Quality of SSI Scenarios Designed by Science Teachers

Abstract

The current problem related to science education is that students seem to lack the interest and motivation towards science studies. Teaching modules that are based on socio-scientific issues (SSI) in science education have been found to be interesting and motivating for students. One way to begin with SSI modules is to use scenarios that combine science content with SSI by including, for example, everyday examples related to students’ life or societal issues. An ideal scenario is connected to SSI, supports students’ involvement and reflection, and stimulates students’ scientific questions. However, earlier studies have shown that teachers have concerns about creating motivating SSI scenarios. The data for this case study was gathered from Finnish teachers who designed 24 scenarios in total for their science classes. We applied deductive content analysis and typification in order to find what kind of scenarios the teachers planned and implemented. There were eight high-quality scenarios, which took the motivational socio-scientific context into account in a diverse manner, involved students in collective thinking and reflection on their prior knowledge, and stimulated open-ended scientific questions with multiple solutions. The majority of the scenarios were so-called mediocre scenarios (14), which included weakly motivational aspects related to the socio-scientific context, and the low-quality scenarios (2) which paid only little attention to them. Our findings indicate that it seems to be challenging but possible for science teachers to develop an SSI scenario that is interesting and motivational from students’ point of view.