2016 Volume 40 Issue 4 Pages 353-362
There is an increasing amount of research and practice in relation to socioscientific issues (SSI) in science education. This study reviewed empirical studies evaluating learners’ thinking, that is, decision making, informal reasoning, and argumentation regarding SSI, and examined the analytic frameworks used in the studies. A search for relevant articles was conducted mainly in recently published volumes of leading science education journals, resulting in 14 SSI studies being identified. An overview of these studies suggested that the analytic frameworks for learners’ thinking on SSI might be broadly divided into three types: content of thinking, form of thinking, and both content and form of thinking. A comparative review of these frameworks revealed the following findings. First, two indicators were used for assessing the content of thinking, specifically the reasoning patterns identified by Sadler et al., and the reasoning mode, for example, scientific-oriented reasoning and social-oriented reasoning. Second, most studies evaluated form of thinking on structure of argument, and tended to value arguments containing counter-arguments or rebuttals. Third, studies analyzing both content and form of thinking were not numerous. Implications for further research were discussed based on the findings of this review.
