Socio-scientific reasoning of science, social studies and primary teachers

ABSTRACT

Background

Teachers should have a reasonable socio-scientific reasoning (SSR) level, both because they are intellectual members of society and because of their duty to teach reasoning skills to their students, who will become responsible citizens of the future, as indicated in the curriculum.

Purpose

The study aims to examine the SSR level of science, social studies and primary teachers and determine the effect of different variables on SSRquantitatively.

Sample

The participants were composed of 297 primary teachers, 80 scienceteachers and 53 social studies teachers (430 teachers in total) who worked in official institutions affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Turkey.

Design and method

The descriptive survey model, a quantitative research method, was used to achieve the research goal. The research data were obtained via the Socio-Scientific Reasoning Scale (SSRS).

Results and Conclusion

Results show that the SSR of the science, social studies and primary teachers are at a medium level and there is no statistically significant difference between the teaching branches. In the sub-dimensions of SSR, the highest level of reasoning was obtained by all the teachers from three different branches for the sub-dimension of perspective. Science and primary teachers had the lowest level of reasoning for the sub-dimension of complexity; social studies teachers had the lowest level of reasoning for the sub-dimensionof inquiry. While education level does not affect SSR, SSR varies statistically significantly depending on the variables of branch, gender and professional experience.

Suggestion

Practices should be implemented to improve teachers’ SSR, which can be conducted through in-service training opportunities. In addition, our results can be used while determining the composition of the teachers who will participate in the training.

KEYWORDS:

• Socio-scientific reasoning
• socio-scientific reasoning scale
• science teachers
• social studies teachers
• primary teachers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).