ABSTRACT

In recent decades, socioscientific issues (SSI) have been emerging from the interrelationship between science, technology, and society. For example, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, related decisions, like whether we need to ask people to use facemasks, is an SSI question being discussed internationally with no right or wrong answer. Controversial issues like SSI and the ability to make informed decisions need to be taught in school, which raises the question of whether teachers themselves are equipped with the skills required to make decisions on SSI. This study aimed to explore whether primary science pre-service teachers could consider multiple subject areas while making decisions on SSI in the context of abortion. Forty-two pre-service primary science teachers (third-year university students) in a genetics and biotechnology course participated in the study. The participants were asked to make decisions about abortion in three genetics-related scenarios and to explain their reasons in written reports. The SEE-SEP (science, environment, ethics/morality, sociology/culture, economy, and policy) model was adopted to explore the reasons behind the pre-service teachers’ decisions. The results showed that their decisions were influenced mainly by science and ethics/morality subject areas. The results further revealed that the participants who supported abortion based their decisions on both scientific evidence and their emotional responses. On the other hand, the pre-service teachers who were against abortion based their decisions on scientific evidence and the aspect of uncertainty. Accordingly, our study recognises the importance of including both science and ethics/morality discussions in SSI-based teaching. The implications for SSI-based teaching and learning are discussed.

摘要

近几十年来，社会科学问题 (SSI) 已经从科学、技术和社会之间的相互关系中出现。例如，由于 COVID-19 大流行，相关决定（例如我们是否需要要求人们使用口罩）是国际上正在讨论的 SSI 问题，没有正确或错误的答案。SSI 和做出明智决定的能力等有争议的问题需要在学校教授，这就提出了一个问题，即教师本身是否具备就 SSI 做出决定所需的技能。本研究旨在探讨初级科学职前教师在堕胎背景下做出 SSI 决策时是否可以考虑多个学科领域。遗传学和生物技术课程的 42 名职前初级科学教师（大学三年级学生）参与了这项研究。参与者被要求在三种与遗传相关的场景中做出关于堕胎的决定，并在书面报告中解释他们的原因。采用 SEE-SEP（科学、环境、伦理/道德、社会学/文化、经济和政策）模型来探究职前教师决策背后的原因。结果表明，他们的决定主要受到科学和伦理/道德学科领域的影响。结果进一步表明，支持堕胎的参与者根据科学证据和他们的情绪反应做出决定。另一方面，反对堕胎的职前教师根据科学证据和不确定性方面做出决定。因此，我们的研究认识到在基于 SSI 的教学中包括科学和伦理/道德讨论的重要性。讨论了基于 SSI 的教学和学习的意义。