Does a "Science, Technology and Social Change" course improve scientific habits of mind and attitudes towards socioscientific issues?

Abstract

The study aimed at exploring whether a "Science- Technology-Social Change" course improved pre-service social studies teachers' (PST) scientific habits of mind and attitudes towards socio-scientific issues. Within a pre- and post-course experimental design, the study was conducted with 135 second-year PST (68 males and 67 females) from two classes at Department of Social Studies Teacher Education in a large-size university, Turkey. Two different Likert type scales, Scientific Habits of Mind Scale and Attitudes towards Socioscientific Issues Scale, were employed to collect data before and after the course. The data were imported to SPSS 15TM for descriptive and inferential statistics in order to address research questions. The results indicated that the STSC course had some shortcomings in improving the PST's scientific habits of mind and attitudes towards socio-scientific issues. The current study recommends enriching the STSC course with tasks that integrate socio-scientific issues and scientific habits of mind into social studies.