Research project

Communicating about SocioScientific Issues (CASSIS)

Project overview

This was a collaborative research project with colleagues from the University of Auckland, the University of Toulouse and University College London. The research focus was building pedagogy around socioscientific issues (SSIs) - open-ended controversial science-linked issues that affect people and society where many plausible solutions are possible. It brought together the research groups’ different but complementary ways of applying pedagogies that enable students to develop their reasoning and engage in more fruitful discussions about SSIs. Using the issue of control of pest animals in agriculture as a context for our SSI research, we shared our expertise and developed theory and research methodology to produce pedagogies for student engagement in SSIs.

As a result the network provided research-informed pedagogical communicative strategies to enable students to respond collectively to agricultural SSIs in a more meaningful and constructive manner.

Research Funder: EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)

Staff

Lead researchers

Emeritus Professor Marcus Grace

Professor of Science Education

Research interests

  • The science and values underpinning education for biodiversity, sustainable development and citizenship
  • Adolescent decision-making, and teaching and learning about socio-scientific issues
  • Outdoor science education
Connect with Marcus
Other researchers

Dr Andri Christodoulou

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • Argumentation within scientific and socio-scientific contexts
  • Dialogic teaching
  • Socio-scientific inquiry-based learning
Connect with Andri

Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs