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Socioscientific issues have significant contributions to personal growth and education. However, no studies are conducted for different segments of society that encounter these issues. Based on this paucity, this study aims to determine the level of knowledge of software engineering students regarding the radiation emitted by cell phones and computers, evaluate their development and reveal the change in their attitudes towards socioscientific issues according to their years of education. 30 students from a state university’s department of software engineering were recruited for the study. Two different measuring tools were used on the same students at the beginning of the first and second year to identify their attitudes toward socioscientific issues and their understanding of the radiation emitted by mobile phones and computers. The data were analyzed with content analysis and dependent t-test. The results revealed that students’ knowledge and argumentation quality on radiation was low and did not change in the first two years. Attitudes towards socioscientific issues were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. As a result, no significant difference was found in the attitude scale and its sub-dimensions, suggesting that first-year software engineering students could not advance in socioscientific issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]