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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 ...

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

Sociomoral discourse, argumentation, and debate are necessary elements in a socioscientific issues-centered classroom. While these factors are fundamental in realizing a socioscientific issues (SSI) curriculum, related pedagogical factors, such as a commitment to inquiry, enacting opportunities for the cultivation of character, and conceptualizing the role of the nature of science (NOS) are consistent with progressive views of science teaching and scientific literacy (Sadler & Zeidler, 2009; Zeidler & Sadler, 2010). Further, classroom research has demonstrated that a fully enacted SSI approach to science education becomes a transformative process for participating students and their teacher. Successful transformation occurs when the teacher-centered approach shifts to a student-centered classroom and the science curriculum becomes issues-driven. Further, the results of this shift may be said to be transformative when students’ discovery of scientific concepts emerges out of socioscientific issues.