The effects of argumentation-based teaching on socio-scientific issues: The example of GMO

Incorporating Socioscientific Issues (SSI) in science teaching will improve the teaching since it creates a discussion environment. Students discuss issues similar to their daily lives using their scientific knowledge and ways of thinking in SSI discussions. Students participate in the problem-solving process, and in this way, they are provided to make decisions about the issue. To this end, students are encouraged to find and develop evidence regarding the argumentation from their daily lives. Considering the critical role of socioscientific issues on science teaching and learning, this study aims to benefit from the argumentation process in teaching SSI in science courses and reveal the effect of argumentation on students' attitudes and moral beliefs regarding SSI. Pretest-posttest control group quasi experimental design was used in the research. The study was carried out with eighth-grade students from two classes studying at a public school in Central Anatolia in the fall semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. Experimental (N=19) and control (N=20) groups were determined by simple random sampling. A measurement tool consisting of four sections was used to obtain the data. In the first section, the Personal Information Form was used to determine the students' demographic information (e.g., age, gender, socioeconomic level, etc.). The second section was the "Attitude Towards Socioscientific Issues Scale," developed by Topçu (2010). The Argumentative Questionnaire adapted to Turkish by Kaya (2005) was used in the third section, and the Moral Beliefs About GM Foods Scale developed by Kılınç et al. (2014) was used in the last section. The SSI was taught using Tolmin's Argumentation Model in the experimental gorup. Before the SSI activities, measurement tools were applied as a pre-test and post-test at the end of the activities. Frequency (f), percent (%), arithmetic mean (X̅), and standard deviation (SS) were calculated for data analysis and interpretation. T-test for binary variables and Single Factor Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) for more than two variables were performed. If the difference between the groups was significant, the effect size values were calculated. The results showed a positive and significant change in the SSI attitudes of the experimental group of students. This change occurred in the factors of liking and anxiety towards SSI. When the experimental and control groups' post-test attitude scores were compared, there was a difference in favor of the experimental group students' scores (anxiety about SSI, liking for SSI, and the benefit and importance of SSI). The reason for this difference may be that the experimental group of students participated in the argumentation process through scenarios prepared for genetically modified foods, and a student-centered socioscientific activity was taught in the classroom environment. Furthermore, the experimental group students' moral beliefs about genetically modified foods changed, and there was a significant difference in their argumentative attitudes, with a decrease in their tendency to avoid discussion.