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.
The Role of Socioscientific Issues in Science EducationThe Socioscientific Issues (SSI) movement seeks to engage students in decision making regarding current social issues with moral implications embedded in scientific contexts (Sadler, 2004;Zeidler & Keefer, 2003;Zeidler & Sadler, 2008; Zeidler, Sadler, Simmons, & Howes, 2005). These issues provide students with a context that encourages active reflection and examination of relevant connections among science, their own lives and the quality of life in their community (Driver, Leach, Millar, & Scott, 1996;Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000;Kolstø, 2001Kolstø, , 2006Sadler, 2004;.The focus on utilization of SSI is based upon a theoretical framework drawn from areas of developmental psychology, sociology, and philosophy. It also includes a focus on discourse and argumentation intricately connected to moral and ethical issues, as well as emphasizing the development of character formation. It should be noted that this is where the SSI movement diverges from past ScienceTechnology-Society (STS) agendas. STS tended to emphasize student understanding of the interactions among science, technology, and society, but paid scant attention, if any, to the quality of social interactions and reflective discourse most closely aligned with the formation of conscious and principles of justice (Zeidler & Sadler, 2008;Zeidler et al., 2005b). Within the SSI framework, however, students are exposed to moral problems that involve a number of discrepant scientific, social or moral viewpoints, many of which may conflict with the student's own closely held beliefs. The scientific knowledge that forms as a result of social knowledge construction and discourse becomes personally relevant and socially shared. A SSI curriculum focuses upon scientific knowledge that is obtained from data interpretation, analysis of conflicting evidence and arguing viewpoints that may conflict with previous misconcept...
