Research On Science Student Teachers' Argumentation About Socioscientific Issues

With rapid development of science and technology,socioscientific issues(SSI for short)emerge as triggers of controversies in districts or even around the world.It is related to individuals' science literacy,the society's stable development,and application of innovative science and technology in the nation whether citizens are capable of making scientific argumentation and informed decisions about SSI.Exploration of the mechanism of SSI argumentation and SSI decision-making process has become worldwide research hotspot of learning sciences and science education.With dual role as science college students and prospective teachers,the science student teachers from university have become emerging research subjects.Whether they can make scientific argumentation in complicated context reflects the effectiveness of science education in basic education and teachers' education in higher education.Therefore this study is to reveal science student teachers' detailed features of making argumentation about SSI and accurately acquire their argumentation status and decision-making process.This study mainly answers the following 3 questions:What features were observed in student science teachers' construction of argumentation about SSI? Were these features in accordance with construction patterns of scientific argumentation?What features were observed in student science teachers' evaluation of argumentation about SSI? Were these features accorded with evaluation criteria of scientific argumentation?Were there divergences in science student teachers' decision-making about SSI?If yes,in terms of argumentation construction and evaluation why there were diverse decisions?In this study,the base of argument was clarified through construction of theory framework and the evidence of argument was supported by performing empirical study.In the part of theoretical framework,definitions of SSI argumentation and scientific argumentation were clarified and construction patterns and evaluation criteria of scientific argumentation in SSI contexts were set up.With help of achievements from researches of argumentation in science education and SSI decision-making as well as SSI informal reasoning,a three-layer theoretical framework composed of four factors for SSI features analysis was developed.In the part of empirical study,two topics named“rapid development of private cars”and “building up of PX project in neighborhood”were selected for discussion.Features of constructing and evaluating SSI argumentation were two sub-studies.The first sub-study was the cause and the foundation of the second one.For each one of the sub-studies,both pilot study and formal study were performed.In the former sub-study,170 written arguments were analyzed for developing argumentation construction tasks.Confronted with SSI dilemma and counter-arguments,science student teachers constructed 286 written arguments and 140 written responses.In the latter one,argumentation evaluation tasks were developed on the basis of oral argumentation activities and questionnaires investigating controversial justifications.And then 285 valid questionnaires were collected.In sum,428 science student teachers from a normal university in S province were selected as formal participants,and they were representatives of preservice science teachers in the local district.Mix methods were adopted in this study.Combined with questionnaire analysis,discourse analysis and argumentation diagramming,the study mainly adopted qualitative content analysis.As a result,there were 12 features of SSI construction,8features of argumentation evaluation and 6 possible reasons of SSI decisiondivergence observed.Finally,conclusions were listed as follows:Firstly,science student teachers' argumentation construction was basically in accordance with scientific argumentation pattern in the three layers of organization form,content and context factors,but there were still room for improvement in each of the three layers.In the argumentation,the amount of positive claims and data,professional level of data source and accuracy of basic science knowledge basically meet the requirement of scientific argumentation.However in terms of the amount of rebuttals,reasonable usage of rules,accuracy of context knowledge and balance of argumentation perspectives,there were gaps between students' argumentation and scientific argumentation.Secondly,in the aspects of sufficiency,acceptance and relevance,there were differences between science student teachers' evaluation criteria of SSI argumentation and scientific argumentation criteria.They emphasized on single argument while they paid little attention to science knowledge accuracy and rationality of logic reasoning was low.Thirdly,comparing with SSI decision-making when they constructed argumentation,the degree of divergence obviously decreased after argumentation evaluation.Fourthly,the science student teachers' attitude and values were throughout the argumentation when they were constructing and evaluating argumentation.Those subjective emotions had effects on SSI decisions.In the end,this study suggested to create scientific and rational culture,innovate curriculum setting of teachers' education and optimize practices of primary schools' science learning,so as to improve scientific argumentation ability of science student teachers or even citizens of wider range at different layers.