case study scientific literacy

Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences (2016)

Chapter: summary.

Science is a way of knowing about the world. At once a process, a product, and an institution, science enables people to both engage in the construction of new knowledge as well as use information to achieve desired ends. Access to science—whether using knowledge or creating it—necessitates some level of familiarity with the enterprise and practice of science: we refer to this as science literacy .

Science literacy is desirable not only for individuals, but also for the health and well-being of communities and society. More than just basic knowledge of science facts, contemporary definitions of science literacy have expanded to include understandings of scientific processes and practices, familiarity with how science and scientists work, a capacity to weigh and evaluate the products of science, and an ability to engage in civic decisions about the value of science. Although science literacy has traditionally been seen as the responsibility of individuals, individuals are nested within communities that are nested within societies—and, as a result, individual science literacy is limited or enhanced by the circumstances of that nesting.

In response to a request from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine established an ad hoc committee to study the role of science literacy in public support of science. The study committee, composed of 12 experts across an array of research areas, was tasked with considering existing data about science literacy and health literacy and research on the association of science literacy with public support of science, health literacy, and behaviors related to health. The committee was asked to synthesize the available research literature on science literacy, make

recommendations on the need to improve the understanding of science and scientific research in the United States, and consider the relationship between science literacy and support for and use of science and research. In addition, the statement of task guiding this study asked the following questions:

• What is the consensus on metrics for science literacy in the United States?
• What is the evidence on how those measures have changed over time?
• How does this compare to other nations?
• Support for, attitudes on, and perception of scientific research?
• Use of scientific knowledge?
• Perception of U.S. international standing in science?
• Health literacy?
• Behaviors related to health?
• Is lack of science literacy associated with decreased support for science and/or research?

DEFINING AND MEASURING SCIENCE AND HEALTH LITERACY

Science literacy is often construed as knowing the basic facts established by science, but the concept entails much more. We identified three aspects of science literacy common to most applications of the term: content knowledge, understanding of scientific practices, and understanding of science as a social process. We also identified four additional aspects of science literacy that, while less common, provide some insight into how the term has been used: foundational literacy, epistemic knowledge, identifying and judging scientific expertise, and dispositions and habits of mind. Given this range of aspects, it is not surprising that there is no clear consensus about which aspects of science literacy are most salient or important. Different aspects may be more or less important depending on the context.

CONCLUSION 1 The committee identified many aspects of science literacy, each of which operates differently in different contexts. These aspects include (but may not be limited to): (1) the understanding of scientific practices (e.g., formulation and testing of hypotheses, probability/risk, causation versus correlation); (2) content knowledge (e.g., knowledge of basic facts, concepts, and vocabulary); and (3) understanding of science as a social process (e.g., the criteria for the assignment of expertise, the role of peer review, the accumulation of accepted findings, the existence of venues for discussion and critique, and the nature of funding and conflicts of interest).

Though science literacy has been defined in many ways, the aspects highlighted above are some of the most common ideas emerging in the literature, and they represent what some scholars expect would be useful or valuable for individuals using science in their lives, interacting with science information, and making decisions related to science. When considering why science literacy itself would be valuable, some scholars emphasize a personal rationale, defining the term in the context of how science knowledge and knowledge of science can be beneficial to people in their daily lives. Indicators developed to measure science literacy have focused on creating a marker for science knowledge and differentiating between individuals’ capabilities.

CONCLUSION 2 Historically, the predominant conception of science literacy has focused on individual competence.

We identify foundational literacy as one aspect of the definition of science literacy. For the purposes of this report, the committee includes numeracy as part of foundational literacy. As such, foundational literacy encompasses the skills and capacities necessary to process and be fluent in the use of words, language, numbers, and mathematics. Domain literacies, like science literacy and health literacy, emerge when a particular set of knowledge or competencies become socially important. The committee recognizes that all domain literacies depend on foundational literacy but may also encompass other skills and knowledge.

CONCLUSION 3 Foundational literacy (the ability to process information—oral and written, verbal and graphic—in ways that enable one to construct meaning) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the development of science literacy.

Formal definitions of health literacy have developed independently of definitions of science literacy. Because the health literacy field has focused on health behaviors and outcomes, research has examined how health literacy operates in a wide variety of settings and media and has uncovered structural impediments in the health care system. Features of these new, more comprehensive definitions of health literacy, which include aspects such as (1) system demands and complexities as well as individual skills and abilities; (2) measurable inputs, processes, and outcomes; (3) potential for an analysis of change; and (4) linkages between informed decisions and action.

CONCLUSION 4 Concerns about the relationship of health literacy to health outcomes have led to a reconceptualization of health literacy as a property not just of the individual but also of the system, with attention

to how the literacy demands placed on individuals by that system might be mitigated.

This reconceptualization of health literacy informed the committee’s understanding of science literacy. As a result, the committee supports expanding contemporary perspectives on science literacy to encompass the ways that broader social structures can shape an individual’s science literacy. In addition, the committee questions the common understanding that science literacy is, or should be seen only as a property of individuals—something that only individual people develop, possess, and use. Research on individual-level science literacy provides invaluable insight, but it likely offers an incomplete account of the nature, development, distribution, and impacts of science literacy within and across societies. The committee asserts that societies and communities can possess science literacy in ways that may transcend the aggregation of individuals’ knowledge and accomplishments. The committee’s stance here is relatively new to the field of science literacy: it emerged as a direct result of the opportunity to examine science literacy in relationship to health literacy.

In light of this understanding, the committee organized its thinking about the questions posed in the charge by examining evidence at three levels of science literacy: the society, the community, and the individual. We chose this organization to contrast purposefully with the default understanding of literacy as an individual accomplishment. As a result, the committee chose to delve first into what science literacy looks like at its largest level of social organization—the society.

SCIENCE LITERACY AT THE LEVEL OF SOCIETY

There are four primary rationales for the importance of science literacy: personal, economic, democratic, and cultural. Each of them makes claims about the value of science literacy for nations and societies. Perhaps the most commonly heard claim is that a more science-literate population helps democratic societies make prudent and equitable decisions about policy issues that involve science. Currently, the available evidence does not provide enough information to draw conclusions on whether such claims are justified or not.

Research on science literacy at the level of a nation or whole society can be split into two perspectives. We refer to the first one as the aggregate perspective—empirical work that aggregates data about individuals, usually collected through large public opinion surveys or tests with samples representative of a population, and examines patterns in the whole or by groups. The vast majority of scholarly inquiry at the society level in the field of science literacy, as well as the public discourse, has focused on the aggregate perspective. We refer to the second one as the structural perspective—an alternative way to consider science literacy at the society level by examining the role of social structures. Social

structures could include (but would not be limited to) formal policies and institutions (e.g., schools and the scientific establishment) and emergent cultural properties, such as norms of political participation, social and economic stratification, and the presence of diverse groups and worldviews. There is very little research on science literacy from a structural perspective.

Currently, what is measured on science literacy at the society level comes from large public opinion surveys among adults and survey tests of adolescents in many countries. Indicators of adults’ knowledge of science are limited to a narrow range of measures on public surveys. It is difficult to draw strong conclusions on cross-national performance from these measures. However, survey responses over time have shown much stability in terms of average performance on knowledge questions, and no country for which there are data consistently outperforms other countries on all questions.

CONCLUSION 5 The population of adults in the United States performs comparably to adults in other economically developed countries on most current measures of science knowledge.

The large public opinion surveys in different countries also include measures of attitudes toward science. On these measures, there are many similarities among countries, and response trends have been stable across multiple survey years, particularly in the United States (for which there are more data). The percentage of respondents reporting positive attitudes has been (and remains) quite high, notably in regard to the perceived benefits created by science for societies and support for scientific research.

CONCLUSION 6 Current evidence, though limited, shows that populations around the world have positive attitudes toward science and support public funding for scientific research. These attitudes have been generally stable over time. In addition, the same evidence reveals an overall high level of trust in scientists and in scientific institutions.

In reviewing the literature and data from surveys on science literacy, as well as those on foundational literacy and health literacy, the committee found significant disparities in knowledge and access to knowledge. Much more is known about disparities in foundational literacy and health literacy than disparities in science literacy. The committee encourages new research in this area to examine the extent of disparities in science literacy and the social structures that contribute to them.

CONCLUSION 7 Within societies, evidence shows that severe disparities in both foundational literacy and health literacy exist and are associated with structural features such as distribution of income and access to high-

quality schooling. Though direct evidence for such structural disparities in science literacy is scarce, we conclude they too exist, in part because the possession of foundational literacy is so integral to the development of science literacy

SCIENCE LITERACY AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL

Evidence from case studies suggests that science literacy can be expressed in a collective manner—i.e., resources are distributed and organized in such a way that the varying abilities of community members work in concert to contribute to their overall well-being. Science literacy in a community does not require that each individual attain a particular threshold of knowledge, skills, and abilities; rather, it is a matter of that community having sufficient shared capability necessary to address a science-related issue. Examples of such collective capability and action abound.

However, research does not yet show the extent to which communities are able to mobilize to respond to issues at a local level or what features of particular communities enable them to develop and deploy science literacy in effective ways. Evidence from case studies suggests that the success of communities is constrained by structural conditions and depends, at least in part, on the development of scientific knowledge throughout the community and the organization and composition of the community, including the strength and diversity of relationships with scientists and health professionals, scientific institutions, and health systems. The data show that particularly under-resourced communities are more susceptible to the types of environmental and health crises in which science literacy-informed community activism would be crucial, yet they often have the least access to resources that support development and use of science literacy. Additional research is needed to understand the various features and contexts that enable or prevent community science literacy and action.

CONCLUSION 8 There is evidence from numerous case studies that communities can develop and use science literacy to achieve their goals. Science literacy can be expressed in a collective manner when the knowledge and skills possessed by particular individuals are leveraged alongside the knowledge and skills of others in a given community.

The committee also finds that communities can and do contribute to new scientific knowledge in diverse and substantive ways, often in collaboration with scientists. Community involvement has helped to bring new questions to light, provide data that would otherwise be unavailable, encourage the integration of qualitative and observational data with experimental data, increase the robustness and public relevance of data collection strategies, garner political and community support for conclusions, produce new instruments and technologies,

and build community awareness and knowledge. Though the evidence describing this phenomenon is still case based, the committee finds that the creation of new scientific knowledge is a compelling demonstration of science literacy.

CONCLUSION 9 Based on evidence from a limited but expanding number of cases, communities can meaningfully contribute to science knowledge through engagement in community action, often in collaboration with scientists.

SCIENCE LITERACY AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

Research on science literacy at the individual level has largely assessed individuals’ knowledge using content knowledge assessments and measures of understanding of scientific principles administered through large public surveys. These widely used surveys have provided valuable insight into science knowledge, but constraints on length and demands for comparability over time and across nations mean that they may be limited in what they can capture about science literacy. The existing empirical evidence at the individual level on the value of science literacy is drawn largely from two separate research fields: science literacy and health literacy. Studies on the impact of health literacy have largely examined the relationship between knowledge and behaviors related to health. In contrast, most of the literature on science literacy assesses the relationship between science knowledge and attitudes toward, perceptions of, and support for science.

CONCLUSION 10 Research examining the application of science literacy and health literacy has focused on different things: studies on the impact of health literacy have looked for impact on health-related behaviors and actions (e.g., compliance with medical advice, shared decision making, etc.), whereas studies on the impact of science literacy have mostly examined its relationship to individual attitudes toward science and support for scientific research.

Attitudes have been measured by assessing the adult population’s evaluation of the social impact of science and technology. These attitudes have been further separated into two groups: a set of broad attitudes toward science and technology that reflect an individual’s assessment of the scientific research enterprise generally and a more focused set of attitudes toward specific scientific controversies, such as nuclear power, climate change, stem cell research, and genetically modified foods. Findings demonstrate that context matters when looking at the relationship between knowledge and perceptions of and support for science. Though science knowledge plays a role, many other factors influence an individual’s support for science and scientific research.

CONCLUSION 11 Available research does not support the claim that increasing science literacy will lead to appreciably greater support for science in general.

Though there appears to be a small, positive relationship between general science knowledge and general attitudes toward science, scholars have shown that this relationship becomes more complicated when assessing science knowledge and attitudes toward specific science issues. Knowledge impacts diverse sub-groups in the population differently depending on a host of factors, including levels of religiosity, political predispositions and worldviews, and scientific deference. These patterns seem to vary depending on the specific scientific issue being explored and the culture in which the data are collected. In fact, there is often an interaction between knowledge and worldviews such that enhanced knowledge has been associated, in cases of controversial issues, with increased polarization, affecting attitudes toward those specific science issues.

CONCLUSION 12 Measures of science literacy in adult populations have focused on a very limited set of content and procedural knowledge questions that have been asked within the constraints of large population surveys. Though available measures are limited in scope, evidence suggests they are reasonable indicators of one aspect of science literacy, science knowledge. Studies using these measures observe a small, positive relationship between science literacy and attitudes toward and support for science in general.

CONCLUSION 12a An individual’s general attitude toward science does not always predict that same individual’s attitude toward a specific science topic, such as genetic engineering or vaccines.

CONCLUSION 12b Some specific science issues evoke reactions based on worldviews (e.g., ideology, religion, deference to scientific authority) rather than on knowledge of the science alone.

Research examining the relationship between science literacy, health literacy, and behaviors related to health is limited, but the available examples highlight the weak correlation between science literacy, health literacy, and behaviors. Like the relationship between science knowledge and attitudes toward science, the causal pathway between science literacy, health literacy, and behaviors is complex and mediated by a number of personal and external factors.

These weak relationships suggest that efforts to simply promote knowledge and understanding to change behavior or attitudes may have limited results. Efforts should focus on increasing knowledge while also removing impediments to actions and lowering the literacy demands of particular situations.

CONCLUSION 13 The commonly used measures of science and health literacy, along with other measures of scientific knowledge, are only weakly correlated with action and behavior across a variety of contexts.

MOVING FORWARD THROUGH RESEARCH

The committee offers a conceptualization of science literacy at multiple levels of social organization that is relatively new to the field of science literacy. In order to demonstrate the value of this conception, it will be necessary to develop an evidence base that investigates science literacy in all its complexity.

Recommendation: The committee recommends that, in keeping with contemporary thinking, the scientific community, the research community, and other interested stakeholders continue to expand conceptions of science literacy to encompass (a) an understanding of how social structures might support or constrain an individual’s science literacy and (b) an understanding that societies and communities can demonstrate science literacy in ways that go beyond aggregating the science literacy of the individuals within them.

Recommendation: The committee recommends that the research community take on a research agenda that pursues new lines of inquiry around expanding conceptions of science literacy.

The committee notes many places where further research would inform thinking about science literacy. In Chapter 6 we outline a series of research questions as a way of thinking about creating new measures and expanding the information available to better understand. Our questions cover four broad topics: (1) the relationship between science knowledge and attitudes toward science; (2) the utility of science literacy; (3) the relationship of science literacy to other literacy skills; and (4) the role of science literacy for citizens as decision makers.

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Science is a way of knowing about the world. At once a process, a product, and an institution, science enables people to both engage in the construction of new knowledge as well as use information to achieve desired ends. Access to science—whether using knowledge or creating it—necessitates some level of familiarity with the enterprise and practice of science: we refer to this as science literacy.

Science literacy is desirable not only for individuals, but also for the health and well- being of communities and society. More than just basic knowledge of science facts, contemporary definitions of science literacy have expanded to include understandings of scientific processes and practices, familiarity with how science and scientists work, a capacity to weigh and evaluate the products of science, and an ability to engage in civic decisions about the value of science. Although science literacy has traditionally been seen as the responsibility of individuals, individuals are nested within communities that are nested within societies—and, as a result, individual science literacy is limited or enhanced by the circumstances of that nesting.

Science Literacy studies the role of science literacy in public support of science. This report synthesizes the available research literature on science literacy, makes recommendations on the need to improve the understanding of science and scientific research in the United States, and considers the relationship between scientific literacy and support for and use of science and research.

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Rethinking Scientific Literacy

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Rethinking Scientific Literacy presents a new perspective on science learning as a tool for improving communities. By focusing on case studies inside and outside of the classroom, the authors illuminate the relevance of science in students' everyday lives, offering a new vision of scientific literacy that is inextricably linked with social responsibility and community development. The goal if not tote memorization of facts and theories, but a broader competency in scientific thinking and the ability to generate positive change.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 | 20  pages, science as collective praxis, literacy, power, and struggle for a better world, chapter 2 | 28  pages, scientific literacy as emergent feature of collective praxis, chapter 3 | 28  pages, scientific literacy, hegemony, and struggle, chapter 4 | 30  pages, politics, power, and science in inner-city communities, chapter 5 | 22  pages, margin and center, chapter 6 | 28  pages, constructing scientific dis/ability, chapter 7 | 24  pages, science education as and for citizen science, chapter 8 | 34  pages, dangerous teaching: using science as tool and context to work for social justice.

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Process skills approach to develop primary students' scientific literacy: A case study with low achieving students on water cycle

Suryanti 1 , M Ibrahim 2 and N S Lede 3

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering , Volume 296 , The Consortium of Asia-Pacific Education Universities (CAPEU) 22–23 May 2017, Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia Citation Suryanti et al 2018 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 296 012030 DOI 10.1088/1757-899X/296/1/012030

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1 Teacher Education Elementary School of Universitas Negeri Surabaya

2 Biology Education, Universitas Negeri Surabaya

3 Post Graduate of Universitas Negeri Surabaya

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The results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study on the scientific literacy of Indonesian students since the year 2000 have been still far below the international average score of 500. This could also be seen from the results of the science literacy test of 5th-grade students of primary school in Indonesia which showed that 60% of students are still at level ≤ 3 (value < 500). The students' science literacy skills need to be improved by applying learning with a process skills approach. This study aims to describe the findings of classroom action research using a process skills approach to the science literacy level of primary students (n = 23). This research was conducted in 2 cycles with stages of planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. Students' ability in scientific literacy was measured by using description and subjective tests of context domains, knowledge, competencies, and attitudes. In this study, researchers found an improvement in students' science literacy skills when learning using a process skills approach. In addition, students' scientific attitude is also more positive. In activities for learning science, students should be challenged as often as possible so that they have more practice using their scientific knowledge and skills to solve problems presented by teachers in the classroom.

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Harnessing generative artificial intelligence for digital literacy innovation: a comparative study between early childhood education and computer science undergraduates.

1. Introduction

2. review of recent literature, 3. materials and methods, 3.1. the present study.

• RQ1—Do ECE undergraduates who utilize AI-generated platforms achieve higher academic performance in designing, developing, and implementing instructional design projects compared to their CS counterparts?
• RQ2—Do ECE undergraduates who utilize AI-generated platforms have different user experiences (usefulness of AI tools, comfort level, challenges, and utilization) in their projects compared to their CS counterparts?
• RQ3—Do ECE undergraduates exhibit higher levels of overall satisfaction using AI-powered instructional design projects compared to CS undergraduates?

3.2. Research Context

3.3. participants, 3.4. instructional design context.

• A. Learning activities:
• Research and compare features: Divide and assign each participant of the mentioned AI tools (Sudowrite, Jasper, ShortlyAI, Lumiere3D, Lumen5, Animaker AI). For this study’s purpose, we gave participants time to experiment with one or two of the tools and encouraged them to create examples of how these tools could be used for educational purposes to discuss their creations, focusing on the learning potential and potential challenges.
• Identify curriculum topics: Brainstorm specific topics within ECE and CS that could benefit from AI-generated content, considering areas such as storytelling, coding basics, or creative expression.
• Storyboard development: Divide participants into small groups, each assigned a chosen topic with a twofold purpose: (a) create a storyboard outlining how they would use AI tools to develop an engaging and educational learning experience on their chosen topic and (b) encourage them to consider factors like interactivity and assessments associated with learning objectives depending on their educational disciplines.
• Presentation and peer feedback: Each group presents their storyboard, explaining their rationale and design choices to discuss the feasibility and effectiveness of each approach.
• B. Learning projects:
• Content creation: Participants can generate (video and image) presentations, and create artifacts designed to interact with learning subjects based on ECE and CS curricula using various AI platforms, which are described in the above subsection (see “Instructional design context”). These projects aim to explore how AI can improve video editing by automating tasks such as scene segmentation, color grading, and audio enhancement. This not only contributes to formal professional development by building new skills and knowledge, but also offers informal benefits by allowing participants to explore the potential of AI in this field.
• Student motivation: The project area aligns with departmental interests, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing beyond individual roles. This facilitates the creation of intra-departmental connections and the exchange of ideas.
• Evaluating AI-generated content creation: This project area proposes investigating the current state of AI-powered content creation tools, including virtual avatars, video generation models, voices, and animations. This evaluation could assess the quality, effectiveness, and potential applications of these tools within educational settings, along with their potential impact on existing workflows.

3.5. Experimental Procedure

3.6. ethical considerations, 3.7. measuring tools.

• Attractiveness: Measures the user’s overall impression of the product, whether they find it appealing or not.
• Efficiency: Assesses how easy and quick it is to use the product and how well organized the interface is.
• Perspicuity: Evaluates how easy it is to understand how to use the product and get comfortable with it.
• Dependability: Focuses on users’ feelings of control during interaction, the product’s security, and whether it meets their expectations.
• Stimulation: Assesses how interesting and enjoyable the product is to use and whether it motivates users to keep coming back.
• Novelty: Evaluates how innovative and creative the product’s design is and how much it captures the user’s attention.

3.8. Data Collection and Analysis

3.9. data integrity and reliability, 4.1. analysis of academic performance, 4.2. analysis of students’ experience, 4.3. analysis of students’ satisfaction, 5. discussion, 6. conclusions.

• Incorporating AI integration projects: Educational institutions should consider integrating AI projects into digital literacy courses to equip students with valuable technical and pedagogical skills. This research confirms the effectiveness of integrating AI tools in digital literacy training. Students, even those with limited background in technology, can successfully learn to design, develop, and utilize AI-generated content.
• Provide guidance and support: Offering clear guidance and support throughout the project, especially during the initial stages, can motivate and engage students with varying levels of technical expertise. This study highlights the importance of considering students’ educational backgrounds and prior technological experience. Design activities that cater to these differences, for example, offer more scaffolding or support for ECE students compared to CS undergraduates.
• Consider user experience and satisfaction: The differences in user experience and satisfaction between ECE and CS students provide insights into the contextual factors that influence the adoption and effectiveness of AI tools in education. These findings support the theoretical perspective that user experience and satisfaction are critical factors in the successful implementation of educational technologies. Future research should further explore these contextual factors to develop more nuanced theories on technology adoption in education.
• Differentiated learning approaches: Modified learning approaches may be necessary based on students’ backgrounds and interests. While this study’s findings suggest that ECE undergraduates in our sample benefited from video development projects aligned with their future careers, and CS students from our sample were more engaged with animation development tasks, these observations are based on small-scale cohorts from a single context. Therefore, further research with larger and more diverse samples is needed to validate these findings and to explore their applicability to broader cohorts of ECE and CS undergraduates.
• Tailored educational approaches: The differences in user experience and satisfaction between ECE and CS students highlight the need for differentiated learning approaches based on students’ backgrounds and interests. For instance, ECE students may benefit more from projects involving video development, which aligns with their future careers, while CS students might be more engaged with tasks related to animation development. Tailoring educational approaches to the specific needs of different student groups can enhance the effectiveness of AI integration in education.
• Reevaluated assumptions about AI experience: Our findings highlight the need to reassess assumptions about AI experience based on academic discipline. While we initially assumed that ECE students would have less AI experience, the opposite was true in our sample. This suggests that AI experience may be more closely related to the practical applications of AI in different fields rather than the level of technical knowledge.

7. Limitations and Considerations for Future Research

• Larger and more diverse samples to enhance the generalizability of the findings need to be implemented in future studies. Including participants from different institutions and backgrounds can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of AI tools in education.
• Longitudinal studies are needed to examine the long-term effects of AI integration on students’ learning outcomes, user experience, and satisfaction. Such studies can provide deeper insights into the sustained impact of AI tools on education.
• Incorporating qualitative research methods, such as interviews and focus groups, can complement the quantitative findings and provide richer insights into students’ experiences with AI tools. Qualitative data can help uncover the nuances and contextual factors that influence the effectiveness of AI in education.
• External validation of the measurement instruments to confirm that they accurately measure learning outcomes is also crucial. Future research should employ external assessments, such as exams or practical projects, to validate the findings and ensure the robustness of the evaluation methods.

Author Contributions

Institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Kazanidis, I.; Pellas, N. Harnessing Generative Artificial Intelligence for Digital Literacy Innovation: A Comparative Study between Early Childhood Education and Computer Science Undergraduates. AI 2024 , 5 , 1427-1445. https://doi.org/10.3390/ai5030068

Kazanidis I, Pellas N. Harnessing Generative Artificial Intelligence for Digital Literacy Innovation: A Comparative Study between Early Childhood Education and Computer Science Undergraduates. AI . 2024; 5(3):1427-1445. https://doi.org/10.3390/ai5030068

Kazanidis, Ioannis, and Nikolaos Pellas. 2024. "Harnessing Generative Artificial Intelligence for Digital Literacy Innovation: A Comparative Study between Early Childhood Education and Computer Science Undergraduates" AI 5, no. 3: 1427-1445. https://doi.org/10.3390/ai5030068

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What is meant by scientific literacy in the curriculum? A comparative analysis between Bolivia and Chile

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• Published: 01 August 2023
• Volume 18 , pages 937–958, ( 2023 )

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• Mariela Norambuena-Meléndez 1 , 3 ,
• Gonzalo R. Guerrero 2 &
• Corina González-Weil 3  

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Scientific literacy is still being identified and recognised as one of the main goals of science education. However, this concept has multiple interpretations and its definition changes continuously depending on its social, cultural, and political contexts. In this paper, scientific literacy is conceptualised through visions I, II and III . The first one is focused on the content and scientific processes for its subsequent application; the second, with a focus on understanding the usefulness of scientific knowledge in life and society; and the third one seeks to move towards a politicised scientific education to dialogic emancipation, attending social and eco-justice dimensions. The latter is also called critical scientific literacy. The research aimed at analysing how scientific literacy and these three visions are expressed in school curricula of Bolivia and Chile. Using a qualitative approach and thematic analysis, it is established that the Bolivian curriculum presents mainly a critical scientific literacy approach and the Chilean science curriculum presents mainly a vision II of scientific literacy. Findings of contrasting both school curricula show science education as non-neutral and profoundly political field, and therefore, we can see relevant opportunities for transformation and emancipation, understanding science curriculum as a social practice.

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In recent years, special attention has been placed on the teaching of ´natural´ sciences, whether because their topics intersect with daily life, as in the case of the construction of a personal stance on COVID-19, or because of its articulation with collective positions about socio-environmental issues (Furman 2018 ). In addition, it is imperative to train more scientists and citizens who are capable of understanding and acting on those situations that require scientific knowledge to be solved (Dillon and Avraamidou 2021 ). This reality poses the following question: What should the goal of science education be? The answer can range from the simple need to transmit scientific knowledge as a way of preserving part of human culture to facilitating the acquisition of the skills that will allow people to critically intervene in their proximal reality (Massarini and Schnek 2015 ).

At the end of the 1950s, the concept of scientific literacy (SL) was proposed as an answer to the goals of teaching science. SL has been conceived in different ways, focusing on different elements, and becoming a polysemic concept (Özdem, Çavas, Çavas, Çakıroglu, and Ertepınar 2010 ; Hodson 2011 ; Massarini and Schnek 2015 ; Sjöström and Eilks 2018 ; Balastegui, Palomar, and Solbes 2020 ). Therefore, when we talk about literacy in science education, it becomes necessary to establish the perspective from which one is addressing it. It is possible to determine Visions I and II established by Roberts ( 2007 ) and Vision III by Sjöström and Eilks ( 2018 ). The first vision is centred on the scientific processes and content for its latter application. The second is focused on understanding the utility of scientific knowledge in life and society. Finally, the third vision transcends the two previous ones and seeks to promote scientific education that aims at dialogic emancipation and socio-environmental justice. It is fundamental to determining a position on scientific literacy to choose not only the most coherent teaching models or approaches but also to guide the establishment of the scientific knowledge that students must achieve in the classroom, which is normally stated in curricular documents. Therefore, determining a vision for scientific literacy can guide the construction of the curriculum and basic educational hypotheses.

Due to the environmental crisis and its negative consequences, particularly in Latin America, Bárcena, Samaniego, Peres and Alatorre ( 2020 ) suggested that consideration should be given to curricular topics on natural sciences that are related to environmental issues and critical thinking skills. However, beyond this, they should also be focused on action and transformation, based on key elements of Vision III of scientific literacy. Whatever the vision, the truth is that many countries—including 19 Latin American countries—have addressed the challenge of including the concept of scientific literacy as a core structural element in their school curricula documents (Gil and Vilches 2001 ; UNESCO 2020 ). However, there is little evidence and research about how these conceptualisations and visions are integrated into the curriculum in Latin America. Additionally, very few studies provide a critical analysis regarding how the economic and political systems of a nation are articulated with the curricular visions and hypotheses in scientific literacy.

Therefore, in this paper, we seek to fill this gap. To do so, we analysed the school curricula of Bolivia and Chile. The main reason for selecting these two countries is their very contrasting recent political philosophies. Bolivia, on the one hand, places indigenous communities at a central position in the organisation of a plurinational and social unitary state and the development of a constitution based on interculturality, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and the enshrining of the natural world's rights with equal status for Mother Earth. In the case of Chile, the political system is based on commodification and an extreme neoliberal tendency, installed during 1970s Pinochet’s dictatorship. Considering that Bolivia and Chile have very different political hypotheses, the following research question was posed for this research:

What are the scientific literacy visions present in the school science curricula in Bolivia and Chile?

The general objective of this paper is to analyse and compare the visions of scientific literacy present in the curricula in Bolivia and Chile, and the specific objectives are: (1) to analyse scientific literacy in Chilean school curricula documents, (2) to analyse scientific literacy in Bolivian school curricula documents, and (3) to contrast and examine the science school curricula visions of scientific literacy of Bolivia and Chile, considering their political positions.

This paper is set out as follows. The next section (Section “ Scientific literacy ”) provides an overview of the conceptualisation of scientific literacy, describing and analysing the main visions of the concept. Following this argument, we examine the connection of scientific literacy with curriculum and politics, specifically highlighting the context in which the concept has been developed in Bolivia and Chile. The paper’s research methods are then outlined in Section “ Methodology ”, where we describe the data corpora, stages of research, and the process of analysing the curriculum science documents. Section “ Findings ” presents the results of this research project, with a primary focus on science teaching purposes within science curricula in both countries. Finally, in Section “ Discussion and conclusions ” we discuss similarities and differences between Bolivian and Chilean science curricula, in conjunction with conclusions about approaches to scientific literacy and its relationship with the political contexts of each country.

• Scientific literacy

Arguably, SL is today synonymous with science education (Queiruga-Dios, López-Iñesta, Diez-Ojeda, Sáiz-Manzanares, and Vázquez Dorrío 2020 ). For many educational policymakers, researchers in science education, and science educators, SL is a fundamental factor in the development of individuals and communities, and it might be even more relevant in times of planetary crises. However, typically, the discourses that address the conceptualisation of SL are closely related to paradigms and ideologies. Moreover, the lack of education in sciences is related to the lack of opportunities and exclusion from political and social discussions about socio-scientific issues that have an impact on the democratic decision-making processes and the insertion of individuals in the current society of information (Fourez 1997 ; Roth and Barton 2004 ; Yacoubian 2018 ). In Latin America, since the 1990s, there has been an intent to place scientific literacy as the core purpose of natural science teaching. This is evident both explicitly and implicitly in the current curricula of the 19 countries in the region (UNESCO 2020 ).

Nevertheless, the meaning of SL in Latin America is interpreted in multiple ways, and it is a complex conceptualisation, under construction, which has been discussed since the end of World War Two (Balastegui, Palomar, and Solbes 2020 ; Hodson 2011 ; Massarini and Schnek 2015 ; Özdem, Çavas, Çavas, Çakıroglu, and Ertepınar 2010 ; Shamos 1995 ; Sjöström and Eilks 2018 ). This concept is typically associated with the purpose of science education and is often used as a slogan with little clarity about its substance (Sjöström and Eilks 2018 ; Gil and Vilches 2001 ).

Vision I of SL: Science for future scientists

This first approach of SL corresponds to what Roberts ( 2007 ) called Vision I , centred on the conceptual knowledge of science, its internal processes, and methods, promoting a kind of science for future scientists, where science is shown without society (Valladares 2021 ). Therefore, it is expected that through education, there can be a theoretical understanding of the scientific issues of the phenomena considered essential (typically far from daily life), with a focus on the training of future professionals related to the natural sciences (Massarini and Schnek 2015 ; Vilches, Solbes, and Gil 2004 ; Valladares 2021 ). This way of understanding SL connects the purpose of science education with training aimed at the propaedeutic level (serving as a preliminary instruction for further study in science) or a useful orientation towards the economic growth of nations (Hodson 2011 ). In this vision of SL, conceptual development or learning the scientific culture is central (Massarini and Schnek 2015 ), pushing aside issues related to the nature of science, scientific skills, procedures, or attitudes (Hodson 2011 ). This vision of SL seldom originates or can relate to teaching approaches in which scientific knowledge is useful to understand everyday science or can transition from traditional teaching models towards socio-constructivist ones, which results in a dogmatic and decontextualised teaching of natural sciences (Fourez 1997 ). This vision of science that is out of context and not oriented towards solving everyday problems or transforming society could be causing the low interest of students in learning natural sciences, in addition to missing out on the opportunity to develop necessary skills for an active life regarding citizenship in democratic systems.

Vision II of SL: Science for all

A second proposal for scientific literacy of SL corresponds to what Roberts ( 2007 ) called Vision II , which addresses the interrelation between science and how that knowledge is linked to everyday issues, where the aim is the application of scientific knowledge in life and society (Valladares 2021 ).

Vision II , as proposed by Fourez ( 1997 ) and Gil and Vilches ( 2001 ), considers that the education of all people should be included (“science for all”) so that they can participate in political discussions related to scientific issues. It is stated that science education must be useful so that all can understand the everyday phenomena related to scientific and important social issues (Fourez 1997 ; Gil and Vilches 2001 ; Valladares 2021 ). This is how the teaching of science begins to touch spaces that were not considered by the previously explained vision. From this vision emerges the need to use teaching models that are related to the context of the students and the development of critical thinking skills so students and future citizens can make personal decisions on relevant scientific issues. In addition, this vision explores and looks at the outside of scientific processes, in situations in which science has a role, for example, decision-making on socio-scientific issues or controversies (Roberts 2007 ), not reaching the point, however, of action or the promotion of activism.

Vision III of SL: Science for transformation

A third proposal includes not only the ability to understand and make personal decisions, but also to build collective actions that allow the solving of real problems (Hodson 2011 ). This way of interpreting scientific literacy would allow individuals not only to understand scientific knowledge but also to establish values and higher ethics together with others for decision-making (Hodson 2011 ). This vision is related to the common good and justice and proposes that if weak or fragile scientific literacy is developed, it would contribute to producing technocratic societies in which citizens would not participate democratically in science-related matters (Fourez 1997 ), and their political systems would become weak. From this perspective, scientifically literate citizens would have power within societies (Fourez 1997 ). Scientific literacy oriented towards the construction of citizenship has incorporated the notion that scientific knowledge brings power and responsibility about reality with it (Marco-Stiefel 2004 ). From this perspective, scientific literacy would collaborate with the establishment of the concept of citizenship. Along the same lines, Marco-Stiefel ( 2003 ) considered that education for citizenship should have the purpose of training responsible and autonomous individuals who will actively influence the democratic processes that consider local and global dimensions, and a concern for ecology, pacifism, and solidarity. In this way, with this vision of scientific literacy, socio-constructivist approaches to teaching become coherent, associated with teaching strategies framed within socio-scientific issues (Massarini and Schnek 2015 ) and collective development that seeks to promote action and activism.

This third vision of SL corresponds to what Sjöström and Eilks ( 2018 ) call Vision III , which examines how this scientific knowledge is transformed into a critical practice, towards eco-justice, emancipation, and, above all, transformation. According to what is proposed by Hodson ( 2011 ), Vision III could be collective, and be named a critical scientific literacy. It is worth going into depth regarding the conceptualisation of “critical”. When referring to this concept, we are talking about the ability to reflect on the world from a transforming and emancipatory perspective of existing hegemony (Hodson 2011 ; Valladares 2021 ). Rodríguez ( 2019 ) incorporated the idea of conceiving literacy as a critique. When the construction of subjectivities and the transformation of reality are considered, critical scientific literacy should also take on cultural and social transformation. As mentioned by Rodríguez ( 2019 ), when making the relation between linguistic and critical scientific literacy, the act of reading is not merely decoding what is written in a text but understanding the relationship the word has with its everyday world. The same would apply to scientific content, where it would not be enough to understand scientific concepts if it does not lead to understanding reality, so the relationship with the context is essential.

Roth and Barton ( 2004 ) profile a critical scientific literacy that develops in spaces that seek to break hegemony, generating struggles between groups with different power where they emerge from collective practice . When considering these characteristics of scientific literacy, science is shaped as something closer to the reality of its nature: socially built and determined, changing in the face of new evidence and with consequences for societies (Hodson 2011 ; Valladares 2021 ). In relation to its teaching, this vision of scientific literacy brought to the school requires a socio-constructivist approach, with the use of methodologies centred on socio-scientific problems and transdisciplinarity where different disciplines are integrated to search for solutions, using open questions of local and global relevance (Roth and Barton 2004 ; Valladares 2021 ). This scientific literacy focusses its implications for teaching distance themselves from a conventional or functional vision, where learning is individualistic, and the individual does not relate constructively to society (Roth and Barton 2004 ). It becomes evident that in this proposal, the critical scientific literacy configuration established points of encounter between science education, politics, economy, environment, citizenship, and even a moral and ethical dimension.

Finally, the focus of this study is the way in which discourses of school curricula are built, being able, or not, to contribute to providing a structured balance to key learning considered relevant for the education of both scientists and all citizens (Membiela 2002 ; Vilches, Solbes and Gil 2004 ). This means that the established vision of scientific literacy determines, at the same time, the logic that should be considered in school curricula documents and the approaches and strategies for teaching and learning natural sciences that would be implemented (Guerrero and Torres-Olave 2022 ). Therefore, if a change in teaching is pursued, a change of vision in the purpose of teaching is necessary; this is a change in the direction or visions of scientific literacy.

Here, school curricula should not only focus on scientific conceptual development, but also on elements such as scientific procedures, the nature of science, and topics about the relationship between science, technology, society, and the environment (Vilches, Solbes, and Gil 2004 ). Roth and Barton ( 2004 ) added that this curriculum should promote the building of communities that go beyond the school, where knowledge becomes collective and distributed to exercise democratic actions of decision-making regarding topics related to the interests of its members. This would help shape a scientific literacy that is in tune with social and political dimensions and committed to social responsibility service. Therefore, we can establish the need for the construction of a curriculum that aims at critical scientific literacies, that is, that includes critical citizen education, so that doing science will relate in a reflective manner to citizens’ local and everyday concerns and issues (Roth and Barton 2004 ).

Curriculum and politics

The curriculum can be understood according to the words of Gimeno ( 2010 ) as follows:

The cultural content that educational institutions intend to promote among those who attend them, as well as the effects that said content causes in their receptors … its configuration and development encompass political, social, and economic practices, production of didactic resources, administrative and control or supervision of the educational system, etc. (p. 12).

Gimeno ( 2010 ) also stated that:

The curriculum is a text that represents and presents aspirations, interests, ideals, and forms of understanding their mission in a very specific historical context, from where decisions are made and paths are chosen, that are affected by general political options, economical options, belonging to different cultural means, etc. (p. 15).

It is relevant to mention how Gimeno ( 2010 ) establishes the direct relationship that exists between the curriculum itself and the important influence that politics has on it. However, each educational process should ask itself what to teach and why it should be taught. Both questions can be answered through the curriculum (Gimeno 2010 ). Each country organises this knowledge and its purposes in curricular documents that serve as organisers of learning objectives in the teaching and learning processes that teachers will later apply to their practice. Then, the science curriculum is a political hypothesis but also a social practice (Guerrero and Torres-Olave, 2022 ).

It is necessary to organise what to teach as the first curricular question. From here, different perspectives can arise depending on how the curriculum is understood as an instrument to answer this question, without the need for one to exclude others. This is how the perspective of the curriculum as cultural mediation makes sense for this research; here it is understood that the curriculum is constructed from the social characteristics and tensions of each historical moment, the place in which the purposes of formally schooled education are built (Villegas 2017 ), and the science curriculum is a product of relationships with politics (Guerrero and Torres-Olave 2022 ). The curriculum reflects existing power tensions in societies and the dominant values regarding pedagogy and education. Therefore, the curriculum becomes a space of conflict between the different power positions in society, which could result in a replicator or amplifier of the circumstances that determine the power groups (Villegas 2017 ). From the perspective of the curriculum as cultural mediation, it is possible to establish that it will never be neutral but will be impregnated with the positions that build it, such as the political positionings that surround its design. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the political contexts of the countries that generate science curricula.

Politics and the education system in Bolivia

Bolivia is currently defined as a plurinational state, with an explicitly declared anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal position (Ducoing and Rojas 2017 ). The government of Evo Morales marked not only the return of the centre-left but also placed indigenous communities in a central position in the organisation of a social unitary state subject to plurinational law, independent, sovereign, democratic, intercultural, and decentralised. The neoliberal model is substituted by community socialism, and attributions related to territorial autonomies are increased. All of this has been shaped by the frame of constitutionality (Ducoing and Rojas 2017 ). In addition to this, an educational revolution took place that sought emancipation and decolonisation from an anti-imperialist perspective. This is the result of the collaborative construction of social and ethnic organisations (Ducoing and Rojas 2017 ). It was included in the education law ‘Avelino Siñani–Elizardo Pérez’, issued in 2010, which guides towards an education that is revolutionary, liberating, and transforming of unequal social structures and of the nation’s productive matrix, an education of resistance to homogenisation, to face the capitalist civilising crisis.

The Bolivian curricular proposal originates from the democratic and cultural revolutionary movement of 2007, from which the productive socio-community educational model derives (Ducoing and Rojas 2019 ). This model has implied a change in the vision of development of the country, where it is proposed to move from the neoliberal model to a balanced and complementary coexistence based on the plural economy, and greater promotion of social policies, with respect for the environment recognised as Mother Earth (Villafuerte, Romero, Landa, Dávila, Rocha, and Rada 2016 ). In terms of the production model, this change aims to move the economy from one based on the private sector, which exploits natural resources for export without further consideration for environmental issues, towards a plural economy, controlled mainly by the state, with private, community, and state actors, where natural resources are administered by the state, and which aspires to be an exporter of natural resources industrialised by the state, where food security and energy sovereignty are considered, and where environmental issues have much greater relevance (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2013 ).

Consistently, in the Bolivian secondary education curriculum, we find the following guidelines: (a) holistic and integrating vision; (b) productive vocation; (c) community vision; and (d) decolonisation. These take shape around the natural sciences in the field of Life, Earth, and Territory, a space that seeks to train men and women with critical awareness about living together with the Earth and the cosmos through the development of respectful productive practices of life and environment. The areas that form this dimension are geography, biology, physics, and chemistry (Ducoing and Rojas 2017 ).

Politics and the education system in Chile

Since the 1980s, with the civic-military dictatorship, Chile has developed a system of commodification and an extreme neoliberal tendency at a political level that has transcended the education system (Bellei and Muñoz 2021 ). This has continued to this day, despite the changes that the student revolts of the first decades of the 2000s attempted to bring out introduce (Elórtegui, Arancibia and Moreira 2020 ; Ruiz, Reyes, and Herrera 2019 ).

According to Harvey ( 2005 ), neoliberalism is:

a theory of political-economic practices that states that the best way of promoting human wellbeing is to not restrict the free development of capacities and entrepreneurial freedom of individuals within the institutional framework that is characterised by strong private property rights, free market, and free commerce. The role of the government is to create and preserve the appropriate institutional framework for the development of these practices (p. 6).

Neoliberalism affirms that individual freedoms are maintained due to market freedom. The government that is protected by these practices is a neoliberal one, in which freedom is the reflection of the needs of businesses and private property, multinational companies and financial capital (Harvey 2005 ; Elórtegui, Arancibia and Moreira 2020 ). The economic model, installed with the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990), is also characterised by being highly globalised, with a very small state, where health, education, and social security are merchandise that is traded in the market, contributing to perpetuating the equitable distribution of power and wealth (Hofer 2020 ). The Chilean economy is characterised mainly by the exploitation and export of natural resources (copper, fishing, wood, agriculture) without productive diversity, which has favoured extraordinary income for large businesses. Although the current government has proposed to diversify the productive and export matrix of the country, with special emphasis on the quality of employment and the protection of the environment (Ministerio de Economía, Fomento y Turismo 2022 ), this transformation requires ending the subsidiary state and having political representatives who answer to the citizenry and not to economic groups, which becomes complex, given the transversal acceptance of neoliberalism and the control of politicians by economic groups (Hofer 2020 ).

School has not escaped the neoliberal ideology, giving way to what could be called a neoliberal school. Such schools are characterised by their goal of training individuals for business needs, training the professionals they need, in addition to being controlled by the market. Therefore, the school that used to be public became another service within the economic network, and the freedom for families to choose according to their financial condition was guaranteed, causing an even greater gap in social inequalities (Gutiérrez 2010 ; Bellei and Muñoz 2021 ). The globalisation of the neoliberal in education has also resulted in its hypotheses permeating the process of determining educational and curricular standards, and those relate to the purpose of school and higher education (Gutiérrez 2010 ; Torres 2008 ). The foregoing has resulted in a highly fragmented, privatised, and socioeconomically segregated school system (Bellei and Muñoz 2021 ), in addition to precarious conditions for teachers and student learning as a result of work overload, as well as control and excessive curricular content (Melo 2021 ). Additionally, in recent years there has been an exponential increase in immigration, so the school system, in addition to facing great inequality in the social and economic access to knowledge and opportunity fields (Castillo and Salgado 2018 ), must also take care of increasing diversity (Silva, Llaña, Maldonado, and Baeza 2018 ).

The primary and secondary education curriculum in Chile is organised into subjects that must address personal and social dimensions, knowledge, and culture. Proposed learning objectives should allow the development of skills, contents, and attitudes associated with them in each subject. In the case of the science curriculum for secondary education, this is divided into core themes: biology, physics, and chemistry.

Methodology

The present study adopted an interpretative qualitative framework for data analysis. The school curricula for both Chile and Bolivia were analysed using principles of reflective thematic analysis (TA), as outlined by Braun and Clarke ( 2021 ). An inductive approach to reflective thematic analysis was adopted to ensure that the themes generated during the analyses reflected the content and inherent themes of the documents. TA was employed for the data analyses for three key reasons: accessibility, flexibility, and logistics. First, unlike other qualitative methods, TA essentially provides users with a set of tools (e.g., practices, techniques, and guidelines) through which they can engage with and interpret their data, allowing researchers to adapt the tools and processes in accordance with the nature of the data and their needs. In the present study, TA allowed for a robust and thorough examination of a large cross-nation data set, summarising the key features while providing a rich, intricate, and detailed account. Second, using an inductive approach allowed the researchers to draw out key inferences from within the data without imposing an external framework (see King 2004 ). Finally, employing TA allowed the researchers to be thorough while being aware and considerate of temporal constraints. Based on these previous key reasons, TA is useful to contrast two corpora of data (school curricula) from two countries.

To undertake this analysis process, we followed a series of stages. The first phase was related to data familiarisation; in this case, the reiterated reading of the texts in curricular documents of Bolivia and Chile. The second stage looked for relevant data to generate codes, establishing the nodes for this research that relate to the theme of the investigation; the same reference or data could belong to more than one code and the explicit or implicit intention of the data was determined. In the third stage, themes were built around data and codes (nodes), constructing themes in this research. As a fourth stage, there was a review of the logic among themes and their relationship with data and codes, generating theme maps on the purpose of teaching natural sciences and how this was expressed in the declared knowledge to be taught in the Bolivian and Chilean curricula. In the fifth stage, clear names were determined for each theme. In the sixth phase, extracts (references for this research) were selected to relate them to the research question, and finally, in stage seven, this present report was elaborated. A summary of the research stages is shown in Fig.  1 .

The stages of analysis for this research were adapted from Braun and Clarke ( 2021 ) and Nowell, Norris, White, and Moules ( 2017 ), establishing trustworthiness during each phase of the thematic analysis process

The data corpora used were the school curriculum documents for natural sciences distributed by the Ministries of Education of Bolivia and Chile. In the case of Chile, the curricular basis from seventh to tenth grade of natural sciences in 2015 was analysed (MINEDUC 2015 ) and the Natural Sciences Curricular Prioritisation of 2020 (MINEDUC 2020 ). For Bolivia, the data corpora were the curricular texts: Curricular Basis of 2012 (MINEDU 2012 ), and Community and Productive Secondary Education, Categorised Study Programmes for Bolivia 2021 (MINEDU 2021 ). For all the texts, there was an analysis of all ideas that are explicitly or implicitly present in relation to the purpose of teaching the natural sciences. Theoretical support for each document was analysed, as well as the declared positions and knowledge to be taught. The studied educational levels for both countries are those that correspond to students aged 13 to 16, which is equivalent to seventh to tenth grade in Chile and first to fourth years of secondary school in Bolivia.

For this research, reliability was achieved by developing expert peer judgement carried out by the three authors of this paper. We analysed the categorisation and formation of nodes from the studied data and judged them as consistent with the development of themes. The validity of this research was fulfilled thanks to the thematic analysis rigour that was performed and its later relationship with the existing theory. In addition, triangulation of information sources was developed by considering the theoretical analysis, expert peer judgement, and the analysis of the researcher in relation to the studied data. The thematic analysis was carried out using the tools from the advanced data analysis software, NVivo 12, which allows the categorisation, coding, and organisation of information to be performed.

The first analysis of documents from Bolivia and Chile considered, in relation to the research questions, the dimensions of the purpose of teaching and what to teach in science. The purpose of the first dimension was to help determine the notions of scientific literacy that underline or are explicit in the curriculum, and the second was how this purpose of teaching science was fulfilled in the types of knowledge that the curriculum proposed as essential for learning science. Students in the school stage were analysed (13 to 16 years).

Science teaching purposes within the science curriculum

The purpose of the science teaching dimension was organised into five themes: (i) characteristics of the natural sciences; (ii) development of curiosity; (iii) integral development of the individual; (iv) knowledge of the natural world; and (v) political or state points of view. Each of these themes is composed of nodes, which are depicted in Fig.  2 . It also indicates whether a node is present only in the Bolivian curriculum, in the Chilean curriculum, or in both countries.

The organisation of results of the Purposes of Science Teaching (green), themes (blue), and nodes (cream-coloured) of the curricular documents of Bolivia and Chile

Figure  2 shows there are both similarities and differences between what the Bolivian and Chilean curricula propose regarding the purpose of science teaching. Both countries show common ground in the purpose of teaching science topics, sharing nodes for purposes related to ‘characteristics of the natural sciences’, ‘development of curiosity’, ‘knowledge of the natural world’, and ‘political or state views’. The only theme that is uniquely represented in the Bolivian curriculum is ‘the integral development of the individual’. In the theme ‘characteristics of natural sciences’, the nodes of ‘awareness of science for all’, ‘awareness of the scientific impact on society’, and ‘knowledge of scientific activity’ are only present in Chile. For both Bolivia and Chile, the intention to develop scientific capacities can be identified. The theme ‘developing curiosity’ is represented in both curricula. Regarding knowledge of the natural world, the ‘understanding the natural world’ node is found in both curricula, the ‘resolution of everyday problems’ node is only present in the Chilean curriculum, and ‘caring for Mother Earth’ is only present in the Bolivian curriculum. In the topic ‘political or state perspectives’, the ‘need for globalisation’ and the ‘participation of individual and social decision-making’ nodes are only present in the Chilean curriculum. The nodes of ‘ideological change’, ‘development of democratic competencies’, ‘development of the biocentric perspective’, ‘overcoming the problems of capitalism’, ‘community transformation’, and ‘propaedeutics’ are only present in the Bolivian curriculum. There are no nodes that are present in both countries. Tables 1 and 2 describe textual references extracted from the curricular documents for each of the nodes.

The Chilean curriculum refers mainly to the nodes of the purpose of science teaching, such as understanding the natural world, developing scientific skills, and developing curiosity (see frequency in Table 1 ). Then, to a lesser extent, come the related nodes to give meaning to teaching based on scientific impact on society, knowledge of scientific activity, solving everyday problems, participation in individual and social decisions, science awareness for all, the development of ideas about the nature of science and the needs of globalisation. Table 1 shows the definitions and textual references that provide examples for each of these nodes, in addition to the frequencies in which they are present in the curricular documents.

The Bolivian curriculum mostly refers to the nodes of the purpose of science teaching, such as caring for Mother Earth, community transformation, integral development of the individual, development of scientific skills and development of democratic skills (see frequency in Table 2 ). In addition, the nodes with the least representation are biocentric vision, overcoming problems caused by capitalism, propaedeutics, development of curiosity, ideological, and political change, and understanding of the natural world. Table 2 contains the definitions and textual references that exemplify each of these nodes, as well as the frequencies in which they appear in the curricular documents analysed.

Discussion and conclusions

The curriculum prescribed by governments to be taught in schools can be understood as a sociocultural construction that regulates and controls educational practices and expresses in some way the guidelines towards where the training of citizens is to be taken (Ducoing and Rojas 2019 ; Guerrero and Torres-Olave 2022 ). There is broad consensus regarding the importance of being scientifically literate in order to fully participate in democracy. The understanding of scientific literacy has gone from a transmissive and propaedeutic vision ( Vision I ) to a vision committed to socio-scientific activism ( Vision III ) (Vilches, Solbes, and Gil 2004 ; Valladares 2021 ). From this perspective, scientific literacy becomes a tool for social transformation that requires the participation of all citizens. Scientific literacy, although it seems to be a globally agreed objective, differs in each country in the way in which it is articulated with the idea of citizenship and democratic participation. For scientific literacy to serve democratic processes, and in particular decision-making, students must be able to critically explore socio-scientific problems, as well as the social and economic aspects in which particular social problems based on science are configured. In this way, they will be able to participate in critical deliberation on social issues related to science, being able to question the underlying status quo (Yacoubian 2018 ).

In this study, when analysing both curricula from the point of view of what their purpose is, we can see that in Chile, the focus is mainly on understanding the natural world, the development of scientific skills and curiosity, and secondarily, understanding the nature of science, and engaging in individual decision-making and problem solving in a globalised world. Thus, and from the perspective of the types of citizenship indicated by Westheimer and Kahne ( 2004 ), the orientation of the Chilean curriculum would be between the formation of a personally responsible citizen, that is, a person who acts responsibly towards himself and the others, for example respecting the laws and carrying out acts of charity, and a participatory citizen, with a much more active role in his or her community. Following the example given by the authors, if, under the first vision, a good citizen is one who donates food, in this second vision, the good citizen would be the one who organises the donation.

In the case of Bolivia, the main focus is on the care of Mother Earth, highlighting that the traditions or knowledge of indigenous communities are considered essential. Other relevant elements are community transformation, an individual’s integral development, the development of scientific skills and the development of democratic skills. From the point of view of the types of citizenship, the Bolivian curriculum would rather tend towards the formation of a justice-oriented citizen (Westheimer and Kahne 2004 ), that is, someone who understands the relationships between social, political, and economic aspects. Following the previous example, this vision of a citizen would be that of a person who questions why there are people who go hungry and tries to solve the problem from that understanding.

This is consistent with the analysis of the “political or state views” that support the orientations on the purpose of teaching science. In the case of Bolivia, the political-ideological basis of the curriculum proposes decolonisation as an alternative against capitalist hegemony, through the approach of values and socio-community knowledge of the original peoples, as well as the recognition of cultural identities (Ducoing and Rojas 2019 ). Although the carrying out of actions or activism-oriented science education is not explicit, through the promotion of the understanding of the relationships between science and productive and political systems, the Bolivian curriculum bets more clearly on a science education that seeks transformational changes to the political and economic world related to neoliberalism and capitalism. This is evident in the clarity with which teaching of sciences must promote “ideological and political changes”, “development of democratic competencies”, “development of a biocentric vision”, “improvement of problems caused by capitalism”, “transformation towards the formation of communities”, all of which are ideas that go against the ideology that dominates Chile in political and state terms (at the time of this study). Also, observable here is the importance placed in the Bolivian curriculum on materialising the idea that education is politics, and therefore it can be a tool that fosters the status quo or that transforms reality (Freire 2005 ), moving from an individualistic social conception towards a community one. It is interesting to see how the Bolivian curriculum highlights the “development of biocentric vision”, where the centre moves from the human being to nature, something very necessary to change social and governance practices that have led to the current climate crisis.

In relation to the "political or state views", the Chilean curriculum contrasts with the Bolivian one, since there is notorious alignment with the “needs of globalisation” ideas. These views are closely related to the needs of a neoliberal economic model and its expression in education (Elórtegui, Arancibia and Moreira 2020 ; Ruiz, Reyes, and Herrera 2019 ). Despite all this, the Chilean curriculum views the teaching of science as relevant to promote competencies to “participate in individual or social decisions”, although the desired scope of this is not clear. The question then is whether the expectation is to train individuals who will transform the reality that surrounds them, or whether they are only capable of solving problems while maintaining the established social structures.

This difference between the two curricula in relation to the purpose of science education is interesting, since it expresses two points pointed out in the literature. On the one hand, the Bolivian curriculum breaks with the general trend of traditional school science, offering a narrow vision in relation to diverse worldviews and ideologies, which marginalises, for example, indigenous knowledge about nature (Hansson and Yacoubian 2020 ). The Bolivian curriculum not only includes indigenous knowledge as an example but also proposes it as a central part of its proposal, being relevant to the context and expanding the possibilities for students to participate in science in a meaningful way for them. On the other hand, the example of the Chilean curriculum points to another outstanding point in the literature, and that is the fact that research on ideologies in science education shows that neoliberal perspectives are frequently communicated, putting the development of the decision-making capacities of future citizens at the service of specific neoliberal agendas (Hansson and Yacoubian 2020 ).

In light of the scientific literacy visions that can be present in the analysed curricula and attending to the initial research question: What is the scientific literacy vision present in the curricula of Chile and Bolivia? it is possible to identify similarities and differences between the cases of Chile and Bolivia. In the case of Chile, the stated typical purpose of science teaching is scientific literacy, but there is no description of how it is shaped. This is consistent with the findings of Uribe and Cáceres ( 2014 ), who stated that scientific literacy is scarcely expressed in curricular documents and study texts in the Chilean educational system. Despite this, it is possible to interpret the purposes of the sciences stated in the curricular documents. In this way, it is possible to conclude that the science curriculum in Chile proposes a vision of sciences that is more related to Vision II , according to Roberts ( 2007 ) and Sjöström and Eilks ( 2018 ), where science knowledge is useful to know our surroundings and give answers to everyday problems, but not considering its ability to provide tools for the transformation of reality, along with others. It could be suggested, then, that the way in which the purposes of education in sciences are expressed typically promotes the continuity of the existing structures, allowing the continuation of neoliberal hegemony.

However, according to Magendzo and Gazmuri ( 2018 ), there is a certain consensus on the urgency and importance of citizenship training for Chilean students. To do this, the authors propose to move from a curriculum organised around a list of contents expressed as absolute, totalising, and homogenising truths towards a curriculum based on content and complex tensional and conflictive themes that are linked to the political, social, and cultural contexts in which the students perform. Additionally, considering the current social and political crisis in Chile and its intention to resolve this through a Constitutional Convention that writes a new Constitution, it is evident that the conception of scientific literacy of Vision II falls short of the current challenges of Chilean society. A more coherent alternative that would also allow us to attempt a curricular change towards coherent orientations and knowledge would be Vision III of scientific literacy, which Hodson ( 2013 ) describes and problematises as:

It is generally much easier to proclaim that one cares for an issue than to do something about it. In short, our values have no value until we live them. Rhetorical and proclaimed values will not bring social justice and will not save the planet. We must change our actions. A politicised ethics of caring implies active involvement in the local manifestation of a problem or specific issue, the exploration of the complexity of socio-political contexts in which the issue/problem is located and trying to solve conflicts of interest (p. 8).

In the Bolivian curriculum, scientific literacy is oriented from its intentions towards Vision III, according to Sjöström and Eilks ( 2018 ), since it clearly suggests the need to address current problems to transform the hegemonic model towards a contextual and community one, consistent with environmental care. In addition, it serves the territory through the knowledge that must be developed.

Comparison between the curricula of both countries is an exercise that can allow us to gain awareness about the ways in which political considerations influence their construction, becoming evidence to be considered when analysing and applying said documents in the educational area, to decide whether it is necessary to keep or change existing conditions at the political, social, or economic levels. The results and conclusions of this research seek to contribute to the analysis and execution of the purposes of natural sciences so that both curriculum experts and teachers determine which are the coherent actions that will allow students to learn what is necessary to become agents of change of reality. This is due to the needs that emerge, such as the current environmental crisis.

From the above, it is clear that political systems influence curricula. However, it is also worth asking whether the implementation of a curriculum can influence political systems. If we assume that the implementation of a curriculum affects the formation of different types of citizens, we could infer that such an influence does exist. However, this will depend on how teachers interpret and implement the curriculum, requiring coherent training with it. For example, the implementation of a curriculum that promotes practices associated with Vision III , such as critical thinking and democratic decision-making, can be affected by teachers’ beliefs, such as thinking that science is objective or that it is devoid of values. It also affects the knowledge and awareness that teachers have about the importance of addressing socio-scientific problems, the emphasis they give to different curricular aspects, and the resources they can count on (Yacoubian 2018 ). From this point of view, it is necessary to understand that the prescribed curriculum needs other actors so that it can be materialised in the classroom, for which the mere existence of a curriculum does not guarantee the effects it intends to achieve.

Our findings show that scientific literacy is a concept that presents itself as an opportunity to show science as non-neutral and profoundly political, and therefore, the teaching of science takes on these characteristics that, if understood in this way, provide important opportunities for transformation, as long as curricular guidelines are combined with the other elements mentioned.

Although this study addressed only some of the educational levels for analysis and compared only two countries, this study could be extended in future research. In addition, the study could be expanded to more countries in the region, to inquire into and examine the visions of scientific literacy in relation to their correspondent political systems, and thereby have a greater panoramic view at a Latin American level.

Data availability

Research data policy and data availability statements. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Michael Reiss, Dra. Paulina Bravo and Dr. Iván Salinas who participated in the evaluation and feedback process of this study. The authors are also grateful to the Main Editor and two reviewers for invaluable feedback.

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Norambuena-Meléndez, M., Guerrero, G.R. & González-Weil, C. What is meant by scientific literacy in the curriculum? A comparative analysis between Bolivia and Chile. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 18 , 937–958 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-023-10190-3

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Classroom Case Study: Faced With Literacy Declines, One Maryland District Takes Curriculum Design Out of Teachers’ Hands

Superintendent’s view: ensuring a quick pivot to high-quality curriculum lasts over the long term..

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This is the final chapter of a three-part series spotlighting school leaders across Maryland who have recently implemented high-quality literacy curricula. (See our prior installments from Washington County and Wicomico County Public Schools .) Jeffrey A. Lawson is Superintendent of Cecil County Public Schools in Elkton, Maryland; below, he shares the story of how the county turned around years of literacy declines by rallying around a core curriculum called Bookworms — and creating the conditions for “sustainable change” over time.

Nearly a decade ago, Cecil County Public Schools had some of the lowest-performing elementary schools in Maryland, and teachers used a variety of homegrown curriculum and curated resources to varying effect. Loud calls for change were coming from the teachers’ union and Central Office.

Today, our schools all use Bookworms , a highly structured, open-source curriculum published by the University of Delaware. We adopted and implemented Bookworms districtwide at a rapid clip in 2016 and quickly saw gains in the share of students in grades 3–5 scoring proficient on statewide tests. We have consistently fine-tuned our practices to maintain progress in the years since.

Most major changes don’t happen without a long lead time or thoroughly debated pilot. And many changes cannot be sustained over the long haul. Our experience with Bookworms is a counterexample to both. It is possible to move fast and build reforms that last. Here’s how.

Start with this: Standards are not curriculum

In part, our sustainable change may be rooted in the fundamentally unsustainable practices we sought to replace.

In the past culture of Cecil County schools, teachers were expected to “teach the standards.” In day-to-day life, this meant unpacking state standards as they related to their particular students and designing curriculum, including by picking and choosing among far-flung resources and tried-and-true favorite texts. Too often, this approach didn’t work. Students’ educational trajectories were unpredictable and disjointed. Beloved books were not always at grade level. Meanwhile, teachers were overtaxed, and the local union was calling for public hearings to discuss curriculum and workload.

Around 2015, the district convened a committee to select a standard English language arts elementary school curriculum, one that would allow teachers to focus on instruction and more reliably connect students with rigorous, grade-level learning. The committee selected Journeys and Wonders, by heavyweight publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill. Both were costly, comprehensive literacy programs with leveled readers and a suite of related activities and resources.

I was appointed Associate Superintendent of Education Services in 2016 and given a clear mandate from the superintendent: Raise reading scores, now. I reviewed the work of the curriculum committee, and then cast a wider net. 

The traditional curriculums that were being considered were bulky and based on teacher choice, which essentially tasked teachers with daily lesson design. It seemed likely that almost no real change would occur.

Ask for expertise and evidence

There had to be more options. I started by tapping trusted colleagues in my professional and personal networks. What districts were making literacy progress? What high-quality, evidence-based programs were they using? Through these queries, I heard about the Christina School District in Newark, Delaware. The Bookworms curriculum, published by the University of Delaware, was helping “move students in Newark,” I was told.

My district is about six miles from the University of Delaware, where I am an alumnus. I made some calls, and with senior colleagues from Cecil County, soon visited a school principal and observed reading instruction in Newark.

Bookworms was a clear fit for our needs. Rather than using leveled readers, instruction is rooted in published grade-level books that students can find at the local library. The Lexile levels were far higher that what we had been using in our district, which was crucial. Just as important, Bookworms lessons are designed so all students can access challenging grade-level books, even if they cannot yet read them independently. We saw that this could help Cecil County students break out of their guided reading groups.

The curriculum is highly structured, standards-based, and taught in three 45-minute periods: an interactive read-aloud that engages all students, a writing and literacy instructional period, and a tiered support period. Teachers’ time and planning energies are reserved for practicing instruction and working to meet individual students’ needs, not designing curriculum on their own.

I also found that the Newark teachers were enthusiastic ambassadors for the curriculum, which as an open-source publication would cost us far less than the prepackaged traditional programs. In my experience, when a group of teachers raves about a resource, you should probably take a look and see why. And by spending less upfront, we could invest more resources in aligned, ongoing professional development to help teachers improve their instructional practice.

Support sustainable change

I recommended Bookworms to the superintendent, who agreed and opted to proceed full steam ahead: no pilot, no public comment period. We did plenty of salesmanship and relationship-building to support a smooth rollout. But the move to Bookworms happened quickly and was not up for debate. We wanted to make a move and keep things simple, and Bookworms was sufficiently streamlined and structured to allow us to do that.

It was important to protect morale and ensure teachers felt supported during the shift. One powerful strategy was to direct all school-based administrators not to base performance evaluations on observations of Bookworms lessons in the first year. Our teachers and administrators were learning the curriculum at the same time and with varying levels of prior expertise. Attaching stakes to classroom evaluations of those lessons was not fair. That took a lot of the pressure off, and both teachers and administrators became more comfortable with the curriculum and with one another. We also brought eight literacy coaches in from the University of Delaware to train and assist, which was helpful.

Another move that helped create a stable transition was allowing elementary level teachers to choose subject specialties. Cecil County also changed math curriculums at this time, and teachers in grades 3–5 were given the opportunity to teach either reading and social studies or math and science. This allowed teachers to really focus on one curriculum and set of instructional strategies. 

We also built in out-of-classroom supports for the curriculum, such as an innovative relationship with the county library system. Our students can check a book on the Bookworms reading list out of the library and have it delivered to them in school.

Finally, we did not count on universal enthusiasm right away. I believe that there are times and places where leaders have to take a stand and ask that others come along with them. Then, people need time to experience and come to their own conclusion about whatever change is underway. That’s been my experience with teachers, who may first encounter a planned reform with skepticism but are almost always immediately won over when they see benefits for their students. Decide and act, and then wait.

Four months after we first implemented Bookworms, one of our early skeptics sent me a note that said, “I just love the fact that we are building good little readers.” That’s the sort of evidence that will keep enthusiasm high and maintain curriculum improvement over the long term.

Jeffrey A. Lawson is Superintendent of Cecil County Public Schools in Elkton, Maryland.

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Developing Science Literacy in Students and Society: Theory, Research, and Practice

Nicole c. kelp.

a Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Melissa McCartney

b Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

Mark A. Sarvary

c Investigative Biology Teaching Laboratories, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA

Justin F. Shaffer

d Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado, USA

Michael J. Wolyniak

e Department of Biology, Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, USA

The subject of scientific literacy has never been more critical to the scientific community as well as society in general. As opportunities to spread misinformation increase with the rise of new technologies, it is critical for society to have at its disposal the means for ensuring that its citizens possess the basic scientific literacy necessary to make critical decisions on topics like climate change, biotechnology, and other science-based issues. As the Guest Editors of this themed issue of the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education , we present a wide array of techniques that the scientific community is using to promote scientific literacy in both academic and nonacademic settings. The diversity of the techniques presented here give us confidence that the scientific community will rise to the challenge of ensuring that our society will be prepared to make fact-based and wise decisions that will preserve and improve our quality of life.

Scientific literacy can be defined in multiple ways, from how an individual processes scientific facts and concepts and interprets scientific data to how a community collectively interacts with scientific knowledge and processes. Scientific literacy skills are incredibly important for people to develop: whether they are trained scientists or not, people encounter issues pertaining to science frequently in their daily lives. In modern times, people are continually exposed to news stories about climate change, energy production, and health, exercise, and medicine, not to mention the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. By investigating scientific literacy skill development and designing classroom or outreach activities to promote scientific literacy skills, we as science educators can help improve student and societal scientific literacy, which can lead to more-informed decision-making by individuals and societies. Whether the students in our classrooms are science majors or not, it is critical for them to develop science literacy skills and promote science literacy in their communities.

As scientists and science educators, we are passionate about promoting the science literacy of both our students and our society. The 2023 JMBE themed issue on “Scientific Literacy” will examine this concept from multiple angles, from theoretical frameworks to research on the impact of literacy interventions to practical tools for developing scientific literacy in diverse groups of learners. Here, we analyze a portion of these articles, sorted by major themes in scientific literacy that are represented in this special issue.

Theoretical frameworks that inform the development of scientific literacy

At the core of all great research studies is a theoretical framework. However, for a topic as complex as scientific literacy, how do you determine which framework is appropriate for your particular take on scientific literacy? Tenney et al. identified three different learning theories, information processing, constructivism, and sociocultural theory, and they discussed the conceptualizations of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) literacy and offered insightful perspectives on how to conceptualize what it means to be STEM literate ( 1 ). And, if you envision science literacy to be larger than these three theories, and to extend outside of the classroom, Elhai here helps readers redefine science literacy at the community level ( 2 ). These perspectives may be valuable to others as they work to conceptualize what science literacy means in their own circumstances.

Scientific literacy in the context of microbiology, cell biology, molecular biology, immunology, disease ecology, and other disciplines

We cannot forget that science is at the heart of science literacy, and part of science literacy is knowing basic science. In line with current scientific challenges related to public health, Ricci et al. ( 3 ) and Mixter et al. ( 4 ) provide ideas for teaching and learning about infectious disease, through art (as described here by Ricci et al.) and through system-level change and collaboration among novice and experienced educators, professional societies, and policymakers (as described here by Mixter et al.). Access to microbiology is also expanded, with Newman et al. presenting here a novel card-sorting task involving visual literacy skills ( 5 ) and Joyner and Parks outlining how to develop a public data presentation and an epidemiological model based on current events ( 6 ).

Pedagogical practices, including effective classroom tools

Undergraduates are prosumers, consuming and producing scientific information at the same time. This requires assignments to be built on each other in a scaffolded or multistep format. Joyner and Parks present a multicourse approach using modern pedagogical methods to promote communication and data and information literacy in STEM students ( 6 ). Similarly, Rholl et al. described how they let students engage with current events in interactive, multiweek activities that increase student motivation and agency ( 7 ). Sarvary and Ruesch describe how undergraduates can be taught through a multistep framework to become critical consumers of scientific evidence in a single laboratory session. These two authors have used and assessed a variety of active learning methods in the past decade to help students find, evaluate, comprehend, and cite scientific information ( 8 ). With the rise of social media, undergraduates need to be taught how to responsibly share information using these constantly changing platforms. The Social Media Reflection assignment has been successfully used in both lower- and upper-level courses, helping students assess scientific claims and fight misinformation ( 9 ).

Student understanding of the nature of science, quantitative literacy skills, and science communication

There is an intricate connection between how students understand scientific concepts, scientific process, and primary scientific data and how they are able to communicate about these topics with each other and with those outside the scientific community ( 10 ) and in their future careers ( 11 , 12 ). This is critically important for our science students who will interact with patients as future health professionals ( 11 ). One way in which students can engage with a mix of scientific facts, processes, and data is via the primary scientific literature. Developing the skills to read and understand the primary scientific literature is difficult ( 13 ). Authors in this special issue present how student skills in analyzing data in the primary scientific literature can be improved via graphical abstract assignments ( 14 ) and annotations ( 15 , 16 ), as well as by engaging in peer review ( 17 ). Beyond developing their own understanding of the science, engaging with the primary scientific literature is important for our students, as they can utilize the literature as a tool for science communication with nonscientist audiences ( 18 ). Conversely, we can utilize popular texts intended for the public in our science classrooms in order to promote science literacy and new insights about socio-scientific issues ( 19 ). In addition to specific forms of literature, empathetic and relational conversations about science are another tool by which students can build both their knowledge of the science and their abilities in science communication ( 10 ).

Community science literacy and outreach

Science literacy skills are required for everyday decision-making and are often applied by nonscientists. These nontechnical audiences are able to understand scientific evidence using primary literature ( 18 ) and develop interest in science using art ( 3 ). Attitudes toward science and trust in scientists became especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mixter et al. discuss immune literacy at the individual and societal level and call for a system-level change to build this important skill not only in classrooms but also in the community ( 4 ). Service learning and community engagement can help with this effort ( 10 ).

Impacts on learning and assessment in the classroom or the community

By creating students and communities that are more scientifically literate, we can set the table for increased opportunities for these groups to learn and understand science, to translate that knowledge into making positive changes in society, and to potentially join the STEM workforce. Several articles ( 3 , 4 , 7 , 16 ) consider new approaches for using scientific literacy as a vehicle for enhancing student appreciation for specific STEM fields. Other articles focus on ways that instructors can better assess the progress that students are making toward developing both stronger levels of overall scientific literacy and mastery of particular course material ( 8 , 13 ). Finally, when students gain practice in argumentation about authentic ethical issues in research, they are better prepared to collaboratively engage with diverse communities about these challenging issues ( 12 ). There is a dynamic conversation taking place within the scientific education community on ways to translate increases in scientific literacy with gains in overall learning objectives in a variety of STEM disciplines. This conversation promises to continue to evolve best practices for reaching this goal among both traditional students and “citizen scientists” in society.

Inclusive approaches and removal of barriers to scientific information

The scientific community is becoming more cognizant of the need to consider equity and inclusion and incorporate them into strategies for improving scientific literacy in the classroom and across society. This issue explores the use of laboratory course elements as drivers of equity-based STEM education ( 20 ) as well as the development of empathetic communication skills as an effective means of reaching all members of the community regardless of their previous experiences with science and potential exposure to scientific misinformation ( 10 ). Within the classroom, different research groups are exploring how to develop literacy-based assignments that either use unconventional and more accessible means to bring new students into an exploration of science ( 3 , 14 ) or provide learning support tools that make engagement with scientific literature more accessible to all ( 18 ). A society cannot improve its overall level of scientific literacy without finding ways of making scientific knowledge accessible to all of its members, and the work presented in this issue provides a variety of approaches toward this goal.

This issue could not be coming out at a more critical juncture in our society, as the scientific community struggles to find ways to battle both disinformation campaigns about how science is done and presented and the preconceived intimidating notions that many hold about the accessibility of science to the masses. Issues such as climate change, vaccination, and environmental conservation cannot be solved by a scientifically illiterate society. As science continually evolves, so must our understanding of how to best communicate science across ever-changing platforms and audiences. It is our hope that the ideas presented in this issue will inspire both the current scientific community and future generations of scientists and teachers to continually work to make science as accessible, learnable, and exciting as possible to citizens of all ages and backgrounds.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education for advancing this vital scientific literacy conversation and for allowing us the opportunity to help assemble this exciting collection of current work on this topic. We hope that these articles will engender in you the desire to join the conversation and help to keep moving our understanding of best scientific literacy practices forward.

We declare that there are no conflicts of interest with respect to the contents of this article.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal or of ASM.