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

The results of the study showed that the pre-service primary teachers for grade level 4-6 did not have high confidence and demonstrated a need for further education concerning SSI and IBSE teaching before the SSIBL TPD courses. However, after the TPD courses, the teachers were found to have increased their confidence on SSI, IBSE and SSIBL. There remained, however, a compelling need for further education. Based on the findings, in line with other scholars' discussions (Sadler, Barab, and Scott, 2007; Rundgren, Eriksson, and Chang Rundgren, 2017 ), the complexity of SSI and its teaching practice was recognised to some degree by the pre-service teachers. Additionally, the embedded concepts of RRI and CE, as well as the skills of inquiry and teaching about SSIBL, were perceived to be difficult. This is also supported by the participants' reflections on the SSIBL framework and the link to the SSIBL three-step activity. Only one of the nine groups saw the link between all the elements of the SSIBL framework and the three steps of the SSIBL activity. Besides, it was found that the pre-service teachers' reflections on RRI were mainly linked to the recontextualised (argumentation) step of the SSIBL three-step model (Step 3), and less so in steps one and two. This could strongly influence their SSIBL teaching practices to address less RRI in the context (Step 1) and inquiry process (Step 2). However, aiming for the promotion of scientific literacy for responsible citizenship (e.g. European Commission 2015), developing citizens in different professions to reflect upon RRI starting from the issue, its context, and the whole inquiry process is of importance. The question of how to make CE and RRI visible with concrete roles in SSIBL teaching practices still requires more research. In sum, the results highlight the need for more SSIBL TPD courses – not only in Europe, but also globally.

Regarding instructional design of the future SSIBL course, the findings suggest that distance education was not helpful in developing the teachers' confidence to teach SSI, IBSE and SSIBL. Whether approaches to SSIBL TPD designs were top-down or bottom-up there was no significant difference in participants' confidence or need for SSI, IBSE and SSIBL teaching after the courses. Since this study was time-constrained (6-10 hours in total for each cohort), further research on how to organise the SSIBL TPD courses is needed. Teachers' reflections in the SSIBL TPD courses revealed awareness of 'using formative assessment as a tool to promote school students' learning'. Apart from the other goals stated in the curriculum, the pre-service teachers repeatedly stated the development of action-competence (Mogensen and Schnack, 2010) in their students as a goal, which may reflect a focus on the use of knowledge in everyday contexts in their teacher training as stated in their teaching needs (Nilsson 2009). Furthermore, the teachers highlighted the need to not only use summative assessment to grade students, but also formative assessment to enhance the development of students' SSIBL. This highlights a special concern that teaching and learning is related to assessment and should be embedded in TPD/CPD programmes.

This study demonstrates the importance of teachers and teacher educators reflecting 'in and on' teaching practices (Schön, 1983), and that providing more SSIBL TPD courses can be an important contribution to future education (Knippels, 2015). Our findings reflected on the importance of TPD (for both in- and pre-service teachers), especially teacher professional knowledge (including CK, PCK and PK) (Shulman, 1986; 1987), teaching needs (Nilsson, 2009) concerning SSIBL. The need for relating content knowledge to everyday situations, providing experiences, knowing students' needs, and reflection were all identified as important aspects in the study. However, one more need should be added, which is about 'learning to adapt'. In the study, the authors faced the challenge of not being able to be physically present, while time for the third cohort in the TPD programme was shortened. Consequently, the teaching content was adapted, and collaborative reflection was required to develop a new instructional design for another onsite teaching course. It turned out that the participants' similar learning outcome was found in the cohort one, on-site teaching. In addition, one aspect concerning teaching needs should be added, which is about 'stakeholders'. Teaching needs are also learning needs, and the needs for teaching SSIBL were, in this case, pre-service teacher and teacher educator needs, but they can also be in-service teacher needs. The same needs are relevant for SSIBL in school at all levels, in higher education, and for the public.

In sum, this study stresses the need for developing more SSIBL TPD courses internationally, which is one way to enhance teachers' competence to direct SSIBL. The ultimate goal, however, is to help tomorrow's citizens and school students develop their competence in making informed and responsible decisions about SSI, which are the issues currently challenging both our planet and individual lives.

Acknowledgement

Thanks for the grant support from the EU FP7 project, PARRISE (project no. 612438 ), and all the feedback from the participating teachers in the study.