The role of affect in science literacy for all

ABSTRACT

The goal of science literacy for all underlies much of today’s K-12 science education (National Academies of Sciences [2016]. Science literacy: Concepts, contexts, and consequences. National Academies Press; Roberts, [2007]. Scientific literacy/science literacy. In S. K. Abell, & N. G. Lederman (Eds.), Handbook of research on science education (pp. 729–780). Lawrence Erlbaum). This goal assumes that the citizens of contemporary societies must be able to appreciate the relevance of and draw upon scientific knowledge and practices in a broad range of personal and social issues. Many national science education standards, which aim to promote science literacy for all, focus almost entirely on prescribing the conceptual knowledge and practices that underlie science literacy, with only little, if any, reference to the affective characteristics that need to be fostered in parallel to conceptual knowledge and skills. This position paper highlights why affect is so important for the development of science literacy by critiquing the arguments that underlie many national standards documents and by considering the crucial role affect plays in becoming and remaining a lifelong learner of science. We argue that there is a discrepancy between the science education research literature and many national science education standards in terms of the latter not acknowledging the affective domain as an important education outcome, and that this discrepancy is an obstacle to the attainment of science literacy for all.

KEYWORDS:

• Science literacy
• science education standards
• motivation
• self-efficacy
• lifelong learning

Introduction

Roberts distinguished in his 2007 handbook chapter between two visions of education for science literacy that lie at different ends of a continuum of approaches to science education (Roberts, 2007). Vision I begins from the canonical products and processes of science and may then apply these products and processes to make sense of and solve phenomena, problems and issues. Vision II starts from issues, problems and phenomena in which science plays an important role, but which also involve non-scientific (economic, political, etc.) perspectives, and then reaches into science to find how it can help make sense of these situations. These are situations which students are likely to encounter and to view as important and relevant to themselves. One the one hand, many national science education standards, for example in Germany (Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [KMK], 2005a, 2005b, 2005c), China (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2011, 2017, 2020), Israel (Israel Ministry of Education, 2014), and the USA (NGSS Lead States, 2013), adopt a Vision I perspective, specifying the products and the processes of science and engineering, and leave it to curriculum developers and teachers to design and present contexts in which to ground and apply these products and processes.¹ On the other hand, many of these documents, such as the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012), which in the USA provided the conceptual underpinnings of the NGSS, used a Vision II perspective to justify why all students should learn science:

The overarching goal of our framework for K-12 science education is to ensure that by the end of 12th grade, all students have some appreciation of the beauty and wonder of science [a cultural argument]; possess sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on related issues [a democratic argument]; Are careful consumers of scientific and technological information related to their everyday lives [a utility argument]; are able to continue to learn about science outside school; and have the skills to enter careers of their choice, including (but not limited to) careers in science, engineering, and technology [an economic argument]. (National Research Council, 2012, p. 1)

Whether they draw upon a Vision I or a Vision II perspective, when closely reading many national documents such as the NGSS or the Framework, it is apparent that the documents’ authors focused almost entirely on prescribing the core knowledge and practices that underlie science literacy and that all students need to develop. Sorely missing is attention to any affective characteristics that may need to be fostered in parallel to conceptual knowledge and skills. For example, in the Framework there is a section titled Connecting to Students’ Interests and Experiences. This section describes the importance of building off students’ prior interests. Fostering interest in science is undoubtedly important in science education (Krapp & Prenzel, 2011). Indeed, since 2006, PISA has also measured interest in these domains as an outcome variable (Drechsel et al., 2011). However, the Framework includes no sections that address the importance of promoting students’ interest in science. Since interest is described in the Framework only as an input to science education rather than both a desired input and output, it is not surprising that promoting interest in science is not an educational goal and is not mentioned anywhere in the NGSS. Self-efficacy or self-concept are not mentioned a single time in the Framework. Confidence is mentioned only twice in a passing manner in that document and never in the NGSS. The situation is similar in the other national standards documents with which we are familiar. Why then should teachers engage in instructional practices that can encourage and support interest or self-efficacy in science unless they believe that fostering interest or self-efficacy in science may lead to improved learning?

The aim of this position paper is to indicate why affect is so important for the development of science literacy, to critique the assumptions underlying many national standards documents, and to highlight the importance of affect to the continuing learning of and engagement with science after compulsory schooling has been completed – the lifelong learning of science. By affect we mean the emotions and the expressions of these emotions that influence the way we think about science and about ourselves in relation to science, the ways in which we actively seek out (or ignore) opportunities to engage with science. Following (Fortus, 2014), we focus in particular on the following manifestations of affect: (a) interest in scientific ideas and phenomena, both situational (Hidi et al., 1992) and individual (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), (b) attitudes towards science (Osborne, Simon, et al., 2003) and attitudes towards life-long learning of science (OECD, 2021), (c) self-efficacy (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2006) and self-concept (Coopersmith & Feldman, 1974) in relation to science, and (d) the motivation to engage (or disengage) with science, which includes the initiation, direction and maintenance of goal-oriented behaviour (Pintrich & Schunk, 1995). We recognise that there are other additional manifestations of affect that likely play important roles in shaping the lifelong learning of science, such as continuing motivation (Fortus & Vedder-Weiss, 2014). Their omission should not be interpreted as indicating their lesser importance, just that in the arguments that follow they seemed to the authors to play a less prominent role and so were omitted in order to keep the arguments streamlined.

We are not the first researchers to recognise the importance of affect in learning and teaching. In a highly cited article, Pintrich, Marx and Boyle (1993) critiqued the ‘coldness’ of contemporary conceptual change models. Since then, researchers have written of the importance of the ‘warming trend’ in conceptual change research (e.g. Alsop & Watts, 2003; Sinatra, 2005). In spite of these and other later efforts (e.g. Falk et al., 2016; Höft & Bernholt, 2019), the national standards documents with which we are acquainted still adopt a ‘cold’ perspective, focusing almost entirely on conceptual outcomes and ignoring affective outcomes and the role they play in reaching the conceptual outcomes.

We believe that without explicit attention to the promotion of positive affective characteristics towards science, in standards and in practice, the goal of science literacy for all will remain unattainable. To do so, in Section I we revisit arguments that have been presented in the past to justify why science literacy for all is important and demonstrate how each argument actually suggests the importance of the explicit promotion of various affective characteristics in relation to science. Then, in Section II, based on the conclusions we reach in Section I, we consider the crucial role affect plays in becoming and remaining a lifelong learner of science.

Section I – the five arguments for science literacy for all

Why should science be taught to all students throughout their K-12 schooling? Several researchers have presented arguments in favour of science literacy for all (e.g. Christensen, 2001; Millar, 1996; Ryder, 2001; Sjøberg, 1997; Thomas & Durant, 1987). Thomas and Durant (1987) presented nine reasons why it is important to promote the public understanding of science – benefits to science, benefits to national economies, benefits to national power and influence, benefits to individuals, benefits to democratic government, benefits to society as a whole, intellectual benefits, aesthetic benefits, and moral benefits. Millar (1996) took these nine reasons and grouped them into five arguments: the economic argument, the utility argument, the democratic argument, the social argument, and the cultural argument. Other researchers (e.g. Kolstø, 2001; National Academies of Sciences, 2016; Osborne, Collins, et al., 2003; Ryder, 2001) have built off these five arguments when justifying the importance of promoting science literacy. The quotation from the Framework presented earlier shows that the authors of this document were aware of these arguments when justifying the importance of science education for all – see the square brackets in the quotation.

In this section we present each of the five arguments – the economic, the utility, the democratic, the social, and the cultural argument – verbatim, and then consider which conclusions can be reached from them about the importance of affect in developing science literacy.

The economic argument

There is a connection between the level of public understanding of science and the nation’s economic wealth. In addition, scientific and technical achievement is seen as a sign of a nation’s international standing. Maintaining this depends on a steady supply of technically and scientifically qualified personnel. (Millar, 1996, p. 9)

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) cautioned that the lack of skilled scientists and engineers leads to a barrier towards innovation and that basic levels of education are no longer sufficient in economies which involve continuous change (OECD, 2000). Improving the leverage of public science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) education and its quality are therefore often key concerns in many countries. As a result, many countries have made the promotion of expertise in STEM fields an immediate goal, initiating substantial reforms (e.g. National Research Council, 2012) and investing significant amounts in the promotion of education in STEM fields (National Science Board, 2018). To be able to monitor the effects of these efforts, many countries participate in international large-scale assessments such as the Trends in Science and Mathematics Study (TIMSS) or the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Since 2000, every three years, PISA evaluates 15-year-olds’ mathematics, science and reading literacy across all OECD (and some non-OECD) countries. PISA reports students’ performance on a scale defined such that the average across all countries is 500 points and the standard deviation is 100 points. The score is meant to represent the effectiveness of the countries’ mathematics, science and reading education and, based on the belief that economic success depends on a citizenship literate in these areas, predict the countries’ future economic wellbeing (DeBoer, 2011). And indeed, as shown in Figure 1,² there is a positive relationship between countries’ PISA scores and their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Taking PISA scores as a proxy for the general scientific knowledge of the school-age population, we conclude that there is a significant correlation between the scientific knowledge of nations’ adolescents and the nations’ economic wealth. But is this correlation causal? If there is a causal connection between wealth and PISA scores, is it not more likely that the wealthier a nation is, the more it invests in education, better preparing their students to take standardised tests, resulting in higher PISA scores?

Figure 1. GDP per capita vs. science PISA scores for 2012.

In their book ‘The Knowledge Capital of Nations’, Eric Hanushek and Ludger Wössmann presented a series of studies supporting the assumption that students’ mathematics and science achievement is predictive of countries’ future economic prosperity (Hanushek & Wössmann, 2015). More specifically, Hanushek and Wössmann showed that countries’ average score in large-scale assessments between the 1960s to 2000s were significantly correlated with the countries’ average annual growth during that period of time, even when controlling for countries’ initial GDP per capita. This finding holds, even when considering students’ average scores between the 1960s and 1980s and annual growth between the 1980s and 2000s – suggesting that these students have indeed actively contributed to the countries’ economic growth. A more differentiated analyses also showed that this applied to both low and high achieving students. The authors concluded that a 10 percent increase in all students’ mathematics and science literacy scores predicted an increase in the annual growth in GDP by .3 percent, while an increase of 10 percent in the scores of the top-performing students predicted an additional 1.3% annual growth in GDP. This finding is supported by a strong positive correlation between the number of scientists and engineers that are engaged in research and development in a country and its economic wealth (The World Bank, 2016a, 2016b). Assuming that scientists and engineers are largely responsible for the generation of economic wealth (Hanushek & Wössmann, 2015), Figure 2 supports the OECD’s alarm that the lack of scientists and engineers in many countries may be leading to a barrier in innovation and economic growth, threatening future prosperity.

Figure 2. GDP per capita vs. number of scientists and engineers per million people.

For increased test scores to translate into future economic wealth, it is necessary that many of the students that participate in international large-scale assessments choose to study STEM subjects at the postsecondary level. However, research shows that it is not automatic that the students performing at the top-level in mathematics or science choose to study a STEM subject (Taskinen et al., 2008, 2013). More specifically, there is no significant effect of students’ science performance on their intent to choose a job in this field (Taskinen et al., 2008), whereas factors such as students’ enjoyment of science or self-concept in science have a substantial effect on students’ motivation to continue studying science (Taskinen et al., 2013). So, the economic argument is less about how to (further) improve scores in STEM education and more about how to encourage students to consider STEM professions and how provide them with the underlying experiences that will allow them to reach sound judgments about the appropriateness of STEM careers for them. This means that until students reach the age at which they are expected to choose which subject(s) they wish to emphasise in their studies, (for example, the end of 9th grade in Israel or the beginning of college in the US), an important economically-driven goal of science education should be to increase students’ interest in STEM,³ their self-efficacy towards STEM, and their motivation to learn more STEM,⁴ thus increasing the odds that they will choose to major in STEM and hopefully also continue on to a STEM-related profession. Before students choose their major, the focus on conceptual knowledge, skill at engaging in scientific and engineering practices, and awareness of scientific norms and culture, which lies at the heart of most present day compulsory science education, has economic importance primarily if it is an engine for boosting the number of students who choose to major in science; the economic importance of this focus is much smaller if it has no significant impact on students’ choices. Once students have already chosen their majors, there is economic value in promoting students’ understanding of science primarily if the students are potential STEM professionals.⁵

To summarise, the economic goal of science literacy for all is chiefly to maximise the number of students that choose to specialise in STEM. Therefore, the most important economic outcome of science education, until the stage where students choose their majors, are enhanced interest in STEM, a sense of self-efficacy in one’s ability to engage with STEM, and motivation to continue studying STEM.

The utility argument

An understanding of science and technology is practically useful, especially to anyone living in a scientifically and technologically sophisticated society. They are better equipped to make decisions about diet, health, safety, and so on, to evaluate manufacturers’ claims and make sensible consumer choices. (Millar, 1996, p. 9)

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century is often described as a time when an understanding of science and technology was, and still is, especially important for utilitarian reasons, largely due to massive influx of computer-based technologies into every aspect of life. It has been claimed that knowledge of science and technology should allow us to make better decisions and choices on issues related to our lives, for example: ‘Science, engineering, and the technologies they influence permeate every aspect of modern life. Indeed, some knowledge of science and engineering is required to … make informed everyday decisions, such as selecting among alternative medical treatments or determining how to invest public funds for water supply options’ (National Research Council, 2012, p. 7). Is this indeed the case? We take up this question in two ways: first we consider how modern computer technology has influenced the extent to which science is actually needed for navigating life in the twenty-first century. Next we reflect on how people actually use knowledge relative to the behavioural decisions they make.

The influence of modern technology

Modern computer technology has made the need for scientific knowledge smaller, not larger. Modern apparatuses are designed to be as simple as possible for the lay person, to black-box their internal mechanisms, to require no specialised knowledge to operate. This was not always so. A car owner was once expected to be a tinkerer. The first home computers were far from having ‘plug and play’ interfaces. They needed to be programmed to do anything, sometimes in machine language. Today almost everything is plug-and-play and requires little or no need for physical device configuration or user interventions, and almost any child can, at some level, control them. Modern technology is shrinking the breadth of situations in which scientific knowledge could potentially be relevant. We are not arguing that scientific knowledge is irrelevant to many situations in everyday life, just that modern computer technology is decreasing the necessity of some scientific knowledge to cope with and to perform reasonably well in everyday situations.

Of course the STEM professionals who develop new technologies and design applications of these technologies need in-depth knowledge of the science in their fields. However, even STEM professionals, who are not developing new technologies or designing applications of these technologies, but are the providers of support and maintenance services for these technologies (like technicians or mechanics) seldom require specialised scientific knowledge anymore. When a computer, automobile, washing machine, or almost anything stops working properly, an external diagnostic programme identifies the malfunctioning unit which is then replaced. Technicians and mechanics do not necessarily need to understand what went wrong or why; they just need to know how to use auto-diagnostic equipment and how to replace malfunctioning parts. They are guided by practical knowledge, professional know-how, not by scientific knowledge. The black-boxedness of modern technology has diminished the need for scientific knowledge, even in the STEM professions.

The gap between knowledge and behavior

A UN agency reported that the livestock sector was globally ‘one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution’ (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] of the United Nations, 2006, p. 267). According to the American Dietetic Association, ‘appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain disease’ (American Dietetic Association, 2009, p. 1266). Many people are aware of these issues and would pass a litmus test for science literacy, yet their knowledge does not appear to guide their behaviour; they prefer omnivorous diets over vegetarian ones even though a rational decision, based on the information available, would have been the opposite. Paraphrasing a maxim attributed to Mark Twain (apparently erroneously), do people who fail to use their scientific knowledge have any advantage over people who do not have this knowledge⁶?

This is just one example, but there are plenty others. How many scientifically literate people do not exercise, drive by themselves to work in large cars, smoke, have houses much bigger than they need, do not recycle, and so on? In many, if not most areas of life, we are more instinctive creatures than rational ones (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). People, including scientifically literate people, eat meat and engage in many other ‘unwise’ behaviours because these behaviours may bring them pleasure; they do not engage in ‘wise’ activities because these are perceived as involving too much effort or expense, even though they know the outcomes of their behaviours may not be all that good for them or the environment.

On the other hand, can all physicists repair their cars (or even know what is wrong with them)? There is a gap that separates theoretical knowledge and the ability to translate this knowledge into practical ability at making existential changes in the world. Some physicists may be able to understand, after the fact, what the mechanic did and how she figured out what the problem was and how she repaired it, but doing this themselves is another issue. So being scientifically literate, even having scientific expertise, does not necessarily translate into practical ability.

It is not that our knowledge and reasoning skills do not influence our behaviour at all – of course they do. But their overall impact on our behaviour and on our practical abilities is smaller than we often like to admit. Is it fair of us to expect that the behaviour, choices, and skills of our present-day students be driven by their scientific knowledge more than we are? We believe we should be modest when using the utility argument to justify the value of science literacy.

Lifelong learning as the key to utility

Research on transfer indicates that to enhance the odds that people will indeed draw upon their knowledge when making choices and decisions, it is important that they have detailed knowledge that is relevant to the specific situation under consideration, not just general and superficial knowledge, and they need to be aware of the relevance of the knowledge they have (e.g. Day & Goldstone, 2012; Hickey & Pellegrino, 2005). For example, when a doctor recommends giving a child 26 vaccinations – the number that used to be required in the USA (Miller & Goldman, 2011) – do parents follow their doctor’s recommendation because she’s the doctor and knows best? Or do the parents agree to vaccinate their child, regardless of what they think, because it is the law? Or do the parents follow the doctor’s recommendation because the parents know/think/feel that, in general, medical authorities can be trusted (maybe they learned about the Nature of Science in school?) and because the medical authorities think that vaccinations are safe and can prevent illnesses? Or, are the parents, using a term coined by Noah Feinstein, competent outsiders (Feinstein, 2011), and do they make their own informed decision? We hope/assume most readers’ opinions lie somewhere between the last two possibilities. In that case, what is the knowledge that the parents need to be able to reach a reasonably informed choice? Clearly they need to know about the characteristics of the various pathogens that are present in the environment, the probability that their child will be exposed to them, the odds that their child will become sick if exposed, the workings of the immune system, whether their child’s immune system is compromised and if so in what way, how the various vaccines work and how they are tested, the potential dangerous side effects involved in taking various vaccines, why vaccines are given according to certain schedules, possible herd immunity effects on others, and so on … Many, if not most of these things will not be taught in K-12 science education because there is not enough time to teach everything and because new relevant knowledge is being created all the time.

Therefore, to increase the odds that people will draw upon their knowledge when making decisions, it is crucial that they be lifelong learners, people who actively seek out information related to the situations they face and try to make sense of it. To enhance science education’s utilitarian value, it must promote the tendency of people to become lifelong learners of science. Indeed, the OECD recognised attitudes toward life-long learning of science as an important component of science literacy and included items assessing this attitude in PISA (OECD, 2021).

This is reminiscent of the preparation for future learning (PFL) perspective of transfer (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999), according to which an important measure of the quality of prior learning is how well it prepares you for future learning. A study by Belenky and Nokes-Malach (2012) showed that the more students were mastery-goals oriented,⁷ the more they were likely to engage in PFL-type transfer, meaning the more likely they were to learn new necessary information and then use it to complete a task. People who are mastery-goal oriented learn because they have an inner need to understand and develop a sense of competence or of mastery (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012). Mastery-goal orientation for a topic is strongly related to self-efficacy towards one’s ability to learn and make sense of the topic (Urdan, 1997). This is because if we do not believe that we have the ability to understand something, it is unlikely that we will begin to invest the time and energy needed to develop this understanding.

To summarise: We believe that we should have modest expectations regarding the utilitarian value of science literacy, and that to enhance this utilitarian value we need to focus not only on promoting conceptual knowledge and skills, but also on promoting students’ mastery orientation towards science, their self-efficacy for autodidactic learning of science, and their attitudes towards life-long learning of science.

The democratic argument

An understanding of science is necessary if any individual is to participate in discussion, debate and decision-making about issues which have a scientific component. Decisions have to be made about transport, energy policy, testing of drugs and treatments, disposal of wastes, and so on. There should be public accountability about the directions of some scientific research, and public involvement in decisions about whether or not to apply such knowledge. (Millar, 1996, p. 9)

In democratic societies, it is the individual citizen’s right to participate in discussions, debates and decision-making about scientific issues made locally and nationally, such as whether or not obligate a vaccination regime, how to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases, and where to store nuclear waste. This right exists regardless of the citizen’s understanding of the topic being considered or their socio-cultural beliefs and, as has been seen many times in the past years, often leads to behaviours and support of policies that run contrary to accepted scientific knowledge (Scientific American Board of Editors, 2017). Indeed, Kahan et al. (2012) reported that people who leaned toward Republican and conservative worldviews (in the US) were more likely to reject the risks associated with climate change or with nuclear power as their education level increased. ‘For ordinary citizens, the reward for acquiring greater scientific knowledge and more reliable technical-reasoning capacities is a greater facility to discover and use – or explain away – evidence relating to their [peer] groups’ positions’ (Kahan et al., 2012, p. 734).

Assuming that the democratic goal of science literacy for all is not to develop a particular opinion on socio-scientific issues but to develop the ability to engage in public discussion on these issues, we need to ask: what level of understanding of science is necessary for citizens to be able to participate individually and meaningfully in public debates on science-related issues and not just accept/reject the recommendations of the experts or the policies of the politicians of their choice? Is this level something that is realistic to expect students to reach in K-12 education?

In a collection of ‘case studies of individuals not professionally involved with science interacting with scientific knowledge and/or science professionals’, Ryder (2001, p. 3) demonstrated that knowledge about science, with a particular emphasis on the epistemology of science, appeared to have greater utility in the public domain than knowledge of science, what is traditionally called content knowledge. For example, one area of knowledge about science that was repeatedly identified by Ryder (2001) as significant for lay citizens engaged in socio-scientific issues was ‘an understanding of the ways in which knowledge claims in science are developed and justified. For example, individuals needed to recognise that measurements include inherent variability, that empirical data are gathered using a wide range of different methodologies, that providing justification for a knowledge claim is different from proving that it is true, and that theoretical models carry in-built assumptions’ (p. 35).

However, knowledge about science on its own is not as effective when thinking about socio-scientific issues as it is when combined with knowledge of science (Sadler, 2004). As mentioned before, research on transfer (e.g. Hickey & Pellegrino, 2005) has shown that general and superficial content knowledge is not likely to be to drawn upon in relevant situations; to enhance transfer one needs detailed knowledge that is clearly connected to the situation under consideration. So, since much of the science content needed to be able to fully make sense of many socio-scientific issues lies beyond the syllabus of the typical elementary, middle and high school science education in many countries, for citizens to be able to meaningfully engage in democratic debates about socio-scientific issues, they will likely need to go beyond what they learned during their compulsory science education; they will need to become competent outsiders (Feinstein, 2011), actively seeking out scientific knowledge on the issues at hand, perhaps in the form of secondary reports or consensus statements of a group of scientists, making sense of them, reaching their own personal conclusions and attempt to convince others of their conclusions.

Once again, as with the utility argument, we see that the democratic value of K-12 science education is enhanced if it helps students develop into lifelong learners of science. Earlier we mentioned the importance of a mastery goal orientation towards science, of self-efficacy regarding one’s ability to learn new things in science on one’s own and of positive attitudes towards the lifelong learning of science; we will further discuss later what we believe is required to be a lifelong learner of science.

To summarise, the democratic argument in favour of science literacy for all leads to two conclusions: One of the goals of K-12 science education should be to help students develop knowledge about science alongside their knowledge of science, and a second goal of K-12 science education should be to develop lifelong learners of science (just like the utilitarian argument), meaning that it needs to promote a mastery-goal orientation toward science, self-efficacy for the autodidactic learning of science, and positive attitudes towards lifelong learning.

The social argument

It is important to maintain links between science and the wider culture. Specialization and the increasingly technical nature of modern science is seen as a social problem, leading to incipient fragmentation – and the alienation of much of the public from science and technology. A related argument is advanced from the science side: that improved public understanding will lead to more sympathy with, and hence greater support for, science and technology itself. (Millar, 1996, p. 9)

Our discussion of this argument and of the next one (the cultural argument) is very brief because the arguments quite clearly align with the point that has already been made – they are about the need to foster and maintain positive attitudes toward science, not about the need to develop conceptual understanding of science. The question is whether it is possible and feasible to promote positive attitudes towards science without fostering knowledge of and about science.

The cultural argument

Science is a major, indeed, the major achievement of our culture and that all young people should be enabled to understand and to appreciate it. We should celebrate science as a cultural product. (Millar, 1996, p. 9)

Whether science is the major achievement of our culture is open to debate. Whose/which culture are we talking about? But regardless of the outcome of this debate, we doubt that anyone would argue against science as a major cultural achievement and that everyone should be able to understand it and appreciate it. We argue that the same is true for music, art, drama, and many other achievements. Should everybody be required to learn music, literature and drama throughout K-12 education? Absolutely. Yet in how many schools, districts and countries are these subjects elective rather than compulsory like science?

If the goal is to celebrate science as a cultural product, is it important that all students reach pre-determined levels of competence? Isn’t it just as important to emphasise the aesthetic side of science, the achievements of science, and the stories of the heroes of science as it is to help student develop competence at doing science? We believe that the cultural argument, like the social argument, is about promoting positive attitudes, sensitivity to the aesthetic side of science, and an awareness of the achievements of science; if they also promote knowledge of and about science, they do so only because these are needed to develop a social and cultural appreciation of science.

Interim summary

A summary of the main conclusions reached in our analysis of the five arguments for science literacy for all is presented in Table 1: (a) the economic argument – until students choose in which field to major, the central economic goal of science education is to encourage students to major in science fields by enhancing their interest in STEM, by enhancing their self-efficacy towards STEM, and by enhancing their motivation to continue studying STEM; (b) the utility argument – we should have modest expectations regarding the utilitarian value of K-12 science education. To enhance its utilitarian value, K-12 science education should foster the development of the characteristics that promote lifelong learning – mastery-goal orientation, self-efficacy towards autodidactic learning, and positive attitudes towards lifelong learning; (c) the democratic argument – K-12 science education should promote self-efficacy, mastery-goal orientation and positive attitudes towards lifelong learning; (d) the social argument – promote positive attitudes towards science and an awareness of the ways in which science has changed and is changing our lives for the better; and (e) the cultural argument – foster appreciation of science and positive attitudes toward science by emphasising the beauty in science, the achievements of science, and also the human stories in science.

Table 1. Arguments for science literacy and the affective goals they promote.

	Goal 1	Goal 2	Goal 3
Economic	Interest in science	Science self-efficacy	Motivation to continue studying science
Utility	Mastery-goal orientation toward science	Self-efficacy towards autodidactic learning of science	Positive attitudes towards lifelong learning
Democratic	Science self-efficacy	Mastery-goal orientation towards science	Positive attitudes towards lifelong learning
Social	Positive attitudes towards science	Awareness of the ways in which science improves lives
Cultural	Positive attitudes toward science

Note that none of these conclusions address what knowledge and skills students should have at the end of high school or if it is important that students reach a certain level of proficiency in science by the end of high school. We do not claim that learning the products and processes of science is not important, just that we need to expand the goals that direct our teaching of science to include more than just knowledge and skills. Since high-stakes testing drives so much of science education in many countries, it is crucial that national standards and other national policy documents that specify what is expected of all students, focus not only on desired conceptual outcomes but also explicitly specify the desired affective characteristics as well. While knowledge of and about science are important, the economic, utilitarian, democratic, social and cultural arguments indicate that if (a) a desire to learn about science, (b) a sense of self-efficacy in one’s ability to learn more science on one’s own and to use this knowledge to make sense of the world, (c) a mastery orientation towards science, (d) positive attitudes towards lifelong learning, and (e) positive attitudes toward the scientific enterprise are not fostered during K-12 schooling, it is unlikely that students will become scientifically literate and lifelong learners of science.

In section II we now present self-initiated intentional learning (the basis of lifelong learning) and discuss why the affective characteristics mentioned above are crucial for the self-initiated intentional learning of science to occur.

Section II – intentional self-Initiated learning of science (lifelong learning)

When do we learn things unintentionally? All the time. We learn on the path of life, without a conscious goal, often without being aware that we are learning. The second traffic light is always red when the first one is green. The dog always barks when someone knocks on the door. The cellphone’s battery needs less than one hour to be fully recharged. Salomon and Perkins (1989) called this kind of learning ‘low-road’ and claimed that it developed following extensive practice and occurred automatically, without having to be consciously initiated. We are often unaware of this low-road learning until something unexpected occurs: Both lights are green. That is strange … why one is always red when the other is green but now they are green at the same time? The unexpected creates an opportunity for learning of a different kind, for learning of underlying causes. Salomon and Perkins called this kind of learning ‘high road’ and claimed that it involved intentionally mindful abstractions. Not everybody grasps these opportunities to intentionally initiate high-road learning. Some of us notice that an association to which we have grown accustomed has been disrupted but just shrug it off, glad we do not have to stop at the second traffic light; some spend a second or two thinking about the coincidence and then drop it as unimportant. A few of us will consciously check, the next time we reach the intersection, whether the lights are both green or not. It is rare that one of us will investigate this any further.

Here is a more science-oriented scenario: in the area where one of the authors lives, the wind almost always comes from the west. Every now and then, it comes from the east, carrying lots of dust with it. People who live there know that this occasionally happens, curse the dust, and are grateful when it is over. For most people, their knowledge about the eastern wind is associative (unintentional low-road learning): it usually occurs in spring, lasts a day or two, is warm and carries a lot of dust. Not a good time to hang out the laundry. That is about it. Few people use the appearance of an eastern wind, even though it is an unusual occurrence, as an opportunity to initiate learning about winds, to understand what causes them.

The intentional self-initiated learning about winds, which can come in response to an occasional eastern wind, is an example of intentional self-initiated learning of science in response to a situation that we may encounter in our daily lives. It is this kind of intentional self-initiated learning that is one of the goals of science literacy. This is what we meant when we spoke of lifelong learning of science. It is reminiscent of the description of ‘scientifically literate people’ given by Noah Feinstein: ‘people who can connect science with their own curiosities and crises in ways that are satisfying to them’ (Feinstein, 2011, p. 177). Lifelong learners typically have certain attitudes, such as a ‘willingness to learn, openness to different perspectives and perseverance.’ They are ‘committed to making space for learning, and approach everyday activities with the aim of improving their skills and accumulating knowledge’ (OECD, 2021, p. 25). Yet most people often do not engage in self-initiated learning, but instead frequently let these opportunities slip by. Why? We hypothesise that three conditions must be met for intentionally self-initiated learning to occur: (a) a situation must trigger one’s awareness that something was or is not as expected, creating an internal sense of disequilibrium. This can be an eastern wind in a place where the wind usually comes from the west, a medical test result indicating that your child suffers from cystic fibrosis, or a report by a UN agency that eating meat is one of the main causes of global pollution; (b) one must feel an inner need to resolve the disequilibrium created by the discrepant information by understanding what is going on rather than by ignoring it. As we mentioned earlier, this inner need is usually ascribed to a mindset referred to as mastery-goal orientation (Ames, 1992; Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012) or as positive attitudes towards life-long learning (OECD, 2021); and (c) one should feel efficacious regarding one’s ability to find relevant new information, make sense of it, and then act on one’s new understandings. These three conditions are reminiscent of the attitudes that the OECD (2021) identified as being typical of individuals who tend to engage in lifelong learning: (a) motivation to gain new knowledge, (b) a sense of personal efficacy, and (c) the ability to research and evaluate information (Candy, 1991).

A science education that strives to promote intentional self-initiated learning should therefore focus on helping learners notice discrepant events and information, develop the inner need to resolve cognitive disequilibria by constructing new learning rather than by ignoring them, and develop the belief in their ability to find, learn, and make sense of new information. We claim that the explicit expectations regarding the ways science should be taught, as reflected by national standards, is off track in many nations because it is not helping students develop into intentionally self-initiated learners.

We once again refer to the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) from the USA as examples. Both are policy documents that specify what is important in science education and what students should be able to do at the end of different grades. The promotion of self-initiated lifelong learning of science is clearly a central aim of these documents. Yet, while they emphasise three conceptual and epistemic forms of knowledge – (A) disciplinary core ideas, (B) scientific practices, and (C) cross-cutting concepts – not one of the affective conditions for lifelong learning is explicitly addressed.

While we would be surprised if the authors of these documents objected to the importance of self-efficacy in science, mastery goal orientation or positive attitudes towards lifelong learning, we believe that things that are important have to be foregrounded, one cannot assume that they will develop on their own. That is why policy documents are written.

Research on self-efficacy (e.g. Bandura, 1982; Dorfman & Fortus, 2019; Usher & Pajares, 2008) indicates that its development is dependent on four factors: (i) past experiences of success or failure, (ii) vicarious experiences of success or failure through other individuals, (iii) encouragement or discouragement provided by significant others, and (iv) psychological states. Past experiences of success or failure in science, that is, the person’s interpretation of their previous performance on science-related tasks and in science-related situations, has been repeatedly shown to be the most important contributor to the development of science self-efficacy (Dorfman & Fortus, 2019). Past science-related experiences seen by the individual as successful experiences tend to raise one’s science self-efficacy, while unsuccessful ones lower it (Usher & Pajares, 2008). Thus, we need to provide students with plentiful opportunities to experience success in learning science on their own and in using their new science knowledge to make sense of situations. The development of science self-efficacy appears to be dependent upon the way science is taught, not on which or how much science content is taught.

Mastery-goal oriented people tend to accept challenges, persist, exert effort, self-regulate their learning processes, and retain information over the long term. Mastery orientation in science develops (for better or for worse) as students interpret what they perceive to be the intentions and goals of their surroundings and adapt their own goals to be more in line with those of their environment (Fortus & Touitou, 2021), with different environmental factors, such as parents and teachers, having different levels of influence on the students’ mastery goal orientations at different stages in their lives (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2013). Like self-efficacy, the development of a mastery orientation appears also to be less dependent on which specific content knowledge and practices are being taught and more on the way science is taught, and the individual’s interpretation of the expectations of their parents, teachers, peers and school (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2013).

One of the authors recently went on a hike with a friend who is an earth science educator. The science educator kept on pointing out things that the author had seen, but not noticed, such as unusual rock formations and fossilised mollusks. The ability to notice discrepant events or patterns is dependent on prior knowledge and experiences (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Broudy, 1977). Therefore, the learning of science content and practices should have a positive effect on people’s ability to notice and identify situations that can become triggers for further learning.

The NGSS and the other national standards documents with which we are acquainted promote only one of the three conditions for self-initiated learning (i.e. the propensity to recognise new opportunities to learn). If the affective conditions are not supported as well, it is unlikely that the present generation of students will become lifelong learners of science. There is a broad research base that demonstrates the importance of the affective domain, but many national standards have ignored this research base. Without promoting affect towards science, it is unlikely that students will develop the capacity for lifelong learning of science, and without this capacity, the ability of citizens to use science in reaching decisions and guiding their lives and in being active participants in public debates on socio-scientific issues, two of the main reasons given for the importance of science literacy for all, will be too under-developed to be useful.

Some readers may have reached the impression that we think that the learning of science content and practices in K-12 classes is inconsequential and unnecessary. That is not at all the case. The learning of science and about science in K-12 classes is important. But when knowledge of science is not combined with affective characteristics such as a mastery orientation towards science, interest in science, self-efficacy regarding one’s ability to learn science, and positive attitudes towards life-long learning of science, it is not used and re-used and will likely fade away (Healy & Sinclair, 1996). It will not lead to science literacy. We think that a new balance between cognitive outcomes and affective outcomes needs to be struck (Fortus, 2014), with more recognition by the standards documents of the broad research base indicating the importance of the affective domain (e.g. Alsop & Watts, 2003; Fortus, 2014; Kayumova & Tippins, 2016; Krapp & Prenzel, 2011; OECD, 2021; Osborne, Simon, et al., 2003; Taskinen et al., 2013), leading to a greater emphasis on the affective aspects of learning science than they have traditionally received in classroom instruction and in policy documents. We are not the first researchers who have identified the need to integrate conceptual and affective goals in science education and the challenges of including affective elements in assessments of science learning (e.g. Falk et al., 2016; Höft & Bernholt, 2019; Kayumova & Tippins, 2016; Krapp & Prenzel, 2011; Shepard et al., 2018).

We are well aware that the development and revision of standards are complex processes involving numerous stakeholders. The policy documents that emerge from these processes are consensus documents and, as such, will never represent perfect solutions. We recognise these limitations and are not suggesting that the incorporation of affective goals into science education policy will create a quick fix for widespread scientific literacy. However, by omitting affective goals, the current wave of policy documents creates significant barriers to enacting a vision of science education that has any chance advancing lifelong learning and scientific literacy. There will come a time, we would argue in the not-too-distant future, when the policy documents guiding current science teaching, learning, and assessment will be seriously reconsidered, revised, or replaced. With this position paper, we are calling on the community of science educators and researchers to be prepared for this moment through the necessary incorporation of affective goals in science education.

Affective characteristics are not just things that instruction can and should build on; they (or the lack of them) are also outcomes of instruction. As Plutarch wrote, ‘for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting’ (Waterfield, 1992). Until affective goals are explicitly highlighted and delineated by standards documents as one of the expected outcomes of science education, it is unlikely that they will be emphasised in many science teachers’ practice.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Alliance for Improving Scientific Literacy for all (AISL) at Beijing Normal University for bringing the authors together and providing us with an environment that supported the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The preparation of this manuscript was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 62077008].

Notes

1 From here onwards we will use USA documents (the Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS], the Framework for K-12 Science Education) for all our examples, primarily because they are in English, although in principle documents from other countries could have been used as well.

2 Three outliers were removed from the graph – Qatar, Norway and Liechtenstein – having extremely high GDP per capita as a result of natural resources (Qatar and Norway) or a very low population (Liechtenstein).

3 As mentioned earlier, recognising interest as a component of science literacy, PISA began assessing students’ interest in 2006 (Krapp & Prenzel, 2011) by embedding interest items in the conceptual sections of the test (Drechsel et al., 2011).

4 ‘Interest refers to either (a) the psychological state of being engaged or the inclination to reengage with particular classes of objects, events, or ideas over time (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), which is often called individual interest or (b) situational interest which is a state of heightened awareness that is prompted by particular features of the environment (Hidi et al., 1992) … Self-efficacy is a competence belief. Self-efficacy is an expectancy about one’s capabilities to learn or perform a given task (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2006) … Motivation is the process that initiates, directs and maintains goal-oriented behaviours (Pintrich & Schunk, 1995). Interest pulls you or is the state of being pulled toward an object, idea, or event; it influences the direction in which you may act. On the other hand, motivation is what pushes you away from where you are and causes you to act, though it too can influence direction’ (Fortus, 2014).

5 A possible indirect economic justification for teaching science to non-STEM majors is that enhancing their appreciation for science may bolster their support for continued STEM research and development – see the section on the social argument for STEM for all.

6 ‘A man who doesn’t read has no advantage over a man who can’t read’ (Ward & Duncan, 2001).

7 ‘Goal orientation theory focuses on … the reasons why individuals engage in learning activities. The theory distinguishes between two main goal orientations: mastery goals orientation and performance goals orientation. Mastery-oriented individuals strive to develop competence in order to achieve a sense of mastery; they learn because they want to understand … Performance-oriented individuals strive to demonstrate competence and are therefore concerned with others’ perceptions of their competence and with their ability relative to others’ (Fortus, 2015).