Turkish Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Decisions on Various Socioscientific Issues: SEE-SEP Model-Analysis

Abstract

The science curriculum in the Turkish education system includes socioscientific issues (SSI) as a context for developing students' reasoning skills, scientific thinking habits, and decision-making skills from an early age. Conducting activities on real problems with teachers and pre-service teachers based on SSI and making decisions considering different dimensions in SSI can provide a better explanation and transfer of the content dimension of the subject. It was found that SSI studies are conducted with science teachers and pre-service science teachers in Türkiye. In this study, activities with different SSIs were organized with pre-service primary teachers, and the decisions of pre-service primary teachers on various socioscientific issues were evaluated considering different dimensions (sociology/culture, environment, economy, science, ethics/morality, and policy) using the SEE-SEP model. Nine different SSI scenarios were presented to 60 pre-service primary teachers in the Central Anatolian region of Türkiye, and they were asked to make a decision in dilemma situations and justify it. It was found that hydroelectric power plants (HEPP), mining, and electric vehicles are highly favored by pre-service primary teachers, while GMOs, cloning, and the establishment of industrial zones are not highly favoured, and they are undecided about biotechnology. It is concluded that the pre-service primary teachers' decisions to support various SSI are mainly economic and scientific, while the environmental and ethical/moral dimensions lead mainly to non-support and indecision.