Abstract
Sustainable societies need a workforce with a very creative and flexible nature to be able cope with rapidly changing situations making creative and reasonable decisions. The only suggested way to obtain this is through education that is oriented to competences. The goal of this research is to determine the influence of a new competence-based science curriculum on gymnasium students' scientific creativity skills and socio-scientific reasoning in the context of studying lactose intolerance. In order to investigate the development of these skills at the gymnasium level, a scientific literacy test is administered to 1116 10th grade students (16 –17 year old) and 802 12th grade students (17–18 year old), totally 1918 students in. 44 randomly selected schools from different regions of Estonia, both urban and rural, to the scientific literacy test on a new Estonian competence-based curriculum is conducted in the fall of 2011 with the 10th grade students and the test is repeated with the same students in the spring of 2013 before they graduated 12th grade. The data are gathered with an 8-item test assessing students' scientific literacy components including scientific creativity and socio-scientific reasoning. The test situation is initiated by a scenario describing an expected visit of a family (mother and triplets) and their food provision problems, which arise because the mother and one of the boys suffered from lactose intolerance. One of the tasks is designed to measure scientific creativity skills and one task to assess socio-scientific reasoning skills. Responses are scored from 0 – 3 points per task. The results of the study show that the new competence-based science curriculum has not yet affected significantly the students' learning outcomes in enhancing competences associated with scientific creativity and socio-scientific reasoning skills. Studies during gymnasium level have not supported the students' ability to transfer biological and chemical knowledge into everyday situation effectively.
Highlights
During the past few decades there has been much international discussion about the need to make changes in secondary school science
The scientific literacy test was conducted with 1116 10th grade students in the year 2011 when the Estonian new competence-based curriculum was implemented and the same test was carried out again with 802 students after three years in 2013 when the same 44 schools’ students had reached grade 12
For measuring the level of scientific literacy of gymnasium students, a complex interdisciplinary assessment test was designed in the context of lactose intolerance and the two above-mentioned skills of scientific literacy identified in our framework were a focus of the current paper
Summary
During the past few decades there has been much international discussion about the need to make changes in secondary school science. Two main arguments have been put forward to justify change, namely, the decrease in student interest in science [1] and the need to broaden the curriculum with more emphasis on the competencies and transferable skills rather than academic knowledge [2]. There is a need for a scientifically literate workforce and for citizens who are provided with the appropriate skills and knowledge [3, 4, 5]. In 2011, Estonia introduced a new competence-based curriculum, intended to initiate a paradigm shift from memorization of knowledge to competences and transferable skills [6]. The goals for science education were specified as fostering scientific literacy through: problem solving, decision making, reasoning and creative thinking skills. This study is focused on the development of socio-scientific reasoning and scientific creativity skills
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