Tangled up in views: Beliefs in the nature of science and responses to socioscientific dilemmas

By D. Zeidler, Kimberly A. Walker, Wayne A. Ackett, Michael L. Simmons. 2002

589 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between stu- dents' conceptions of the nature of science and their reactions to evidence that challenged their beliefs about socioscientific issues. This study involved 41 pairs of students repre- senting "critical cases" of contrasting ethical viewpoints. These 82 students were identified from a larger sample of 248 students from 9th and 10th grade general science classes, 11th and 12th grade honors biology, honors science, and physics classes, and upper-level college preservice science education classes. Students responded to questions aimed at re- vealing their epistemological views of the nature of science and their belief convictions on a selected socioscientific issue. The smaller subset of students was selected based on varying degrees of belief convictions about the socioscientific issues and the selected stu- dents were then paired to discuss their reasoning related to the issue while being exposed to anomalous data and information from each other and in response to epistemological probes of an interviewer. Taxonomic categories of students' conceptions of the nature of science were derived from the researchers' analysis of student responses to interviews and ques- tionnaires. In some instances, students' conceptions of the nature of science were reflected in their reasoning on a moral and ethical issue. This study stimulated students to reflect on their own beliefs and defend their opinions. The findings suggest that the reactions of students to anomalous socioscientific data are varied and complex, with notable differences in the reasoning processes of high school students compared to college students. A deeper understanding of how students reason about the moral and ethical context of controversial socioscientific issues will allow science educators to incorporate teaching strategies aimed at developing students' reasoning skills in these crucial areas. C

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e9c6c7f3a9de071e5acd7097f5169e3e19675502

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Socioscience and Ethics in Science Classrooms: Teacher Perspectives and Strategies. (2006, background): “These results have been documented in the decision-making of subjects varying greatly in age including middle school (Hogan, 2002; Pedretti &Hodson, 1995), high school (Fleming, 1986; Zeidler et al., 2002), college (Sadler, 2004b; Sadler & Zeidler, 2004), and adults (Bell & Lederman, 2003) and acros”
High School Students’ Informal Reasoning Regarding a Socio‐scientific Issue, with Relation to Scientific Epistemological Beliefs and Cognitive Structures (2011, methodology): “The finding above not only concurs with what has been revealed in previous studies that students’ beliefs about NOS are correlated with their informal reasoning quality (e.g., Bell & Lederman, 2003; Sadler et al., 2004; Zeidler et al., 2002) but also suggests a relationship between learners’ SEBs ab”
Advancing reflective judgment through Socioscientific Issues (2009, background): “experiences mediated their moral judgments (Zeidler & Schafer, 1984) and epistemological beliefs in argumentation related to SSI (Fowler, Zeidler, & Sadler, in press; Zeidler et al., 2002).”
The Morality of Socioscientific Issues: Construal and Resolution of Genetic Engineering Dilemmas. (2004, background): “Recent calls for improving scientific literacy have suggested socioscientific issues as a vehicle for promoting an appreciation of the complex interactions of science and society including moral and ethical influences (on the practice of science) and ramifications (resulting from science) (Driver et”
Awakening the Scientist Inside: Global Climate Change and the Nature of Science in an Elementary Science Methods Course (2007, unknown): “understandings and decision making on socioscientific issues (Sadler, Chambers, & Zeidler, 2004; Zeidler, Walker, Ackett, & Simmons, 2002 ).”
SEE-SEP: From a separate to a holistic view on socio-scientific issues (2010, background): “, 2003; Zohar & Nemet, 2002) and to be aware of the limitations of science and technology, which corresponds to the notion of NOS (Zeidler et al., 2002).”
Contextualizing Nature of Science Instruction in Socioscientific Issues (2012, methodology): “For example, Zeidler et al. (2002) investigated the relationships between students’ NOS understanding and their responses to evidence that challenged their beliefs.”
Student conceptualizations of the nature of science in response to a socioscientific issue (2004, background): “The interconnections between science and society have been well documented in the literature (Aikenhead 1985, Kolstø 2001a, McComas and Olsen 2000, Yager 1996, Zeidler et al. 2002).”
Preservice Science Teachers’ Informal Reasoning about Socioscientific Issues: The influence of issue context (2010, unknown): “…in Western Europe (Albe, 2008; Ekborg, 2008; Jimenez-Aleixandre et al., 2000; Kolstø, 2001b; Kortland, 1996; Patronis et al., 1999; Tytler, Duggan, & Gott, 2001) and the USA (Bell & Lederman, 2003; Hogan, 2002; Sadler, Chambers, & Zeidler, 2004; Zeidler & Schafer, 1984; Zeidler et al., 2002).”
Student Difficulties in Socio‐scientific Argumentation and Decision‐making Research Findings: Crossing the borders of two research lines (2010, background): “Second, it is suggested that students should reflect on multiple perspectives of a socio-scientific issue for them to see their theories as an object to cognition (Sadler et al., 2004; Zeidler et al., 2002).”
Explicit Nature of Science and Argumentation Instruction in the Context of Socioscientific Issues: An effect on student learning and transfer (2014, background): “Another base for selection was the belief that these NOS aspects are closely related to the realm of socioscientific issues (Khishfe, 2012b, 2012c; Zeidler et al., 2002).”
Nature of Science and Decision-Making (2012, background): “As such, an individual’s NOS understanding is related to the decisions he or she makes in relation to controversial socioscientific issues (eg, Bentley & Fleury, 1998 ; Kolsto, 2001b ; Sadler, Chambers, & Zeidler, 2004 ; Zeidler, Walker, Ackett, & Simmons, 2002 ).”