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Socioscientific issues (SSI) have been found to improve scientific literacy skills among K—12 students. Elementary preservice teachers (PSTs), however, are reluctant to implement SSI due to a lack ...

Perspective taking has been identified as a critical skill in the development of scientifically literate citizenry. Despite the importance of the construct, operationalising and identifying effecti...

Many scholars suggest that recent major science education initiatives apparently tied to intense economic competitiveness and growth have prioritized education about “products” (e.g., laws, theories, innovations) and skills (e.g., experimentation) of fields of science and technology. Such initiatives also, apparently, tend to avoid research findings from fields of humanities and social sciences that frequently link, more or less directly, fields of science and technology with many often-controversial harms for individuals, societies and environments. Cited as particularly problematic among humanity’s many challenges is devastation from climate change associated with humans’ uses of petroleum-fuelled technologies. Over about the last five decades, however, science education scholars have been conducting research that may help educate students about “science-in-context” (SinC) conceptions, perspectives, skills, etc., regarding controversial harms like those mentioned above. In this review article, we analyze summaries provided here by four prominent scholars in their respective SinC fields, that is, about: Science, Technology, Society and Environment relationships, Socially-Acute Questions and Socioscientific Issues. Based on extended experiences by the authors here with aspects of the three SinC fields, we suggest that despite some niche differences in ontological, epistemological and axiological positions of scholarship among them, their congruences perhaps offer hope to those wanting to provide students with more holistic and critical conceptions of associations of fields of science and technology with many of humanity’s numerous personal, social and environmental threats that students may, in turn, use to contribute to a more just and environmentally sound world.

Perspective taking is a critical yet tangled construct that is used to describe a range of psychological processes and that is applied interchangeably with related constructs. The resulting ambiguity is particularly vexing in science education, where although perspective taking is recognized as critical to informed citizens’ ability to negotiate scientifically related societal issues, or socioscientific issues (SSI) via socioscientific reasoning (SSR), the precise nature of perspective taking remains elusive. To operationalize perspective taking, a theoretical conceptual analysis was employed and used to position perspective taking within the context of SSR. The resulting, more precise construct identified as socioscientific perspective taking (SSPT) requires engagement with others or their circumstances, an etic/emic shift in one’s viewpoint, and a moral context guided by conscience.

Students’ difficulties in interpreting what counts as knowledge have been addressed in past research on science education. The implementation of progressivist pedagogy in terms of more student-active classroom practice and the introduction of a variety of discourses into the science classroom deepens students’ difficulties.The integration of different forms and demands of knowledge and discourses typified by Science-in-Context initiatives, such as within the Socioscientific framework, exemplifies this development in science education. Here, the diffuse boundaries between school subjects and other silos of knowledge leads to considerable difficulties for students to interpret what is expected from them. Such contexts having diffuse boundaries between, for example, subject discourses and other fonts of knowledge, have been describes as contexts with weak classification. The present study aims to explore students’ interpretation of what knowledge or meaning they are requested to produce in contexts with weak classification, here exemplified withinan SSI-task. We use Bernstein’s concepts of recognition rulesand classificationto analyse how 15-16 year-old students develop their discussions in groups of 4-6 students. This study reports how students’ recognitionof the educational demands enabled integration of different discourses in their discussion, and that the use of both universalistic and particularistic meanings can produce new understandings. Students who had not acquired recognition ruleswere found to keep discourses apart, expressed either as rejection of the relevance of the task, answering questions as in a traditional school task, or just exchange of personal opinions. Furthermore, they included discourses irrelevant to the issue.An important outcome of the study was that socioscientific thinking was hampered when students kept universalistic and particularistic meanings apart. This hampering results from the inhibition of dynamic exploration during SSI discussions. The results provide new insights with relevance for teachers’ guiding students towards a fruitful SSI-discourse.

This chapter demonstrates the impact of an animal cloning socioscientific issues instructional unit on a group of middle school students' abilities to use their ecological worldview, social and moral compassion, and sense of socioscientific accountability to determine the permissibility of animal cloning. Seventy-seven 7th grade students at a public middle school in the Southeastern region of the United States participated in this investigation. Results from a non-parametric two-tailed Wilcoxon test indicated the students' social and moral compassion (Z = -2.505, p = .012) and socioscientific accountability scores (Z = -2.381, p = .017). In contrast, the results did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference between students' pre and post ecological worldview (Z = -1.185, p = .236). Qualitative analyses of the data revealed several interesting trends and themes discussed in the chapter. The findings from this investigation support the use of SSI as key pedagogical strategies in promoting character and values for global citizens among middle school students.

Engaging environmental socioscientific issues (SSI) requires navigating diverse positions regarding people and nature. This qualitative investigation determined how 24 undergraduates experiencing place-based SSI instruction in the Greater Yellowstone Area (includes a national park and its surrounding areas in the western USA) expressed emotive reasoning about people and nature impacted by those SSI. The students’ emotive reasoning ranged from apathy, passive care, and moderated concern to empathetic dissonance—an intense concern for peoples’ and nature’s well-being and SSI resolution. Deeper analyses revealed that the students expressed moderated concern differently toward people and nature when engaging in environmental SSI through value judgments, claiming helplessness, and diffusing responsibility to others. The students also expressed four forms of empathetic dissonance toward people and nature impacted by SSI including deep compassion for those experiencing SSI hardships, guilt for not resolving SSI, anger toward those that are perceived to cause SSI, and righteous indignation when the moral principles of equity and justice were violated because of SSI impacts. The students’ responses included significantly more instances of moderated concern and empathetic dissonance toward people and nature after the place-based SSI instruction. Pedagogical implications include how to instruct SSI in authentic place-based settings that encourage emotive reasoning necessary for environmental SSI engagement.

There are certain threats embedded in scientific development that confront society. Gaining practical and instrumental experiences in addressing topics related to the major challenges that confront society today can be possible by tapping the socio-scientific issues as a part of science teaching and learning. This research aimed to explore pre-service teachers’ reflective judgment skills in socio-scientific issues based inquiry science laboratory course. The participants of the research were 20 pre-service teachers at a research oriented public university. Qualitative case study research design was used in this study. The laboratory manuals and semi-structured interviews were used as data collection tools. Data were analyzed by using King and Kitchener’s (1994) reflective judgment framework. Results of the study showed that pre-service teachers’ reflective judgment scores tended to increase from the first experiment to the last experiment. Results suggested that exploring reflective judgment in socio-scientific contexts is beneficial for allowing pre-service teachers to actively engage in knowledge construction.

As the partisan divide becomes more toxic to civil discourse, the role of science in that conversation also suffers from collateral damage, becoming suspect at best, and marginalized at worse, in terms of its contribution to resolving issues rooted in science having national and global significance. The authors suggest ameliorating that damage by using a socioscientific issues framework. The framework enables students to explore contentious, ill-defined problems that have conceptual ties to science but cannot be resolved by science alone. With the framework, students are presented with opportunities to wrestle with scientific ideas and oppositional perspectives tempered with human.

The socioscientific issues framework has proven to have a significant impact over the last two decades on many areas related to the development of functional scientific literacy in students. In this article, we summarize and synthesize recent trends in socioscientific issues research that impact both disciplinary and interdisciplinary science education research. These trends represent science-in-context investigations that we propose are advanced by three broad and interrelated areas of research including: 1) Socioscientific Issues and the Central Role of Socioscientific Reasoning; 2) Socioscientific Issues and the Primacy of Socioscientific Perspective Taking; and, 3) Socioscientific Issues and the Importance of Informal and Place-Based Contexts. We discuss the most recent research in those areas and explore the educational significance these new trends.

The aim of this paper is to examine the importance of contextualization of Nature of Science (NOS) within the Socioscientific Issues (SSI) framework, because of the importance to science education. The emphasis on advancing scientific literacy is contingent upon a robust understanding and appreciation of NOS, as well as the acquisition of socioscientific reasoning, skills, and values. Students’ negotiations within SSI are influenced by a variety of factors related to NOS such as scientific knowledge, data interpretations and social interactions including an individuals’ own articulation of personal beliefs. Since NOS and SSI have become fundamental constructs in science education, especially for achieving scientific literacy, it is conceptually important to highlight the rationale(s) behind the contextualization of NOS within the SSI framework. This paper reviews research that entails the integration of SSI with NOS, exploring the nuanced relationships between these two areas. We do this in three sections presenting key aspects of: (a) SSI in science education; (b) NOS in science education; and (c) contextualization of NOS in SSI.

Imprecise constructs abound in science education research in part due to reliance on stipulative definitions that neglect fine distinctions between closely related constructs and overlook important meanings and hidden values embedded in language. Lack of conceptual clarity threatens construct validity, hampers theory development, and prevents science education researchers from focusing on the precise skills they wish to study and promote. To address these challenges, we argue for the expanded use of conceptual analysis, a traditional form of philosophical inquiry underutilized in science education research. After examining the historical and epistemological bases for this methodology, we introduce a variety of techniques used in this mode of inquiry including generic, differentiation, and conditions-type analyses using model, borderline, contrary, and invented cases. To further advance our argument, we then conduct an abbreviated differentiation-type analysis to distinguish “perspectives” from the related terms “orientations” and “positions,” three terms that present conceptual challenges in the research area of Socioscientific Issues (SSI) yet are clarified and contextually situated through this analysis. Finally, in light of our analysis, we suggest future directions for the expanded use of conceptual analysis in science education research. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 538–551, 2017

We are facing a plethora of educational mandates, trends and policies in science teacher education. Such issues are intricately connected, are arguably synergistic with one another though not neces...

Functional scientific literacy demands an informed citizenry capable of negotiating controversial socioscientific issues (SSI). Perspective taking is critical to SSI implementation as it enables understanding of the diverse cognitive and emotional perspectives of others. Science teacher educators must therefore facilitate teachers’ promotion of classroom environments that value diverse perspectives. The purpose of this theoretical paper is to propose the HARTSS model through which successful practices that promote perspective taking in the humanities, arts, and social sciences are identified and translated into socioscientific contexts, thereby developing an array of promising interventions designed for science teacher educators to foster perspective taking in current and future science teachers and their students.

The purpose of this study was to explore science content used during college students’ negotiation of biology-based socioscientific issues (SSI) and examine how it related to students’ conceptual understanding and acceptance of biological evolution. The Socioscientific Issues Questionnaire (SSI-Q) was developed to measure depth of evolutionary science content use during SSI negotiation. Fifty-two upper level undergraduate biology and non-biology majors completed the SSI-Q and also the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection to assess evolution understanding and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution to appraise evolution acceptance. A multiple regression analysis tested for interaction effects between the predictor variables, evolution understanding and evolution acceptance. Results indicate that college students primarily use science concepts related to evolution to negotiate biology-based SSI including variation in a population, inheritance of traits, differential success, and change thr...

This chapter makes a case for applying a socioscientific issues (SSI) approach to environmental education (EE). We present a model for SSI-based teaching and learning that can be used for the development and implementation of EE learning experiences. The model highlights the significance of design elements, teacher attributes, learner experiences, classroom environment, and peripheral influences. We present a description of and results from an experiential environmental issues course as a means of showcasing an implementation example of the model for SSI-based for teaching and learning. The course features contentious environmental issues from the Greater Yellowstone Area with a particular focus on the reintroduction of wolves. The chapter also presents evidence related to how framing this EE course with an SSI approach led to student development of competencies including conceptualizing scientific claims, balancing ethical and cultural considerations, negotiating unintended consequences of proposed solutions, and engaging in socioscientific discourses.

The ubiquitous of STEM education initiatives in recent years has created a bandwagon that has moved at nearly light speed. The impulse of the science education community and policy-makers is to grab hold for dear life or be marginalized from sub- sequent discussions about the necessity and consequences of using STEM initiatives to prepare and inform our next generation of citizens. This commentary questions the pru- dence of STEM-related science education goals, as typically represented and discussed in the literature, and likens the current practice to a deficit framework. A sociocultural per- spective framed through socioscientific considerations is offered as an alternative con- ceptualization as well as surplus model to hegemonic STEM practices.

Communication skills are one of the most important competencies for 21st century global citizens. Our guiding presupposition was that socioscientific issues (SSIs) could be used as an effective pedagogical tool for promoting students’ communication skills by increasing peer interactions, stimulating students’ reasoning, and in constructing shared social knowledge. We implemented a SSI program on gene modification (GM) technology to 132 9th graders in South Korea and investigated to what extent this SSI instruction contributed to enhancing students’ communication skills. Data sources included pre- and post-scores on the Communication Skills Questionnaire (CSQ), semi-structured interviews with the students and instructor, and classroom observations. The results demonstrated that SSI instruction could bring about a moderately large impact on students’ ability to understand the key ideas of others and to value others’ perspectives, as well as a marginal positive effect on developing active assertions. However, SSI instruction appeared to have a lesser impact on students’ ability to develop shared understanding. Overall, this research indicates the potential that even a limited SSI classroom could have in terms of promoting students’ communication skills in the context of their regular science class.

In the present STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-driven society, socioscientific issues (SSI) have become a focus globally and SSI research has grown into an important area of study in science education. Since students attending the social and science programs have a different focus in their studies and research has shown that students attending a science program are less familiar with argumentation practice, we make a comparison of the supporting reasons social science and science majors use in arguing different SSI with the goal to provide important information for pedagogical decisions about curriculum and instruction. As an analytical framework, a model termed SEE-SEP covering three aspects (of knowledge, value, and experiences) and six subject areas (of sociology/culture, economy, environment/ecology, science, ethics/morality, and policy) was adopted to analyze students’ justifications. A total of 208 upper secondary students (105 social science majors and 103 science majors) from Sweden were invited to justify and expound their arguments on four SSI including global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO), nuclear power, and consumer consumption. The results showed that the social science majors generated more justifications than the science majors, the aspect of value was used most in students’ argumentation regardless of students’ discipline background, and justifications from the subject area of science were most often presented in nuclear power and GMO issues. We conclude by arguing that engaging teachers from different subjects to cooperate when teaching argumentation on SSI could be of great value and provide students from both social science and science programs the best possible conditions in which to develop argumentation skills.

Our guiding presupposition in this study was that socioscientific issues (SSI) instruction, given the humanistic features that comprise this type of instruction, could play a role as a vehicle for cultivating character and values as global citizens. Our main objective was to observe how and to what extent SSI instruction might contribute to this. In order to achieve this aim, we implemented a SSI program on genetic modification technology for 132 ninth-grade students over 3–4 weeks and identified its educational effects using a mixed method approach. Data sources included student responses to questionnaire items that measure the students' character and values, records of student discussions, and semi-structured interviews with the students and their teachers. Results indicated that the students became more sensitive to moral and ethical aspects of scientific and technological development and compassionate to diverse people who are either alienated by the benefits of advanced technology or who are vulnerab...

The purpose of this investigation was to examine, from a cross-cultural perspective, students' epistemological patterns of reasoning about socioscientific issues (SSI), and to identify potential interactions of cultural and scientific identity. Mediating factors associated with students' argumentation and discourse about SSI, as well as the public's understanding of science, has been identified as an important area of investigation in the field of science education. This mixed-methods design included over 300 students from Jamaica, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States. Students responded to instruments designed to assess their epistemological conceptualizations and justifications related to distributive justice, allocation of scarce medical resources, and epistemological beliefs over five dimensions related to scientific knowledge. Four iterations of a coding scheme produced over 97% inter-rater agreement for four independent coders. Results indicate there is a consistent trend toward epistemological congruity across cultures within inductively derived themes of: (1) Fairness; (2) Pragmatism; (3) Emotive Reasoning; (4) Utility; and (5) Theological Issues. Moreover, there were no discernable differences in terms of how students from these countries presented their beliefs on the sub-categories of each of the five major categories. It appears that students displayed a high degree of congruence with respect to how they frame their reasoning on this SSI as well as their justifications for their epistemological beliefs. There were statistically significant differences regarding the ability to raise scientifically relevant questions among countries. Commonalities as well as distinguishing characteristics in epistemological orientations are compared and contrasted and connections to a model of socioscientific reasoning with implications for research and pedagogy are discussed. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50:251–283, 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two learning contexts for explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction, socioscientific issues (SSI) driven and content driven, on student NOS conceptions. Four classes of 11th and 12th grade anatomy and physiology students participated. Two classes experienced a curricular sequence organized around SSI (the SSI group), and two classes experienced a content-based sequence (the Content group). An open-ended NOS questionnaire was administered to both groups at the beginning and end of the school year and analyzed to generate student profiles. Quantitative analyses were performed to compare pre-instruction NOS conceptions between groups as well as pre to post changes within groups and between groups. Both SSI and Content groups showed significant gains in most NOS themes, but between-group gains were not significantly different. Qualitative analysis of post-instruction responses, however, revealed that students in the SSI group tended to ...

Character and values are the essential driving forces that serve as general guides or points of reference for individuals to support decision-making and to act responsibly about global socioscientific issues (SSIs). Based on this assumption, we investigated to what extent pre-service science teachers (PSTs) of South Korea possess character and values as global citizens; these values include ecological worldview, socioscientific accountability, and social and moral compassion. Eighteen PSTs participated in the SSI programs focusing on developing character and values through dialogical and reflective processes. SSIs were centered on the use of nuclear power generation, climate change, and embryonic stem cell research. The results indicated that PSTs showed three key elements of character and values, but failed to apply consistent moral principles on the issues and demonstrated limited global perspectives. While they tended to approach the issues with emotion and sympathy, they nonetheless failed to perceive...

In this article, we explore the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) with a lens informed by the socioscientific issues (SSI) movement. We consider the PISA definition of scientific literacy and how it is situated with respect to broader discussions of the aims of science education. We also present an overview of the SSI framework that has emerged in the science education community as a guide for research and practice. We then use this framework to support analysis of the PISA approach to assessment. The PISA and SSI approaches are seemingly well aligned when considering general aims. Both approaches emphasize preparing students for life and citizenship, complex reasoning and reflective practices, and robust understandings of the nature of science particularly as it is practiced in society. However, as the focus of comparison moves from the conceptual to more specific, the connections between PISA and the SSI movement become more tenuous. For instance, many of the PISA test items, at least those that have been released publicly, seem quite removed from the intent of the SSI movement. The article concludes with a discussion of recent trends in research associated with SSI, which may provide alternative avenues for assessing progressive aims of The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) represents a new approach, as compared to national and international assessment initiatives, for the assessment of student progress in science education.OneoftheuniqueandnotablefeaturesofPISAisthearticulationofscientificliteracythatservesas aconceptualunderpinningfortheproject.Thisvisionforscientificliteracy,whichhighlightslearners'useof science in real-life contexts, invites comparisons to progressive movements in science education. Within the last decade, science educators with progressive goals have increasingly focused on socioscientific issues (SSI) as learning contexts. In this article, we explore ways in which PISA and the socioscientific issues movement overlap and diverge. We begin with an overview of scientific literacy and a discussion of the diverse ideas that the construct has come to represent and then describe how PISA frames scientific literacy. Next,weintroduce thesocioscientificissuesmovementand offersocioscientific Discourseand development of student identities that support these Discourses as normative aims for science education. We then explore the push for standards, assessment, and accountability, which has become a central feature of modern education and the backdrop against which PISA has emerged. We introduce the PISA approach to assessment, and the framework used for developing its assessment instrument. Next, we present specific competenciesprioritized byPISA and sample itemsthat addressthese competencies as a means ofexploring ways in which PISA supports the socioscientific issues movement and ways in which the two initiatives diverge. We conclude the article by reviewing other strategies for assessment to support progressive aims of

In this article, we provide three examples of the use of socioscientific issues (SSI) in a 5th-grade classroom. Taken from Earth science (beach sand replacement), life science (the Canadian seal hunt), and physical science (speed limits), the examples show how teachers can embed scientific content in controversial social issues that engage younger students in constructive sociomoral discourse. Each example includes a preliminary learning activity as well as a description of the SSI scenario and its results. The potential of SSI to inspire preservice elementary science methods students to teach more science and create their own modules is also discussed.

Drawing upon recent research, this article reviews the theory underlying the use of socioscientific issues (SSI) in science education. We begin with a definition and rationale for SSI and note the importance of SSI for advancing functional scientific literacy. We then examine the various roles of context, teachers, and students in SSI lessons as well as the importance of classroom discourse, including sociomoral discourse, argumentation, discussion, and debate. Finally, we discuss how SSI units, which encourage evidence-based decisionmaking and compromise, can improve critical thinking, contribute to character education, and provide an interesting context for teaching required science content.

The purpose of this investigation was to explore possible relationships between Socioscientific Issues instruction and students' development of reflective judgment. The usefulness of the Reflective Judgment Model as a tool for assessing the value of SSI is established in the parallels that can be drawn between them. Both involve ill-structured problems requiring evidence-based reasoning subject to differing interpretations by students, and both require examination, analysis and the blending of scientific and normative evidence, as students use that evidence to support a reasoned position. Results demonstrated both qualitative evidence revealing more sophisticated and nuanced epistemological stances toward higher stages of reflective judgment, as well as statistically significant gains within treatment groups with a moderately large effect size. Theoretical implications for advancing students' epistemological beliefs about evidence-based argumentation and pedagogical implications for rethinking how to connect science with topics that are fundamentally meaningful to students are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 74–101, 2009

This study is a part of a larger study that examined using socioscientific issues (SSI) as a form of effective science teaching. The purpose was to investigate how teaching a year‐long curriculum using SSI affects science learning outcomes. In this report, we examine the effects of a SSI‐driven curriculum on the development of students’ moral sensitivity. Our results indicate that development of moral sensitivity can be promoted through science learning experiences embedded in SSI. Results also suggest that moral sensitivity is contextually dependent. Implications for teaching are discussed.

This case study investigated the implementation of an inquiry‐based curricular unit that was designed to promote student discourse and debate on aspects related to the nature of science, using a socioscientific issue of genetically modified foods. Two high school science classrooms participated in the study that took place over seven consecutive 1.5‐h period blocks. The researchers utilized qualitative procedures to analyze students’ views on the nature of science as expressed through their answers to online and interview questions, and to examine features of argumentation and discourse in the final classroom debate. The students’ answers to questions related to the nature of science reflected conceptions of the tentative, creative, subjective, and social aspects of science. Yet aspects of the nature of science did not enter into the debate discussions. Instead students utilized more factual‐based content of the evidence that ultimately led into numerous instances of fallacious reasoning and personal atta...

This chapter is to present some reflections from international scholars who have been visiting Taiwan for the past few years. These scholars would like to share their insightful feedback of their interactions with scholars, teachers, and students during their stay in Taiwan.

An important distinction can be made between the science, technology, and society (STS) movement of past years and the domain of socioscientific issues (SSI). STS education as typically practiced does not seem embedded in a coherent developmental or sociological framework that explicitly considers the psychological and epistemological growth of the child, nor the development of character or virtue. In contrast, the SSI movement focuses on empowering students to consider how science-based issues reflect, in part, moral principles and elements of virtue that encompass their own lives, as well as the physical and social world around them. The focus of this paper is to describe a research-based framework of current research and practice that identifies factors associated with reasoning about socioscientific issues and provide a working model that illustrates theoretical and conceptual links among key psychological, sociological, and developmental factors central to SSI and science education. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed, 89:357–377, 2005

This study investigates student conceptualizations of the nature of science (NOS) and how students interpret and evaluate conflicting evidence regarding a socioscientific issue. Eighty‐four high school students participated in the study by reading contradictory reports about the status of global warming and responding to questions designed to elicit ideas pertinent to the research goals. A subsample of 30 students was interviewed in order to triangulate data from the written responses. Data were analyzed using a qualitative methodological approach. The participants displayed a range of views on three distinct aspects of NOS: empiricism, tentativeness, and social embeddedness. Findings indicate that interpretation and evaluation of conflicting evidence in a socioscientific context is influenced by a variety of factors related to NOS such as data interpretation and social interactions including individuals' own articulation of personal beliefs and scientific knowledge. Implications for science teaching and ...

The purpose of this study is to contribute to a theoretical knowledge base through research by examining factors salient to science education reform and practice in the context of socioscientific issues. The study explores how individuals negotiate and resolve genetic engineering dilemmas. A quali- tative approach was used to examine patterns of informal reasoning and the role of morality in these processes. Thirty college students participated individually in two semistructured interviews designed to explore their informal reasoning in response to six genetic engineering scenarios. Students demonstrated evidence of rationalistic, emotive, and intuitive forms of informal reasoning. Rationalistic informal re- asoning described reason-based considerations; emotive informal reasoning described care-based consi- derations; and intuitive reasoning described considerations based on immediate reactions to the context of a scenario. Participants frequently relied on combinations of these reasoning patterns as they worked to resolve individual socioscientific scenarios. Most of the participants appreciated at least some of the moral implications of their decisions, and these considerations were typically interwoven within an overall pattern of informal reasoning. These results highlight the need to ensure that science classrooms are environments in which intuition and emotion in addition to reason are valued. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed. 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 112-138, 2005 The phrase ''socioscientific issues'' has come to represent a variety of social dilemmas with conceptual, procedural, or technological associations with science (Fleming, 1986; Kolsto, 2001; Patronis, Potari, & Spiliotopoulou, 1999; Zeidler, Walker, Ackett, & Simmons, 2002). Socioscientific issues typically involve the products or the processes of science and create social debate or controversy. Current socioscientific issues frequently stem from biotechnological advances such as cloning, stem cells, and genetically modified foods and environmental challenges such as global climate change, land-use decisions, and the introduction of exotic substances (both biotic and abiotic). The delineation of socioscientific issues should not imply that

This study focused on informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues. It sought to explore how content knowledge influenced the negotiation and resolution of contentious and complex scenarios based on genetic engineering. Two hundred and sixty-nine students drawn from undergraduate natural science and nonnatural science courses completed a quantitative test of genetics concepts. Two subsets (n = 15 for each group) of the original sample representing divergent levels of content knowledge participated in individual interviews, during which they articulated positions, rationales, counterpositions, and rebuttals in response to three gene therapy scenarios and three cloning scenarios. A mixed-methods approach was used to examine the effects of content knowledge on the use of informal reasoning patterns and the quality of informal reasoning. Participants from both groups employed the same general patterns of informal reasoning. Data did indicate that differences in content knowledge were related to variations in informal reasoning quality. Participants, with more advanced understandings of genetics, demonstrated fewer instances of reasoning flaws, as defined by a priori criteria, and were more likely to incorporate content knowledge in their reasoning patterns than participants with more naive understandings of genetics. Implications for instruction and future research are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed89:71–93, 2005