Investigation of secondary school 7th grade students' perspectives on artificial intelligence in the context of the mutidimensional structure of socioscientific issues

This study aims to examine seventh-grade students' perspectives regarding artificial intelligence within the context of the multidimensional structure of socioscientific issues. The study group consists of 54 seventh-grade students (26 girls, 28 boys) attending two different classes in a middle school located in Sinop during the 2022-2023 academic year. Case study design, -one of the qualitative research methods-, has been adopted in the study. Within the framework of the research, classroom activities focusing on artificial intelligence and consisting of 10 class hours over a period of 5 weeks were designed. The activities included scenarios presenting different disciplinary perspectives on artificial intelligence, in-class discussions, and individual interviews. The research data comprised of students' written arguments, observations and interviews. Data were subjected to content analysis. The results indicated that students generally exhibited a positive attitude towards artificial intelligence. The majority of students preferred the fields of technology, science, and economics to support artificial intelligence, while they mainly provided justifications from sociology and economics to reject it. They had difficulty in presenting justifications in the field of politics. Throughout the research, it was seen that the socioscientific activities themed around artificial intelligence attracted students' interest, resulting in a high participation rate in the activities.