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The Value of Science Education in an Age of Misinformation

Daiki Nakamura
September 07, 2023

The Value of Science Education in an Age of Misinformation

The 6th ESIC - Educational Sciences International Conference

Daiki Nakamura

September 07, 2023
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  1. The Value of Science Education
    in an Age of Misinformation
    Daiki Nakamura
    University of Miyazaki, Japan
    E-mail: [email protected]
    The 6th ESIC
    Educational Sciences International Conference

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  2. Traditional Paradigm of Science Education 2
    Scientific
    Literacy
    Contents
    Knowledge
    Process
    Skills
    (Scientific
    Reasoning)
    Attitude
    Toward
    Science
    In the future...
    • Understanding of social issues
    involving science
    • Use scientific knowledge to make
    decisions
     Developing scientific literacy is an important goal of science education

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  3. Failure of Traditional Science Education and Social Change 3
     Failure of Traditional Science Education
    • Only 28% of citizens have the scientific knowledge necessary to read
    articles in the science section of the New York Times. (Miller, 2010)
     Science education does not provide enough knowledge to understand
    articles about science.
    • While traditional science education teaches the methods of inquiry of
    individual scientists, but it has not taught the social functioning of groups of
    scientists.
     Recent Social Changes
    • Social issues that involve science have become increasingly complex and
    challenging.
    • Social media is replacing newspapers with a flood of misinformation.
    • Misinformation is spreading and trust in science is being lost.

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  4. Number of People Using Social Media Platforms, 2004 to 2018 4
    • Today, young people get more information from YouTube and TikTok than from traditional media
    (Pew Research Center, 2021)

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  5. Percentage of Young People Engaging in SNS, 2014 5

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  6. Misinformation in Social Media 6
    Weiss, A. P., Alwan, A., Garcia, E. P., & Garcia, J. (2020). Surveying fake news: Assessing university faculty’s fragmented
    definition of fake news and its impact on teaching critical thinking. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 16, 1-30.

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  7. Comparison of Two Types of Media 7
    Correct Information
    Misinformation
    Traditional Media
    (ex. newspaper)
    Citizen receiving information
    Gatekeepers
    • Reporter
    • Expert
    • Scientist
    Blocking
    Social Media
    (ex. Facebook)
    Correct Information
    Misinformation
    Experts and
    Non-Experts
    All Yes
    ?
    Recipients and
    disseminators
    of information
     Traditional media, various experts played the role of gatekeepers.
     Social media, there are no gatekeepers, so misinformation is spread. Echo chamber effect

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  8. How Should Science Education Approach the Age of Misinformation? 8
     Four Assumptions
    • Science on social issues requires advanced knowledge (ex., climate change)
    • We live in a complex society that depends on the expertise of others
    • It is difficult to learn everything in depth in a limited school science time
    • We cannot be experts in everything.
     Three Strategies: Learn about the reliability of science
     Learn how to judge the reliability of information sources
     Learn the nature of science
     Learn how to justify scientific knowledge (epistemology)
     Examples of decisions related to climate change
    • Many people believe in the existence of climate change, although they cannot understand
    expert reports on climate change.
    • This is because they understand the reliability of the sources of information and the process of
    legitimizing knowledge through peer review and consensus among many scientists.
    What is important is not content knowledge,
    but knowledge about its reliability.

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  9. Extension of Science Education 9
    Experiments and Observations
    Composition of Arguments
    Data Analysis
    Peer Review of Papers
    Discussion and Self-Correction
    Accumulation of Evidence
    Consensus Formation
    Publication in Science Textbooks
    (School science contents knowledge)


    Traditional
    Science Education
    New
    Science Education
    • Science Content
    • Scientific Methods
    • How Science Works

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  10. PISA 2025 Science Framework 10
    New
    https://pisa-framework.oecd.org/science-2025/

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  11. An Example of Learning about the Reliability of Science
    11

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  12. Decision tree for evaluating scientific information 12
    Osborne, J., & Pimentel, D. (2023). Science education in an age of
    misinformation. Science Education, 107(3), 553-571.

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  13. Examples of Question 13
    You are trying to find information on how smoking affects the lungs.
    Which of the following sources is the most reliable?
    Choose your answer.
    A) A blog post by a smoker
    B) A book written by a surgeon
    C) A non-peer-reviewed report written by a pulmonologist
    D) A research paper conducted by a pulmonologist funded by a tobacco company
    E) A peer-reviewed research paper conducted by a pulmonologist funded by the government

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  14. Learn the Nature of Science 14
     Key Aspects of NOS (McComas, 2020)  Science as a cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional
    system (Erduran & Dagher 2014)
    Consensus View Approach Family Resemblance Approach

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  15. History of Science and NOS Instruction 15
    • Learn about NOS through selected episodes in the history of science.
    • Reading the history of science is a great way to learn not only what science is
    about, but also how it works.
     Ex. Kekule's ingenious solution to the structure of benzene → creativity in science
    Clough (2011) The story behind the science
    https://www.storybehindthescience.org/

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  16. Examples of Question 16
    Scientist X published a paper on his research results on weather forecasting, but the
    paper contained errors.
    What will this paper cause later?
    Please select the most appropriate answer from the following options.
    A) Many scientists trust the papers, so they do not realize the mistakes and the wrong
    perceptions are spread.
    B) Papers that have been published for a long time will not be affected because errors
    will not be corrected even if they are found.
    C) Other studies based on the erroneous paper are also reviewed for errors.
    D) The number of studies on predicting the weather will decrease because pointing out
    error in papers will lead to a setback for the field.

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  17. Conclusion 17
    Scientific
    Competencies
    Contents
    Knowledge
    Process Skills
    (Scientific
    Reasoning)
    Attitude
    Toward
    Science
    Understanding
    of NOS and
    Epistemology
    Media Literacy
    • With the development of social media, learners are exposed to a lot
    of misinformation.
    • It is necessary to learn about the production process of science and
    its reliability than about the products of science.
    • Media literacy and an understanding of the nature of science and
    epistemology should be added to the goals of science education.
    • Improving the ability to assess the reliability of scientific information
    is an important value of science education in an age of
    misinformation.

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  18. Reference 18
    • Clough, M. P. (2011). The story behind the science: Bringing science and scientists to life in
    postsecondary science education. Science & Education, 20(7–8), 701–717.
    • Erduran, S., Dagher, Z.R. (2014). Reconceptualizing Nature of Science for Science Education. In:
    Reconceptualizing the Nature of Science for Science Education. Contemporary Trends and Issues in
    Science Education, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht.
    • Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2019) - "The rise of social media". Published online at OurWorldInData.org.
    Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media' [Online Resource]
    • McComas W.F. (2020) Principal Elements of Nature of Science: Informing Science Teaching while
    Dispelling the Myths. In: McComas W. (Eds.) Nature of Science in Science Instruction. Science:
    Philosophy, History and Education. Springer, Cham.
    • Miller, J. D. (2010). Adult science learning in the Internet era. Curator. The Museum Journal, 53, 191–
    208.
    • Osborne, J., & Pimentel, D. (2023). Science education in an age of misinformation. Science Education,
    107(3), 553-571.
    • Pew Research Center. (2021). Social media use in 2021.
    • Weiss, A. P., Alwan, A., Garcia, E. P., & Garcia, J. (2020). Surveying fake news: Assessing university
    faculty’s fragmented definition of fake news and its impact on teaching critical thinking. International
    Journal for Educational Integrity, 16, 1-30.

    View Slide