Summary
The paper describes a study of students’ perceptions of their learning and how they appropriate the epistemic tools for systems thinking in an issue-based unit on the regulation of e-cigarettes.
Authors point out that many teachers support students in considering the epistemic aspects of socio-scientific issue (SSI) learning such as systems thinking, which is central for developing or justifying positions/solutions on the issue. However, they note that learners who are inexperienced in exploring issues from a systems perspective often fail to fully appreciate the complexity of issues. One way of addressing this challenge is to provide students with tools to support systems thinking. These tools belong to a broader class of learning supports referred to as epistemic tools, namely tools that facilitate knowledge construction and justification.
In this study authors are particularly interested in epistemic tools for systems thinking. They use the Socio-scientific Issues and Model-Based Learning (SIMBL) framework, which describes the kinds of learning activities in which students should engage, offers a suggested sequence for those learning activities. This sequence initiates providing students with opportunities to explore the focal issue including both scientific and social dimensions. Next, students should build understandings of the science ideas related to the issue and engage in the epistemic practice of developing, revising, and using scientific models that serve as sense-making tools for explaining and predicting phenomena (scientific modelling practice). As students develop scientific understandings and competencies, they should also have opportunities to engage in systems thinking about the broader issue. Given the social dimensions of SSI, socio-scientific systems thinking should involve more than just science ideas; the scientific understandings students are developing should also impact the ways in which they come to see the various dimensions of a complex issue. The final stage of the SIMBL instructional sequence is an opportunity for students to synthesize the science understandings they have built as well as their competencies for modelling and systems thinking to develop and defend a position or solution to the issue.
From a research methodology view, the paper describes an interpretive qualitative study of students’ perceptions of their engagement in learning science through SSI and their appropriations of epistemic tools for systems thinking associated with an SSI-based unit on vaping (the use of e-cigarettes).
Authors used semi-structured interviews from 33 students in a midwestern U.S. high school as their primary data. During the interview, students were asked to reflect on their learning experiences in the unit including their views about SSI teaching and learning, their experiences with key elements of the SSI teaching framework (e.g. introduction of the issue, modelling, culminating project, etc.), and how they used the tools for systems thinking.
The results suggest that students in general held positive attitudes towards SSI-based learning experiences and found SSI work to be 1) relevant, 2) interesting, 3) promoting agency, and 4) beneficial for their science learning.
Also, authors found that students differed in how they appropriated the epistemic tools for systems thinking ranging from lack of appropriation, to appropriating surface features, and to appropriating epistemic purposes.
Specifically, students can develop epistemic understandings about systems thinking with the support of epistemic tools. In the study, more than 40% of focus students were able to appropriate the epistemic purposes of the provided tools, which helped them to develop their positions on the issue of vaping. Additionally, this study showed that it is no easy task to support students in considering the epistemic aspects of SSI learning, systems thinking. Even with the specifically designed tools for systems thinking, students appropriated them in fundamentally different ways. In particular, the degree of appropriation appeared to be related to how students viewed the work of SSI, whether it was school-based work such as completing fact-based worksheets that students were accustomed to (level 2), or meaningful contexts through which students can explore the complexities of the issues that are relevant to students’ lives (level 3). The difference in students’ approaches reflects the distinction about ‘doing science’ vs. ‘doing school’.
In conclusion, authors argue that it is important to understand how students perceive SSI learning themselves as epistemic agents and how they come to appreciate the complexity of SSI through taking up epistemic tools for systems thinking. The study also suggests that students are able to grasp the essential epistemic aims around systems thinking with the support of epistemic tools, though the level of appropriation of the tools may depend on key instructional elements such as teachers’ framing of the activities.
Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
Τhe paper deals with systems thinking. Systems thinking in the context of SSI involves considering not only the science elements of an issue, but also dimensions such as policy, economics, culture, and the interactions of these considerations with scientific evidence. It also entails examining causal links within and emergent patterns across the system as well as analyzing potential outcomes of the system as perceived by different stakeholders.
