Making Decisions about Socioscientific Issues in Multidisciplinary Post-secondary Learning Environments

本科生必须准备好研究复杂的科学问题并做出对社会负责的决定。作为公民，学生需要被告知并被授权做出对当地和全球产生影响的选择。传统的科学教育方法是注重内容知识和学科实践。然而，正如许多科学家指出的那样，科学知识和方法本身不足以让学生做好做出合理决策的准备——他们还必须学习决策技巧。此外，雇主比以往任何时候都更需要不仅有知识，而且有能力将知识应用于复杂问题和解决问题的大学毕业生。该项目将在大招生的背景下进行，必修入门课程SCIL（科学素养）101，适用于内布拉斯加大学林肯农业科学与自然资源学院的所有专业。在课程中，学生将学习复杂的食物、水、能源和健康问题，并使用基于规范决策模型的工具练习决策。由于这门课程是必修课，预计在三年的课程中，它将影响多达1800名STEM学生。该项目将促进对如何在科学课程中教授决策技能的理论和实践理解，影响未来的STEM劳动力，并赋予公民就复杂的个人、专业、地方和全球问题做出高质量决策的能力。这个基于设计的基础研究项目的总体目标是完善一个通过决策实践来支持学生科学素养的本科模型课程，并评估该课程对学生对涉及科学和社会方面的社会科学问题的决策和推理的影响。学生面临的障碍将通过考察他们如何做出高质量的决策来明确表达，例如：他们在多大程度上理解并将科学信息应用于决策；他们如何权衡解决问题的各种选择？此外，项目团队将调查当学生对一个新的社会科学问题做出决定时，在结构化课堂环境中学习的实践是否会转移到非结构化环境中。本研究的成果包括新理论和新实践，包括：一个可移动的循证模型课程及其相关材料，用于教授社会科学问题的决策，包括评估标准；基于决策科学和行为心理学的新的理论框架，描述学生在决策过程中的挑战。

Undergraduate students must be prepared to examine complex scientific issues and make socially responsible decisions. As citizens, students need to be informed and empowered to make choices that have local and global impacts. The traditional approach to science education is to focus on content knowledge and disciplinary practices. However, as many researchers have pointed out, the knowledge and methods of science alone are insufficient to prepare students to make well-reasoned decisions - they must also learn decision-making skills. In addition, more than ever, employers are calling for recent college graduates who have not only knowledge, but the ability to apply their knowledge to complex issues and problem solving. The project will be conducted within the context of a large-enrollment, required introductory course, SCIL (Science Literacy) 101, for all majors in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. In the course, students will learn about complex food, water, energy, and health issues and practice decision-making using a tool based on normative models of decision-making. Because the course is required it is anticipated that it will impact up to 1800 STEM students over the course of three years. The project will advance the theoretical and practical understanding of how to teach decision-making skills in science courses and impact the future STEM workforce as well as empower citizens to make high-quality decisions about complex personal, professional, local, and global issues. The overall goal of this foundational, design-based research project is to refine a model undergraduate course to support students' science literacy through decision-making practice, and to evaluate the impact of the course on students' decision-making and reasoning about socioscientific issues, which involve facets of both science and society. The barriers for students will be articulated by examining how they make high quality decisions, for example: how well do they understand and apply scientific information to decision-making; and how well do they evaluate tradeoffs among options for solving the problem? Additionally, the project team will investigate if practices learned in a structured classroom context transfer to an unstructured setting when students make a decision about a new socioscientific issue. The products of this research include both new theory and new practice, including: a transportable evidence-based model course and its associated materials for teaching decision-making about socioscientific issues, including assessment rubrics; and a new theoretical framework based in the decision-sciences and behavior psychology that describes students' challenges in the decision-making process.