Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 19, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2018) Carl-Johan RUNDGREN and Shu-Nu CHANG RUNDGREN Aiming for responsible and competent citizenship through teacher professional development on teaching socioscientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) Contents Next

Aiming for responsible and competent citizenship through teacher professional development on teaching socioscientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL)

 

Carl-Johan RUNDGREN¹ and Shu-Nu CHANG RUNDGREN^2,*

¹Department of Mathematics and Science Education
and
²Department of Education
Stockholm University
SE-106 91 Stockholm, SWEDEN

*Corresponding Author's E-mail: shunuchang@gmail.com

Received 28 Jun., 2018
Revised 9 Oct., 2018

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Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
  • The importance of SSIBL
  • The need for teacher professional development
  • Teacher professional knowledge and the need of reflection
  • The aim and research questions
• Methods
  • The context of the study and the participants
  • The data collection, instruments and data analyses
• Results
  • The pre-service primary science teachers' confidence and needs
  • The pre-service primary science teachers' reflections on the SSIBL classroom activities
• Conclusion and discussion
  • Acknowledgment
• References
• Appendix
  • Appendix 1. 3-step SSIBL activity
  • Appendix 2. Background and confidence/need survey (pre-cohort questionnaire)
  • Appendix 3. Post-cohort questionnaire
  • Appendix 4. Reflection-on-action sheet
  • Appendix 5. The PCK reflection instrument for reflection-in-action

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Abstract

In order to achieve the goal of scientific literacy for responsible citizenship, the importance of developing students' socioscientific inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) has been recognised by an EU FP7 project, PARRISE, including the essential notions of responsible research and innovation (RRI), and citizenship education (CE). The study aims to investigate pre-service primary science teachers' confidence in and need for further education on teaching SSIBL as well as their reflections -in and -on a three-step model SSIBL activity. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in the study. Quantitative methods were applied to collect data from the 76 participating pre-service primary science teachers in Sweden; participants' confidence and need for SSIBL teaching was investigated via a Likert scale questionnaire. The qualitative descriptive analysis method was used to explore participants' reflection-on-action regarding the three-step SSIBL activity and the SSIBL framework. Thematic analyses were applied to analyse the participants' reflection-in-action concerning the design of the three-step SSIBL activity with three aspects of PCK. The results showed that the pre-service teachers had confidence in SSIBL, but still needed further education on SSIBL teaching. The outcomes of the study suggest that developing teachers' SSIBL teaching competence is important and needed from both of the researchers' points of view and the participating teachers' feedback.

Keywords: Teacher professional development, scientific literacy for responsible citizenship, primary science teacher, socioscientific inquiry based learning