Beyond STS: A research-based framework for socioscientific issues education

TLDR

STS education lacks a coherent developmental framework, whereas the SSI movement emphasizes empowering students to link science-based issues with moral principles and virtues. This paper aims to describe a research‑based framework that identifies factors associated with reasoning about socioscientific issues. The framework provides a working model illustrating theoretical and conceptual links among key psychological, sociological, and developmental factors central to SSI and science education. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Abstract

An important distinction can be made between the science, technology, and society (STS) movement of past years and the domain of socioscientific issues (SSI). STS education as typically practiced does not seem embedded in a coherent developmental or sociological framework that explicitly considers the psychological and epistemological growth of the child, nor the development of character or virtue. In contrast, the SSI movement focuses on empowering students to consider how science-based issues reflect, in part, moral principles and elements of virtue that encompass their own lives, as well as the physical and social world around them. The focus of this paper is to describe a research-based framework of current research and practice that identifies factors associated with reasoning about socioscientific issues and provide a working model that illustrates theoretical and conceptual links among key psychological, sociological, and developmental factors central to SSI and science education. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed, 89:357–377, 2005