Search

Students are faced with a multitude of decisions as consumers and in societal debates. Because of the scarcity of resources, the destruction of ecosystems and social injustice in a globalized world, it is vital that students are able to identify non-sustainable courses of action when involved in decision-making. The application of decision-making strategies is one approach to enhancing the quality of decisions. Options that do not meet ecological, social or economic standards should be excluded using non-compensatory strategies whereas other tasks may require a complete trade-off of all the evidence, following a compensatory approach. To enhance decision-making competence, a computer-based intervention study was conducted that focused on the use of decision-making strategies. While the results of the summative evaluation are reported by Gresch et al. ("International Journal of Science Education," 2011), in-depth analyses of process-related data collected during the information processing are presented in this paper to reveal insights into the mechanisms of the intervention. The quality of high school students' (n = 120) metadecision skills when selecting a decision-making strategy was investigated using qualitative content analyses combined with inferential statistics. The results reveal that the students offered elaborate reflections on the sustainability of options. However, the characteristics that were declared non-sustainable differed among the students because societal norms and personal values were intertwined. One implication for education for sustainable development is that students are capable of reflecting on decision-making tasks and on corresponding favorable decision-making strategies at a metadecision level. From these results, we offer suggestions for improving learning environments and constructing test instruments for decision-making competence. (Contains 5 tables, 2 figures, and 3 footnotes.)

Decision making about socioscientific issues is an important aspect of modern science education worldwide. Among the many topics that represent socioscientific issues, issues relating to the sustainable development of our environment are one crucial topic. However, difficulties exist with respect to the assessment of teaching outcomes related to these issues. This paper presents results from two quantitative studies that were conducted to develop a test instrument that measures students' use of decision-making strategies in situations relating to sustainable development. Data were analyzed using the Rasch partial credit model. Analyses concerning reliability and validity showed that the developed instrument provides an adequate measure of students' use of decision-making strategies. Analyses indicated that the test instrument can be used among different age groups and that decision-making competence increases with respect to years of education. Most elaborate strategies were characterized by the use of trade-offs, the ability to weigh decision criteria, and the ability to reflect on the structure of decision-making processes. In contrast, baselevel strategies were characterized by the use of cutoffs and an absence of elaborate metareflection. The results provide a valuable starting point for analyzing and fostering students' decision-making competence in the science classroom. (Contains 3 figures, 2 tables, and 3 footnotes.)

Recent curriculum reform promotes core competencies such as desired "content knowledge" and "communication" for meaningful learning in biology. Understanding in biology is demonstrated when pupils can apply acquired knowledge to new tasks. This process requires the transfer of knowledge and the subordinate process of translation across external representations. This study sought ten experts' views on the role of transfer and translation processes in biology learning. Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed six expert themes surrounding the potential challenges that learners face, and the required cognitive abilities for transfer and translation processes. Consultation with relevant curriculum documents identified four types of biological knowledge that students are required to develop at the secondary level. The expert themes and the knowledge types exposed were used to determine how pupils might acquire and apply these four types of biological knowledge during learning. Based on the findings, we argue that teaching for understanding in biology necessitates fostering "horizontal" and "vertical" transfer (and translation) processes within learners through the integration of knowledge at different levels of biological organization.

The topic of biodiversity is of high value for education for sustainable development as it reflects the interaction of ecological, economic and social issues particularly well. Especially in so-called biodiversity hotspots, among them Chile, natural resources are often depleted for economic interest which, in many cases, is required income. Therefore, economic and social aspects must be considered in order to fully understand biodiversity loss. Being such an important issue, it is surprising that little is known thus far about learning prerequisites concerning biodiversity. This paper presents a qualitative interview study that investigated 16 to 18-year-old Chilean and German learners' perception of biodiversity and its loss (n = 24). Firstly, the pupils' cognitive frameworks were analysed. Secondly, subjective theories about biodiversity loss due to resource dilemmas were explored. Three subjective theories that emerged from the data reflected the notion that most pupils focused on either ecological or economic aspects of biodiversity loss. Pupils who concentrated on ecological aspects often referred to incorrect ecological facts. Moreover, these pupils showed difficulties in developing empathy and solidarity with impoverished people, who depend economically on plants in a resource dilemma. A smaller group of pupils succeeded in integrating the ecological, economic, and social aspects. Regarding the two samples, Chilean pupils seemed to have greater difficulties in recognising the social aspects of biodiversity loss, while German pupils were largely unaware of biodiversity loss on a local level. Implications for biodiversity education and future research will be outlined and discussed.

This paper investigates the issue of how emotions such as disgust influence students' self-efficacy belief in terms of mastering a dissection task and also how these affect their interest in the biology of the heart. Following models of intrinsic motivation and the development of motivation, we expected disgust to negatively impact on students' self-efficacy belief and their interest levels. Ninety-two secondary school students completed questionnaires on disgust, self-efficacy belief and interest before and during the dissection of a pig's heart. We compared two groups of students, one that felt disgusted during dissection and one that did not. No differences in self-efficacy belief and interest were shown between the two groups before the dissection. The development of self-efficacy belief and interest proved to be significantly affected by the disgust experienced during dissection. During dissection, disgusted students saw themselves as less effective at mastering the dissection and reported lower interest in the heart than students who did not feel that emotion. These findings suggest that teachers should try to reduce disgust-provoking stimuli during dissection, since self-efficacy and interest can influence cognitive as well as motivational and affective processes. (Contains 2 figures.)