Jimenez, P.C., Zwickle, A., Dauer, J.M. (2023) Defining and describing students’ socioscientific issues tradeoffs practices. International Journal of Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/21548455.2023.2263608
Authors
P. Citlally Jimenez, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Adam Zwickle, Dept of Community Sustainability, Michigan State University
Jenny M. DauerSchool of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Abstract
Decision making about complex socioscientific issues (SSI) involves recognizing and weighing tradeoffs among conflicting values and stakeholder outcomes. A vital but difficult practice, engaging in tradeoffs allows decision-makers to engage in perspective-taking, and also identify that not all their desired goals may be fulfilled by a policy. However, the science education field has not clearly defined tradeoffs practices or operationalized instruction about tradeoffs. Our primary goal was to define features of a tradeoff practice supported by a literature review and explore undergraduates’ tradeoff practices within an interdisciplinary science literacy course focused on SSI decision making. As a result of our analysis, we propose three important features of tradeoff reasoning: internal consistency, multiple perspectives, and alternatives comparison strategies, which represent a broader understanding of specific goals students can achieve and educators can assess. Our work more holistically defines student tradeoff practices across the entire decision-making process and lays a theoretical foundation for researching students’ tradeoffs practices in an SSI-context. Our study may aid educators in identifying how students consider tradeoffs when decision making about complex SSI and recognizing challenges to refine educational programming aimed at enhancing students’ decision-making skills to support science literacy.