The effect of SSI overlap STEM Education on Secondary Students' Socio-scientific decision making

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the secondary students' decision making process when global socio-scientific issue (SSI) is applied to STEM-based learning. SSI overlap STEM framework adapted from the literature was designed to help students to take a responsible informed decision when considering global environmental issue as a part of their classroom activity. Thirty one students participated in the pre- and post-socio-scientific decision-making test. Data was also collected through class observation. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered and analysed; content analysis of qualitative data collected from student's reasoning helped to explain the initial quantitative findings. Based on the qualitative analysis, the results revealed that the students' abilities benefited from the SSI overlap STEM framework implementation. The results showed that there were considerable changes in the students' decision making before and after the activity. It also indicated that the SSI overlap STEM framework designed for this study was effective and could be used in science classes.