Socioscientific issues encompass social dilemmas with conceptual or technological links to science. The process of resolving these issues is best characterized by informal reasoning which describes the generation and evaluation of positions in response to complex situations. This article presents a critical review of research related to informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues. The findings reviewed address (a) socioscientific argumentation; (b) relationships between nature of science conceptualizations and socioscientific decision making; (c) the evaluation of information pertaining to socioscientific issues, including student ideas about what counts as evidence; and (d) the influence of an individual's conceptual understanding on his or her informal reasoning. This synthesis of the current state of socioscientific issue research provides a comprehensive framework from which future research can be motivated and decisions about the design and implementation of socioscientific curricula can be made. The implications for future research and classroom applications are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 513–536, 2004

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.

The question of what students gain by engaging in socioscientific inquiry is addressed in two ways. First, relevant literature is surveyed to build the case that socioscientific issues (SSI) can serve as useful contexts for teaching and learning science content. Studies are reviewed which document student gains in discipline specific content knowledge as well as understandings of the nature of science. SSI are also positioned as vehicles for addressing citizenship education within science classrooms. Although the promotion of citizenship goals seems widely advocated, the specifics of how this may be accomplished remain underdeveloped. To address this issue, we introduce socioscientific reasoning as a construct which captures a suite of practices fundamental to the negotiation of SSI. In the second phase of the project, interviews with 24 middle school students from classes engaged in socioscientific inquiry serve as the basis for the development of an emergent rubric for socioscientific reasoning. Variation in practices demonstrated by this sample are explored and implications drawn for advancing socioscientific reasoning as an educationally meaningful and assessable construct.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to a theoretical knowledge base through research by examining factors salient to science education reform and practice in the context of socioscientific issues. The study explores how individuals negotiate and resolve genetic engineering dilemmas. A qualitative approach was used to examine patterns of informal reasoning and the role of morality in these processes. Thirty college students participated individually in two semistructured interviews designed to explore their informal reasoning in response to six genetic engineering scenarios. Students demonstrated evidence of rationalistic, emotive, and intuitive forms of informal reasoning. Rationalistic informal reasoning described reason-based considerations; emotive informal reasoning described care-based considerations; and intuitive reasoning described considerations based on immediate reactions to the context of a scenario. Participants frequently relied on combinations of these reasoning patterns as they worked to resolve individual socioscientific scenarios. Most of the participants appreciated at least some of the moral implications of their decisions, and these considerations were typically interwoven within an overall pattern of informal reasoning. These results highlight the need to ensure that science classrooms are environments in which intuition and emotion in addition to reason are valued. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed. ß

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Science education models for secondary and college students as well as K‐12 teachers have been dominated by classroom‐based approaches. Recently, research apprenticeships wherein learners worked with practicing scientists on authentic scientific research have become increasingly popular. The purpose of this critical review of the literature was to review and synthesize empirical studies that have explored learning outcomes associated with research apprenticeships for science learners. We reviewed 53 studies of scientific research apprenticeship experiences for secondary students, undergraduates and teachers, both pre‐service and in‐service. The review explored various learning outcomes associated with participation in research apprenticeships. These outcomes included effects of apprenticeship experiences on participant career aspirations, ideas about the nature of science (NOS), understandings of scientific content, confidence for doing science and intellectual development. The extant literature supported many of the presumed positive associations between apprenticeship experiences and desired learning outcomes, but findings related to some themes (e.g., NOS understandings) supported conflicting conclusions. Implications included importance of the length of the apprenticeship, need to explicitly place attention on desired outcomes, and engagement of participants. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:235–256, 2010

This study focused on informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues. It sought to explore how content knowledge influenced the negotiation and resolution of contentious and complex scenarios based on genetic engineering. Two hundred and sixtynine students drawn from undergraduate natural science and nonnatural science courses completed a quantitative test of genetics concepts. Two subsets (n = 15 for each group) of the original sample representing divergent levels of content knowledge participated in individual interviews, during which they articulated positions, rationales, counterpositions, and rebuttals in response to three gene therapy scenarios and three cloning scenarios. A mixed-methods approach was used to examine the effects of content knowledge on the use of informal reasoning patterns and the quality of informal reasoning. Participants from both groups employed the same general patterns of informal reasoning. Data did indicate that differences in content knowledge were related to variations in informal reasoning quality. Participants, with more advanced understandings of genetics, demonstrated fewer instances of reasoning flaws, as defined by a priori criteria, and were more likely to incorporate content knowledge in their reasoning patterns than participants with more naïve understandings of genetics. Implications for instruction and future research are discussed.

ABSTRACT:The ability to negotiate and resolve socioscientific issues has been posited as integral components of scientific literacy. Although philosophers and science educators have argued that socioscientific issues inherently involve moral and ethical considerations, the ultimate arbiters of morality are individual decision-makers. This study explored the extent to which college students construe genetic engineering issues as moral problems. Twenty college students participated in interviews designed to elicit their ideas, reactions, and feelings regarding a series of gene therapy and cloning scenarios. Qualitative analyses revealed that moral considerations were significant influences on decision-making, indicating a tendency for students to construe genetic engineering issues as moral problems. Students engaged in moral reasoning based on utilitarian analyses of consequences as well as the application of principles. Issue construal was also influenced by affective features such as emotion and intuition. In addition to moral considerations, a series of other factors emerged as important dimensions of socioscientific decision-making. These factors included personal experiences, family biases, background knowledge, and the impact of popular culture. The implications for classroom science instruction and future research are discussed.