The influence of COVID-19 science views, risk perceptions, and group membership on socioscientific decisions

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how much the science education community has yet to understand about myriad variables that impact accurately informed socioscientific issue decision-making. Toward that end, this study investigated 415 university biology students’ COVID-19 behaviours and opinions regarding how COVID-19 mandates might be associated with their views about COVID-19 science and scientists, risk perceptions, race/ethnicity, gender, and political orientation. Science-supported actions and mandate support were more highly exhibited by Asian and Black non-Hispanic and Hispanic students compared to White non-Hispanic students. Science supported actions and mandate support were also significantly associated with increased COVID-19 risk perceptions and knowledge and confidence about COVID-19 science. Higher levels of political conservatism was significantly associated with lower levels of COVID-19 mitigating actions and mandate support. Political orientation appeared to mediate the relationship between views about COVID-19 science, COVID-19 actions, and mandate support. These and other findings demonstrate that cognitive and sociocultural factors associated with socioscientific decision-making are complex and vary across contexts. An implication of this study is that efforts to promote a pragmatic science literacy for accurately informed SSI decision-making will require multivariate and synergistic approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Nature of science
• sociocultural factors
• socioscientific issues

Disclosure statement

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

Ethics approval

This investigation was reviewed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the lead author’s institution and determined to meet the criteria for exemption in accordance with 45 CFR 46.104 (IRB2020-0438M: 111938).

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results received funding from the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program under Award Number: 2032737. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.