extent sixteen-year-old students, given a decision-making framework, draw on scientific concepts and their own personal values in making decisions about a socio-scientific issue. The complexity of the decision-making process will be analyzed.
Objectives
To improve students’ ability to make decisions, it is necessary to know how the students carry out the decision-making process. One goal of science education is to prepare individuals to actively participate as citizens in making decisions (KMK, 2005). They should be able to choose among different options in such a way that they can make decisions throughout their lives as mature citizens.
Hence the project’s aim is the development and the empirical evaluation of a theory driven competence model for decision-making regarding domain specific topics of chemistry (nutrition).
Theoretical Framework
Decision-making capabilities within science teaching have been discussed by science educators for decades. To solve socio-scientific issues students have to deal with numerous criteria which they need to use to come to a decision. Most of them can be sorted into three main groups: scientific criteria, criteria of sustainable development and emotional criteria (authors, submitted). The first and second criterion involves the reference to scientific knowledge or evidence regarding a socio-scientific issue. According to Ratcliffe (1997) students hardly made specific comments about the science involved (7 %). Uskolaa, Maguregi and Jiménez-Aleixandre (2010) determined that students use a high number and great variety of criteria to support their choices. The criteria “economic” and “comfort” are the most often occurring for their decision. Students were also able to construct the criterion of sustainability and to consider this criterion to be crucial to their decision-making process. But it was, quantitatively and qualitatively, used very differently across the students. This is supported by results of Köpke (2006): Within a teaching unit about nutrition behavior, students referred most to the criteria related to “comfort” (e.g. repletion, taste).
Furthermore, Sadler & Zeidler (2005) found out that students use emotive reasoning more than other reasoning types (e.g. rationalistic) in socio-scientific issues. This could be an indication that they rather prefer emotional criteria.
In this study Toulmin’s argumentation pattern is adapted as a model of scientific reasoning to analyse students’ use of criteria und socio-scientific argumentation in general (Osborne, Erduran, & Simon, 2004). This approach is also used in the area of physics education (von Aufschnaiter, Erduran, Osborne & Simon).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Authors (submitted). Bewertungskompetenz von Zehntklässlern im Chemieunterricht- Betrachtung von Kriterien und Argumenten am Beispiel Pestizideinsatz [Decision-making competence of 10th grade students in chemistry lessons - criteria and arguments on the example of pesticides]. Köpke, I. (2006). Bewertung von Lebensmitteln im Biologieunterricht - eine empirische Untersuchung zum Ernährungshandeln von Schülerinnen und Schülern der Klasse 9. [Decision-making about nutrition in biology lessons - an empirical study on the nutritional behavior of 9th grade students]. Dissertation, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Osborne, J. F., Erduran, S., & Simon, S. (2004). Enhancing the quality of argument in school science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 10, 994–1020. Ratcliffe, M. (1997). Pupils’ decision-making about socio-scientific issues within the science curriculum. International Journal of Science Education, 19, 167-182. Sadler, T. D. & Zeidler, D. L. (2005). The Significance of Content Knowledge for Informal Reasoning Regarding Socioscientific Issues: Applying Genetics Knowledge to Genetic Engineering Issues. Science Education, 89, 71-93. Sadler, T. D. (2004). Informal Reasoning Regarding Socioscientific Issues: A Critical Review of Research. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41, 513-536. Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [KMK] (Ed.). (2005). Bildungsstandards im Fach Chemie für den Mittleren Schulabschluss. [German national education standards for science education in chemistry]. München, Neuwied: Luchterhand. Uskolaa, A., Maguregi, G. & Jiménez-Aleixandre, M.P. (2010). The Use of Criteria in Argumentation and the Construction of Environmental Concepts: A university case study. International Journal of Science Education, 17, 2311-2333. von Aufschnaiter, C., Erduran, S., Osborne, J. & Simon, S. (2008). Arguing to learn and learning to argue: Case studies of how students' argumentation relates to their scientific knowledge. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 45, 101-131.
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