A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PAPERS ON CHEMISTRY-FOCUSED SOCIO-SCIENTIFIC ISSUES

Abstract

Related literature has reported that science education, particularly physics and chemistry, remains unpopular among students (Avargil et al., 2020; Hofstein et al., 2011; Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Stuckey et al., 2013). Much research has also inferred that students are insufficiently interested in science learning. Phrased differently, science subjects do not motivate students to ‘doing science’ and ‘learning of science’ (Atasoy et al., 2020; Osborne et al., 2003; Stuckey et al., 2013). Unfortunately, students generally see science and science education as ‘irrelevant’ for themselves and society (Dillon, 2009; Gilbert, 2006; Stuckey et al., 2013). Therefore, science teachers should make education ‘more relevant’ in order to stimulate their students’ interest in science subjects and/or science learning (Stuckey et al., 2013). Given the foregoing issues, Stuckey et al. (2013) have released the relevance model of science/chemistry education to make science learning relevant. Further, preliminary research papers on the relevance model have reported that socio-scientific issues (SSI) can be used to make science/chemistry learning more relevant (e.g., Eilks et al., 2018; Stuckey & Eilks, 2014; Zowada et al., 2020). SSI typically contains disagreement and debate among experts, politicians, and citizens to decide the use of science and technology (Albe, 2008; Levinson, 2006; Sadler, 2004, 2009). Because SSI does not have a fixed or universally held point of view, SSI-related explanations and solutions often divide society into different groups (i.e., Crick, 1998; Çalik & Coll, 2012; Çalik et al., 2014). SSI incorporates contentious dilemmas (open-ended, complex, ill-structured issues) and cannot easily be addressed through recall of memorized content knowledge, or simple algorithms (Kolomuç & Çalık, 2019; Sadler, 2004, 2009; Tsai et al., 2019). Thereby, engaging students in SSI and science practices not only develops scientific/chemical literacy but also links societal issues with the nature of science and 21st century skills (Romine et al., 2016; Zeidler, 2015). Therefore, SSI-based instruction requires students to go beyond conceptual understanding (Feierabend & Eilks, 2011; Ke et al., 2020) and improves their critical thinking skills within an informed way or informal reasoning (Semilarski et al., 2019; Zeidler & Nichols, 2009). Although SSI-based instruction, as an interdisciplinary and multidimensional approach, embraces several subjects (i.e., biology, chemistry, Muammer Çalık Trabzon University, Turkey Antuni Wiyarsi Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia Abstract. Although chemistry-focused socio-scientific issues support the ‘relevance’ model of chemistry education, the related literature has lacked any systematic review handling them together. For this reason, this research aimed to thematically synthesize the research papers on chemistry-focused socio scientific issues (SSI) from 2008 to 2020 and inferentially evaluate them in terms of the relevance model of chemistry education. After searching international and national well-known databases through relevant keyword patterns (e.g., Pattern 1: socio-scientific issues and chemistry education), 65 research papers were apparent for the systematic review. Then, the authors generated primary and secondary codes for the research papers and then inferentially marked their ‘relevance’ components. The systematic review indicated variation of research areas (e.g., relevance model of chemistry education) and dominant research foci for different themes (e.g., competencies and related variables for the theme ‘aims’; pollution, energy, industry and fabrication-based problems for the theme ‘SSI’; organic compounds for the theme ‘chemistry concepts’). Further, it revealed that the research papers on chemistry-focused SSI had some shortcomings at handling all components of the relevance model in a balanced way. The current research suggests professionally training teachers about how to integrate chemistry-focused SSI and the relevance model into school chemistry.