Turkish Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Decisions on Various Socioscientific Issues: SEE-SEP Model-Analysis

Oct 15, 2026

The study examines how Turkish pre-service primary teachers make decisions on socioscientific issues (SSI) framed within science education to foster reasoning, scientific thinking habits, and decision-making from an early age. Activities with nine SSI scenarios were conducted with 60 pre-service primary teachers, using the SEE-SEP model to analyze decisions across sociology/culture, environment, economy, science, ethics/morality, and policy dimensions. Hydroelectric power plants, mining, and electric vehicles were favored, while GMOs, cloning, and industrial zones were not favored; biotechnology generated indecision. Economic and scientific dimensions supported SSI decisions most, whereas environmental and ethical/moral dimensions led mainly to non-support and indecision.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages27

Reading Time1 h 8 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Inclusion of Socioscientific Issues in The Classroom

SEE-SEP Model and SSI Dimensions

Method and Participants

Findings and Discussion

Conclusion

Turkish Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Decisions on Various Socioscientific Issues: SEE-SEP Model-Analysis Hamdi KARAKAŞ1 Sivas Cumhuriyet University Gülseda EYCEYURT TÜRK2 Sivas Cumhuriyet University Abstract The science curriculum in the Turkish education system includes socioscientific issues (SSI) as a context for developing students' reasoning skills, scientific thinking habits, and decision-making skills from an early age. Conducting activities on real problems with teachers and pre-service teachers based on SSI and making decisions considering different dimensions in SSI can provide a better explanation and transfer of the content dimension of the subject. It was found that SSI studies are conducted with science teachers and pre-service science teachers in Türkiye. In this study, activities with different SSIs were organized with pre-service primary teachers, and the decisions of pre-service primary teachers on various socioscientific issues were evaluated considering different dimensions (sociology/culture, environment, economy, science, ethics/morality, and policy) using the SEE-SEP model. Nine different SSI scenarios were presented to 60 pre-service primary teachers in the Central Anatolian region ofTürkiye, and they were asked to make a decision in dilemma situations and justify it. It was found that hydroelectric power plants (HEPP), mining, and electric vehicles are highly favored by pre-service primary teachers, while GMOs, cloning, and the establishment of industrial zones are not highly favoured, and they are undecided about biotechnology. It is concluded that the pre-service primary teachers' decisions to support various SSI are mainly economic and scientific, while the environmental and ethical/moral dimensions lead mainly to non-support and indecision. Keywords: Socioscientific Issue, Decision-Making, SEE-SEP Model, Pre-Service Primary Teachers DOI: 10.29329/epasr.2022.478.9 Submitted:05 August 2022 Accepted: 04 October 2022 Published: 05 December 2022 1Assoc. Prof. Dr., Faculty of Education, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Türkiye, ORCID: 0000-0001-9209-4128 [Correspondence](Correspondence: hamdikarakas58@yahoo.com.tr)[: hamdikarakas58@yahoo.com.tr](Correspondence: hamdikarakas58@yahoo.com.tr) 2Assoc. Prof. Dr., Faculty of Education, Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Türkiye, ORCID: 0000-0002-4757-3696 [geyceyurt@cumhuriyet.edu.tr](geyceyurt@cumhuriyet.edu.tr) Introduction Schools should reflect the dynamic interactions between science and society by focusing on the conceptual issues that science explains and its relationship to social, political, economic, and moral dimensions (Sadler and Fowler, 2006) . Students are expected to understand science and be involved in the decision-making process by weighing the benefits and risks of scientific issues that are important to society (Dawson and Venville, 2009). Thus, essential steps are taken in scientific literacy and educating individuals in the future. Real-life problems lead students to decision-making processes because they contain dilemmas that involve both social and scientific factors. Real-life problems atthe center of science and social life and containing dilemmas are called socioscientific issues (SSI) . Socioscientific issues are complex, open-ended, often controversial, and dilemmatic questions for which there is no clear answer (Sadler, 2003), generally involve observations and require individual or societal decisions at the frontiers of scientific knowledge (Kolstø, 2006) . While these questions affect society by being scientific, moral, and ethical, they contain essential contradictions that can have conceptual, methodological, and social implications for human life (Lee, Abd-El-Khalick and Choi, 2006; Sadler and Donnelly, 2006; Topcu, 2010) . Social and political issues at local, national, and global levels are considered in the context of real-life when creating SSI, including cost-benefit analyses in which the risk facto

FAQs

What does the SEE-SEP model help analyze in this study?

It evaluates pre-service primary teachers' decisions on socioscientific issues across multiple dimensions: sociology/culture, environment, economy, science, ethics/morality, and policy.

Which socioscientific issues were highly favored by the pre-service primary teachers?

Hydroelectric power plants (HEPP), mining, and electric vehicles were highly favored.

How did the teachers respond to biotechnology-related SSI?

They were undecided about biotechnology, unlike issues they strongly supported or strongly did not favor.

Oct 15, 2026

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