Although the importance of scientific literacy has been supported by science education community over many years (Presley et al., 2013), its definition has changed many times. Unlike the former definitions focusing on the scientific concepts, principles and processes, recent definitions have also incorporated the ability to negotiate science-related societal issues as active citizens (Chang Rundgren & Rundgren, 2010). In parallel to this paradigm shift, Miller (1983) stated that scientific literacy consists of not only understanding content knowledge but also appreciate the relationship between science, technology and society; and nature of science. At that point, the COVID-19 pandemic enables people to realize why the aforementioned components are vital to be scientifically literate.

Nearly all corners of life, such as health system, economy and education, have been affected by this challenging situation that many people have experienced all over the world. In this manner, several “scientific” terms have become prevalent through media: virus, outbreak, asymptomatic, isolation, quarantine, vaccination, distance education, virtual learning, online education and so on (Dillon & Avraamidou, 2020). In order to make sense of these scientific terms, people should have a good understanding about the scientific concepts and principles underlying these terms.Also, a lot of controversial questions have appeared such as “Should we wear face mask or not?”, “Should we be vaccinated or not”, “Should schools switch to distance education?” (Atabey, 2021; Evren Yapıcıoğlu, 2020). All of these questions require making informed decisions in both personal and societal contexts, which is one of the most important skills to achieve scientific literacy (Sadler, 2004). Therefore, incorporating socioscientific issues (SSIs) into science education serves the purpose of scientific literacy by providing students to negotiate SSIs and engage practices such as informal reasoning, argumentation and decision-making. Since SSIs are “complex, open-ended, often contentious dilemmas with no definitive answers” (Sadler, 2004, p.514), negotiation of these issues requires informal reasoning including cognitive and affective processes. According to Zohar and Nemet (2002), “it [informal reasoning] involves reasoning about causes and consequences and about advantages and disadvantages, or pros and cons, of particular propositions or decision alternatives” (p. 38).

When the related literature was examined, it was revealed that many researchers investigated individuals’ informal reasoning regarding different SSIs as patterns (Sadler & Zeidler, 2005) and modes (Wu & Tsai, 2007; Yang & Anderson, 2003). Moreover, the quality of informal reasoning is as important as the patterns of informal reasoning (Topçu, 2008). Therefore, many researchers have investigated individuals’ argumentation skills as an indirect measure of their quality of informal reasoning (Means & Voss, 1996; Topçu et al., 2010).

The rationale behind the present study is to understand middle school students’ both quality of argument and informal reasoning across multiple SSIs in a more holistic way by utilizing two different analytical frameworks: one of them is for patterns of informal reasoning, while other one is for the quality of written arguments.

In parallel to this rationale, the purpose of the present study was to examine Turkish middle school students’ quality of written arguments and informal reasoning across multiple socioscientific issues, namely space explorations (SPE), genetically modified organisms (GMO) and nuclear power plants (NPP) by utilizing SEE-SEP Model (Chang Rundgren & Rundgren, 2010) and Lakatos’ Scientific Research Programmes (Chang & Chiu, 2008). Therefore, the present study addressed the following research questions:

• What are Turkish middle school students’ informal reasoning regarding multiple SSI contexts (SPE, GMO, NPP)?
• What are Turkish middle school students’ quality of written arguments regarding multiple SSI contexts (SPE, GMO, NPP)?

Survey design was adopted in this study. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the participants were selected through convenient sampling and a total of 465 middle school students voluntarily participating in the study constituted the sample. While 212 of the participants were female (45.6%), 253 of them were male (54.4%); 252 of the participants (54.2%) were in the 7th grade, 213 of them (45.8%) were in the 8th grade. First, approvals from Human Subjects Ethics Committee and Turkish Ministry of National Education were received; then consent form was signed by parents and students. The instrument was a self-reported survey including Demographic Information Form, SSI Survey and SSI-related Personal Experience Form developed by the researchers. Demographic information included students’ gender and grade level. Then, students’ argument quality and informal reasoning regarding multiple SSI contexts (SPE, GMO and NPP) were obtained through open-ended questions addressing students’ argument, evidence, counter-argument and degree of certainty about their decisions as before and after generating counter-argument. These questions were adapted from Chang Rundgren and Rundgren (2010) and Chang and Chiu (2008), and revisions were made by taking expert opinions. In the last part, students’ level of knowledge, interest, willingness to learn, willingness to research and willingness to do project regarding the aforementioned SSI contexts were asked through 3-point Likert type items. The reasons behind the selection of these particular SSIs were science content and ethical tensions, a consistency with the national curriculum, and frequently broadcasting in the mass media. Although majority of the participants (69.7%) completed the survey in their natural classroom environment, 30.3% of them had to complete it online due to the restrictions of COVID-19. The students’ informal reasoning was analyzed based on the SEE-SEP Model (Chang Rundgren & Rundgren, 2010) including six subject areas (society/culture, economy, environment, science, ethics/morality, policy) and three aspects (knowledge, value, personal experience). The students’ informal reasoning was coded as a combination of one subject area and one aspect (e.g. ScV=Science and Value). The students’ argument quality was analyzed based on Lakatos’ Scientific Research Programmes (Chang & Chiu, 2008) including hard core (HC), positive heuristics (PH) and negative heuristics (NH). While HC represents the students’ claim and supporting reasons, PH represents extension of their claims, NH represents limitations and counter-arguments. For each HC, PH, and NH, 1 point was given so that higher score represented higher argument quality. All the inter-coder agreements for the coding analyses were greater than 0.80.

Analysis revealed that students mostly used the aspect of value (82.4%, 77.9%, 71.5%); followed by knowledge (17.3%, 20.6%, 27.6%) and personal experience (0.3%, 1.6%, 1.0%) regarding all three SSI topics (SPE, GMO and NPP), regardless of the context. However, students’ usage of subject areas differed across multiple SSI topics. Students mostly considered the subject areas of science (37.8%) and environment (26.8%) regarding SPE topic; ethics/morality (35.8%) and science (35.2%) in GMO topic and; science (45.2%) and sociology/culture (17.6%) in NPP topic. Moreover, the mean scores of subject areas used by the students were (M=2.1; M=1.6 and M=1.8) for SPE, GMO and NPP topics respectively. When the total number of subject areas used by the students was considered, it can be stated that middle school students were not be able to consider multiple perspectives while negotiating different SSIs. Analysis regarding quality of argument revealed that the students obtained the highest total score on SPE topic (M=3.1); followed by NPP (M=2.7) and GMO (M=2.5). Based on these results, it can be stated that students’ informal reasoning in terms of both patterns and quality was context-dependent. At that point, it was surprising that students’ responses to SSI-related Personal Experience Form were parallel to their quality of arguments across multiple SSI topics. In other words, students’ self-reported levels of knowledge, interest, willingness to learn, willingness to research and willingness to do project were the highest on SPE; followed by NPP and GMO. The findings suggest further research on knowledge and interest that can possibly contribute students’ quality of argument and informal reasoning in SSI contexts. Although students’ degree of certainty scores decreased after generating counter-arguments, the students mostly reported that they are sure of their decisions regarding all SSI topics, which is an indicator of Protective Belt (PB) for their decisions.

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