Science Teachers’ Views on Science, Technology and Society Issues

Abstract

This Australian study developed and used scales to measure the strength and coherence of students’, teachers’ and scientists’ views, beliefs and attitudes in relation to science, technology and society (STS). The scales assessed views on: (a) science, (b) society and (c) scientists. The consistency of the views of students was established using Rasch scaling. In addition, structured group interviews with teachers provided information for the consideration of the problems encountered by teachers and students in the introduction of STS courses. The strength and coherence of teachers’ views on STS were higher than the views of scientists, which were higher than those of students on all three scales. The range of STS views of scientists, as indicated by the standard deviation of the scores, was consistently greater than the range of teachers’ views. The interviews indicated that a large number of teachers viewed the curriculum shift towards STS positively. These were mainly the younger teachers, who were enthusiastic about teaching the issues of STS. Some of the teachers focused predominantly upon covering the content of courses in their classes rather than discussing STS issues. Unfortunately, it was found in this study that a significant number of teachers had a limited understanding of both the nature of science and STS issues. Therefore, this study highlighted the need for the development of appropriate inservice courses that would enable all science teachers to teach STS to students in a manner that would provide them with different ways of thinking about future options. It might not be possible to predict with certainty the skills and knowledge that students would need in the future. However, it is important to focus on helping students to develop the ability to take an active role in debates on the uses of science and technology in society, so that they can look forward to the future with optimism.