Examination of primary school teachers' decision processes on socioscientific issues on terms of human rights

In this study, it is aimed to examine the decision processes of primary school teachers on genetic-based socioscientific issues in the context of human rights. One of the mixed method designs, "Explanatory sequential design" was used in the study. In the quantitative aspect of the study, descriptive research in survey model was conducted, whereas a comparative case study was conducted in the qualitative aspect. In this context, in the quantitative aspect of the study, quantitative data were collected with the "Decision Processes Evaluation Form on Socioscientific Issues", which includes four genetic-based dilemma scenarios over 405 primary school teachers, and this was analyzed with content analysis. In the qualitative aspect of the study, 10 primary school teachers who failed to take human rights into account, and 10 primary school teachers who took human rights into account, were determined as participants by using the criterion sampling method, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods. The data from the primary school teachers that constitute the qualitative participants were collected by semi-structured interview technique by applying the "Interview Form for the Evaluation of Decision Process Reasons Regarding Socioscientific Issues" and analyzed by content analysis. The results of the research showes that the decision processes of the classroom teachers regarding the genetic-based Socioscientific Issues and the reasons underlying the decision processes differed. Furthermore, in the study, it was determined that a large part of the primary school teachers did not make evaluations in terms of human rights on Socioscientific Issues. Nevertheless, the results of the factors that are effective in the decision-making processes of primary school teachers, information sources and the reasons for reflecting / not reflecting human rights in the decision processes, are also included in the study. In line with the results obtained from the research, it can be recommended to give human rights-based supportive trainings to primary school teachers. Keywords: Socioscientific issues, human rights, decision making process, primary school teachers