Investigation of secondary school students' informal reasoning and decision-making about socioscientific issues

In this research, it is aimed to examine the informal reasoning and decision-making processes of secondary school students regarding local and general socioscientific issues (SSI). The study group of the research has been determined in two stages. In the first stage, it has been planned to carry out the research with the students in the secondary school where the researcher is working through convenient sampling. In the second stage, the criterion sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was taken as basis. The study group consists of a total of 59 participants, 30 girls and 29 boys, attending the 7th grade in a town center in the Black Sea Region. The research has carried out with the case study design, one of the qualitative research designs. The data of the research consists of activity sheets (SSI scenarios), decision-making forms and field notes on SSIs. Within the scope of the research, scenarios has been prepared based on 2 general and 2 local SSIs. The data obtained from the research has been analyzed through descriptive analysis. In the decision-making results of the research, it has seen that the number of those who showed a positive approach to all SSIs was higher than the number of those who had a negative approach. However, it has been determined that student decisions differ according to local and general SSIs. It has been concluded that the students gave more place to the ethical dimension in general SSIs compared to local SSIs. It has been determined that students' socioscientific reasoning has reached higher levels in the dimensions of complexity and multiple perspectives throughout the process. Suggestions has been made about whether local SSIs have a separate importance in moral and ethical development and whether practitioners should include local SSIs in classroom environments.