Eighth Grade Students’ Opinions on the Socioscientific Issue and Their Argument Structure

Abstract

Many studies which have been conducted in recent years mention to the importance of socioscientific issues and when training science literate individuals taking into consideration of these issues are a necessity. At the same time, in these studies socioscientific issues, including controversial situations, are supported by argumentation and the need for students to acquire the necessary skills is in the foreground. This study is conducted, with a student group consists of 10 individuals, to try to disclose students’ existing thoughts on a socioscientific issues. In the second phase of the two-phase study, the argument structures of students were examined with the help of a socioscientific scenario. According to the examination results, student have unilateral thoughts about a socioscientific issue which is presented to them, but students’ opinions differentiated when the same subject is turn into argumentation practice through scenario. This situation has been linked to the importance of argumentation and a number of
suggestions have been made.