Newspapers in Bioethics Education: A Case Study

While the idea of using newspapers in education dates back to as early as the 1890's. It has been significantly promoted in various circles since the first half of the 20th century. Newspapers are considered to be important learning materials as they focus on current affairs, address a wide range of audiences, and provide students with a learning environment other than the classroom setting. Increasing numbers of studies highlight the effectiveness of it. The present study investigates the effects of the use of news items from newspapers as learning materials in bioethics education. The internet archives of the newspapers with the highest circulation in the national press were screened for news items on surrogacy. One was selected for the process of bioethics education. The study was implemented with a total of 112 pupils in their tenth year at a public vocational secondary school of health services in Ankara. The bioethics education model developed by [13] was used in the study. At the end of the implementation, semi-structured interviews were held with pupils in order to identify their opinions on the processes of bioethics education and the use of news in the classroom.