Impact of a SSI Program on Prospective Teachers' Character and Values for Global Citizens

Abstract

Raising global citizens has been included in education systems, especially in the 21st century objectives. In their education systems, countries have turned towards more global level objectives rather than local level objectives that only meet their own needs. The importance of the character and values expected from the global citizens to be raised has also increased. For this reason, in this study, it is aimed to investigate the change in the character and values of prospective biology teachers as global citizens who are trained with a Socioscientific Issues (SSI) program. The study used a one group pretest-posttest design. The study group of the research consists of 19 prospective biology teachers studying in the first year of a state university in Ankara. A SSI program was used to ensure the development of some desired character and values in the prospective teachers. Character and Values as Global Citizens Assessment (CVGCA) questionnaire was applied before and after SSI program. It has been determined that there is a significant difference between the scores of prospective biology teachers obtained from the CVGVA scale and its sub-dimensions before and after the SSI program. The findings of the study showed that SSI program improved prospective biological teachers' ecological worldview, socioscientific accountability, and social and moral compassion character and values. In addition, it was understood that the characteristics of prospective teachers such as empathy, taking action, producing solutions, and noticing different perspectives became evident.