| dc.description.abstract | An important aim in science education is scientific literacy, in which students can negotiate science-related issues often including possible societal components. This means it is necessary for students to be able to negotiate and make informed decisions about socioscientific issues (SSIs). Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a new field between biology and engineering. Due to vast innovations and their potential impacts on society SynBio is a field were SSIs are expected to arise. Therefore, science education should prepare students to make informed decisions about SynBio-related SSIs. To do this student need to be able to use scientific knowledge, self-knowledge and societal knowledge to weigh their actions. To this avail a lesson module (Synthetic biology - towards a critical perspective) was developed by Fonseca Azevedo & Knippels (2017). The aim of this thesis was to contribute to SSI-based education by evaluating and further developing this lesson module on its potential to foster the decision-making and opinion-forming process of secondary biology students. To achieve this a design-based research approach was used to further develop the lesson module. In three case studies on two Dutch secondary schools, data was collected in three classes (n=85) of varying levels. The results showed that after the lesson module the students had gained personal, - and social knowledge, some knowledge of the concept and the consequences of SynBio and showed that in formulating an opinion almost all students substantiate their position with arguments, use arguments (pro and contra) and use rationality, sometimes in consortium with intuitions and/or care-based considerations. | |
