The Development of Science Culture Indicators for Socio-Scientific Issues: Focusing on Climate Change

Abstract

The surveys for public awareness in relation to socio-scientific issues (SSI) have been limited to several topics such as public perception of risks about the issues and preference for some policies. To illuminate the public science culture literacy about SSI from a holistic perspective, this study aimed to develop an indicator system. For this purpose, the issue on climate change, which is currently one of the biggest issues worldwide, was adopted as a specific SSI and the framework centering on climate change was developed. Science culture literacy about SSI was defined as a lifestyle to identify SSI from various viewpoints and to cope with problems related to SSI appropriately. In the framework proposed, individual science culture indicators are divided into Potential and Activity area. The Potential consists of categories of Interest, Opinion and Understanding, whereas the Activity is composed of categories of Learning and Practice. To examine the reliability and validity of this framework statistically, the developed questionnaire was reviewed by science educators, environment experts and atmospheric scientists and was used to asked 777 secondary students. Based on the results of statistical analyses, the framework was modified and it consequently had 2 areas, 5 categories, 15 sub-categories, 34 indicators and 63 items. It is expected that the framework of science culture indicators for SSI could be used as a measurement tool for public awareness about various SSI topics.