Challenges and Strategies in Teaching Socioscientific Issues: A Study of Indonesian Pre-Service Biology Teachers

The work presented here represents a preliminary attempt to address the role of teachers in supporting students’ learning on socio-scientific issues (SSI) by characterising pre-service biology teachers’ perceptions and adaptation of curriculum and identifying factors that serve to mediate this process. A hundred and two undergraduate pre-service biology teachers took part in this study over the course of one semester. The teacher candidates (72% female) completed a questionnaire comprising Likert-type and open-ended questions. The results indicated that the teacher candidates perceived a need to address SSI positively. Pre-service teachers had moderate personal teaching efficacy beliefs related to teaching about SSI. They also identified the lack of instructional time and the unavailability of relevant materials as the primary obstacles hindering the teaching of SSI. The implications for teacher education and the design of curriculum materials with respect to SSI are discussed.

Introduction. The integration of AI in education has gained significant attention, and its potential to enhance teaching and learning outcomes is increasingly recognized. This study aimed to investigate whether the combination of Project-Based Learning (PBL) and artificial intelligence (AI) could improve pre-service teachers' pedagogical skills and the quality of their instructional materials. Methods. A quantitative, pre-experimental design with a one-group pretest-posttest format was employed. Thirty pre-service biology teachers participated in the study. Data were collected using a product assessment rubric to evaluate the quality of the e-worksheets created before and after the intervention. Additionally, a post-intervention questionnaire was administered to gather participants' perceptions and experiences. Paired samples t-tests were conducted to analyze the significance of the changes in e-worksheet quality. Results. The findings revealed a significant improvement in the quality of e-worksheets developed by the pre service teachers after participating in the AI-integrated PBL (M = 36.83, t = 26.33, p = .000). All aspects of the assessment covering content, design, functionality, accessibility, and technicality increased significantly (p = .000). This implied that the implementation of AI-assisted PBL enhanced pre-service teachers’ ability in developing biology e-worksheets. At the end of the class session, they also showed a very positive response (N = 30, Q = Q4) towards the experience of learning how to develop biology e-worksheets using AI. They agreed that AI-assisted PBL could enhance their creativity, problem-solving skills, and technology integration abilities. KEYWORDS Conclusion. This study highlights the potential of AI-assisted PBL as a valuable approach for enhancing pre service biology teachers’ ability to develop e-worksheets, especially in the aspects of content, design, functionality, accessibility, and technicality. This study also gives a worthy learning experience in the age of AI by conducting an AI-powered learning mode. Thus, the findings of this study imply that teacher education programs should consider the integration of AI to help biology preservice teachers master AI-enhanced pedagogy and prepare them to be technologically literate teachers in the future.

The study examined the crux about global warming, greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion among pre-service biology teachers. A survey questionnaire adapted from Kalipit, Yener & Ozkadif (2009); Rye, Ruba & Wiesenmayer (1997) and Boyes, Chambers & Stanisstreet (1995) was administered to 65 pre-service Biology teachers purposively selected from the Department of Science and Technology Education, Lagos State University, Lagos. This was to determine the pre-service biology teachers’ perceptions about global warming, greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results showed that pre-service Biology teachers had misconceptions that the results of thinning of ozone layer will increase greenhouse effect and the function of ozone layer is to protect the earth against excessive heat. Furthermore, majority of the preservice biology teachers had misconceptions on global warming, ozone layer depletion and greenhouse effect. It is imperative, therefore to proffer solutions to these misconceptions held by the pre-service teachers by ensuring that instructors and instructional materials emphasize the importance of these concepts to life ensuring that students have adequate knowledge about the concepts as well as ways of tackling these challenges.
 Keyword: Global warming, greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, pre-service biology teachers, misconceptions.

The purpose of the current study is to qualitatively explore how Thai preservice biology teachers make decisions on, and informally reason about, an agriculture-based socioscientific issue (SSI). The SSI arises mainly as a controversy between two social classes, namely the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, involving haze pollution. Participants comprised 45 fourth-year preservice biology teachers (11 males and 34 females) almost equally divided between the two sectors. They completed a written questionnaire asking for the level of their concern, their reasons for concern, and their positions regarding a solution to haze pollution – that is, the banning of agricultural burning. Data were inductively analysed using an iterative process of coding and categorising. The results suggest that, while they shared the main concerns about health and the environment, the participants from different sectors tended to approach the issue differently. While this difference must be confirmed with a larger population, it supports the hypothesis that socio-professional identities play a role in the process of decision-making and reasoning regarding SSIs. It is recommended that the socio-professional identities of those engaging in SSIs should be explicitly considered in the context of SSI-based instruction.

ABSTRACTThe teaching of socioscientific issues (SSI) holds promise for advancing functional scientific literacy, promoting critical thinking, and providing an interesting context for learning required science content, but few teachers actually employ this teaching method in K–12 classrooms. One common reason cited by teachers is their concern about the controversial aspects of teaching these topics. This study attempts to better understand these tensions by exploring preservice secondary science teachers’ ideas, concerns, and approaches for teaching SSI as they move through a semester-long science methods class that specifically addresses teaching about controversial and SSI. Classroom artifact data and individual interviews were used to explore the science concepts deemed most controversial by preservice secondary science teachers and their preferred approaches for teaching these topics. The findings revealed several topics that are deemed controversial, including evolution, climate change, nuclear energy, and reproduction. Preservice teachers also eagerly adopted the methods course’s discussion strategies for teaching about controversial issues. However, preservice teachers did not distinguish between the appropriateness for using different discussion-based, multiple-perspectives approaches for different types of issues. Specifically, preservice teachers often conflated SSI (societal issues that have both scientific and ethical elements) together with societally denied science for which the teaching is controversial (evolution, anthropogenic causes of climate change). Implications of these findings for methods courses and future research are discussed.

The aim of this study is to investigate the outcomes of a professional development program on socioscientific issues (SSI) to enhance pre-service and mentor teachers' engagement with SSI supported by technology-supported teaching. It aims to explore the learning outcomes for both groups and the influence of their perspectives on science education on these outcomes. The method involves collaborative SSI material development and implementation in classrooms. The study involved 11 senior (10 female; 1 male) pre-service biology teachers and four biology teachers who mentored them in schools during their Teaching Practice courses. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, reflective diaries, and meeting recordings and were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The findings show that pre-service teachers gained multidimensional reasoning, technology integration skills, and ethical and moral reasoning abilities, with gains influenced by their science teaching perspectives. Mentor teachers with progressive views in science teaching understanding had greater benefits, such as improved SSI understanding and student engagement techniques, than those with traditional views.

The Elementary School Journal Volume 81, Number 1 ? 1980 by The University of Chicago 0013-5984/81/8101-0008$0o1.00 In colleges and universities across the country, prospective and practicing teachers and administrators take courses on planning-curriculum-planning and instructional planning. During the courses, teachers and administrators usually study an objectives-first model of curriculumplanning. This model has four steps. Planners are expected to 1. Formulate objectives 2. Choose appropriate learning activities

The current study aims to explore how Thai preservice biology teachers make decisions upon and informally reason about two culture-based socioscientific issues, which are different yet contextually related. Participants included 46 fourth-year preservice biology teachers (12 males and 34 females) who completed a written questionnaire asking about personal engagement, opinions, and reasons regarding floating vessels into rivers and releasing lanterns into the sky as part of a cultural tradition. The data were inductively analysed using an iterative process of coding. The Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were also conducted to determine the significant differences between and within the two issues. The results indicate that the participants, while collectively considering both issues from multiple perspectives, tended to approach each issue differently. They tended to engage personally with and argue for the conservation of floating vessels, as this activity has stronger religious and cultural meanings and a clearer connection with modern science than the activity of releasing lanterns. The results are discussed based on the concept of collateral learning. In addition to technology-based socioscientific issues, it is recommended that culture-based socioscientific issues can be appropriately used to promote science learning and develop some of the characteristics of global citizens.

Linking motivation and learning is central to understanding students’ motivation toward learning and learning itself as complex cognitive phenomena. Some studies focused on students’ motivation toward learning biology in general; however, the shortage of studies on the effect of animation-based instruction and small-group laboratory activities as Resource-based Instructions (RBIs) on pre-service biology teachers was realized. The present study aimed to determine the effect of resource-based Instructions on pre-service biology teachers’ academic motivation toward learning biology at private and public Universities in Rwanda. Pre-service biology teachers were grouped into three groups at a public teacher traning University and received a pre-and post-assessment. Quasi-experimental, pre and post-test control group design was used at a public university, while a repeated measures design was used at a private university. The standard academic motivation scale for learning biology (AMSLB) yielded a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.71 before use. The t-Test was computed to measure the statistically significant difference between the pre-and post-assessment scores and group of RBI interventions. Multivariate analysis (MANOVA) was computed to measure the effect of RBIs vis à vis the AMSLB factors. Findings revealed no statistically significant difference (df=18, p=.458) in the motivation of learning biology of pre-service teachers before and after learning via traditional instruction at a public university. However, a statistically signficant difference was found with animation instruction (df=18, p=.002) and lab instruction (df=18, p=.014). The motivation of learning biology increased at a public university than at a private university. However, animations and small-group lab activities increased pre-service biology teachers’ intrinsic and extrinsic—career motivation of learning biology at both universities. Therefore, the study recommends using RBIs to improve pre-service biology teachers’ motivation toward learning biology.

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.

Teachers use explanations to communicate important scientific ideas to students. Consequently, all biology teachers should be evaluated to determine how effective they are at constructing and communicating biological explanations. Open response questions are required to detect pre-service biology teachers' abilities to communicate robust and accurate scientific explanations. Nevertheless, multiple-choice questions are typically preferred by educators because of the common drawbacks of using open-response instruments, such as scoring time, inter-rater scoring disagreements, and delayed feedback to test takers. This study aims to measure pre-service biology teachers' competence in building scientific explanations and to investigate how accurately multiple-choice questions predict the results of open-response questions. One hundred twenty four pre-service biology teachers participated in the study and were administered 20 multiple-choice items and three open-response items designed to measure the accuracy and quality of their explanations of evolutionary change. The results demonstrated that pre-service teachers displayed higher competence when tested with multiple choice items than when tested with open response items. Moreover, scores derived from multiple-choice items poorly predicted the scores derived from open-response items. Multiple-choice items were also found to be poor measures of the consistency, purity and abundance of conceptual elements in teachers' evolutionary explanations. Additionally, many teachers held mixed-models composed of both scientific and naive ideas, which were difficult to detect using multiple-choice formats. Overall, the study indicates that multiple-choice formats are poorly suited to measuring several aspects of biology teachers' knowledge of evolution, including their ability to generate scientific explanations. This study suggests that open-response items should be used in teacher education programs to assess pre-service teachers' explanatory competency prior to being permitted to teach science to children.

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of performance based evulation on preservice biology teachers’ cognitive achievements and laboratory report writing skills about DNA isolation. In the study, nonequivalent control-group design were used to determine the effect of performance based evaluation on pre-service biology teachers’ achievement and laboratory report skills about DNA isolation. The sample of the study was 70 pre-service teachers. A rubric and DNA isolation achievement test were developed for the data collection. Data was collected by pre-and post-administration of achievement test and administration of rubric. Before the beginning of the study, a pre-test was applied in order to determine the cognitive field levels of students on DNA isolation. Then, a DNA isolation test was applied to the experiment and control groups. While the experiment group was given a rubric to be used during writing their laboratory reports, the control group was not. At the end of the study, a post-test was applied in order to determine students’ cognitive field levels. To detect the differences between the experimental and the control groups, the independent samples t-test was used. At the end of the study, it was determined that preservice teachers who use rubrics display a higher skill in writing laboratory reports and have a higher cognitive field level compared to those who do not.

Reproduction is among basic functions of living beings and one of elementary complex subjects of the biology course. This is complicated for learners to construct cognitive structures on the subject. The aim of the current study is to investigate pre-service biology teachers’ cognitive structures related to “reproduction” through the free word-association test and the drawing-writing technique. As the research design of the study, the qualitative research method was applied. The data were collected from pre-service biology teachers. The free word-association test and the drawing-writing technique were used as data collection instruments. The data were subject to content analysis and divided into categories through coding. With the help of these categories, the cognitive structures of pre-service biology teachers were explained. The data collected through the study were divided into 7 categories (structures required for reproduction, re-production in plants and sections, types of reproduction, insemination, reproduction-inheritance, defining reproduction and its importance, reproductive anatomy). In the categories obtained, it was determined that ample data could be collected using different assessment instruments. On the other hand, it was de- termined that pre-service biology teachers had alternative conceptions related to reproduction. It was observed that the pre-service teachers had imperfect cognitive structures regarding the subject of reproduction. Comprehensive suggestions related to the subject are presented at the end of this article.

In this study, the relationship between pre-service teachers' critical thinking dispositions and their attitudes towards socioscientific issues was examined. Relational survey method, which is one of the quantitative research approaches, was used in the research process. 813 pre-service teachers from science, mathematics, preschool, psychological counseling and guidance, social sciences, classroom teaching, and fine arts departments studying at education faculties in state universities in the Black Sea Region of Turkey participated in the research. Critical thinking disposition and attitude scales were used as data collection tools in the research. The findings were examined by considering the variables of gender, class level, knowledge about socioscientific issues and the department of education. In the analysis of the data obtained, the results for each scale were first divided into groups as low, medium and high scores. Variables with two categories were analyzed using the independent samples t-test, and variables with more than two categories were analyzed using the ANOVA test. Then, multiple linear regression analyses were performed. Hayes's (2018) regression model number 1 was used to confirm the research results and to support it with advanced statistics. As a result of the research, it was determined that the pre-service teachers with low and medium critical thinking dispositions also had low attitudes towards socioscientific issues and sub-variables did not make a significant difference. At this point, some suggestions can be made to pre-service teachers with a low and medium level of critical thinking disposition. It can be ensured that they participate in project activities on socioscientific issues during the training process. It can be ensured that courses within the scope of critical and analytical thinking are taken. It has also been determined that the pre-service teachers with high critical thinking disposition have high attitudes towards socioscientific issues, and there is a significant difference in terms of the variables of the department, grade level and having knowledge about socioscientific issues.

In the present study, the effect of Science, Technology and Society (STS) education conducted on socioscientific issues in “Science, Technology and Society” lesson on 83 pre-service science teachers’ science literacy levels and attitudes towards socioscientific issues was examined. The design of the research is a single-group pre-test-post-test design, which is one of the quantitative research methods, which is a weak experimental design. Problem situations and possible solution suggestions for fourteen different socioscientific issues were designed and this implication that lasted 15 weeks were concluded. “Science Literacy Test” and “Attitude Scale towards Socioscientific Issues” was used as a data collection tool in the study. The data in the research were collected in the spring semester of the 2018-2019 academic year. The dependent sample t-test was used and it was observed that the relationship between the two variables was high level linear and positive in the analysis of the research. As a result of the research, it has been observed that all the implications carried out have caused positive changes in the science literacy and attitudes of the pre-service teachers towards socioscientific issues.