Making Decisions about Socioscientific Issues in Multidisciplinary Post-secondary Learning Environments

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

Undergraduate students must be prepared to examine complex scientific issues and make socially responsible decisions. As citizens, students need to be informed and empowered to make choices that have local and global impacts. The traditional approach to science education is to focus on content knowledge and disciplinary practices. However, as many researchers have pointed out, the knowledge and methods of science alone are insufficient to prepare students to make well-reasoned decisions - they must also learn decision-making skills. In addition, more than ever, employers are calling for recent college graduates who have not only knowledge, but the ability to apply their knowledge to complex issues and problem solving. The project will be conducted within the context of a large-enrollment, required introductory course, SCIL (Science Literacy) 101, for all majors in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. In the course, students will learn about complex food, water, energy, and health issues and practice decision-making using a tool based on normative models of decision-making. Because the course is required it is anticipated that it will impact up to 1800 STEM students over the course of three years. The project will advance the theoretical and practical understanding of how to teach decision-making skills in science courses and impact the future STEM workforce as well as empower citizens to make high-quality decisions about complex personal, professional, local, and global issues. The overall goal of this foundational, design-based research project is to refine a model undergraduate course to support students' science literacy through decision-making practice, and to evaluate the impact of the course on students' decision-making and reasoning about socioscientific issues, which involve facets of both science and society. The barriers for students will be articulated by examining how they make high quality decisions, for example: how well do they understand and apply scientific information to decision-making; and how well do they evaluate tradeoffs among options for solving the problem? Additionally, the project team will investigate if practices learned in a structured classroom context transfer to an unstructured setting when students make a decision about a new socioscientific issue. The products of this research include both new theory and new practice, including: a transportable evidence-based model course and its associated materials for teaching decision-making about socioscientific issues, including assessment rubrics; and a new theoretical framework based in the decision-sciences and behavior psychology that describes students' challenges in the decision-making process.