Özet:

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effects of science education based on socioscientific issues (SSI) through the constructivist approach to attitudes towards SSI, scientific reasoning and reflective thinking skills of 7th grade students. In the study, a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design with control group was used. The study was conducted by participation of 51 7th grade students in the academic year of 2016-2017. The sample of the study is determined through the selection of convenient sample. In the process of application, both experimental and control groups' lessons were planned according to the 5E learning model in the manner that includes many learning-teaching methods and techniques based on constructivist approach. On the other hand, Pollution of River Ergene, Utilization of Food Additive and Lake Gala National Park issues in the context of SSI were integrated into chemical industry biodiversity topics for the experimental group, whereas lessons were processed without underlining SSI in the control group. The Attitudes towards Socioscientific Issues Scale (ATSIS), Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (CTRS), and reflective thinking scale (RTS) were employed to collect data. Statistical analysis of data was performed by using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis techniques through the SPSS program. After determining that the necessary assumptions were met for the ANCOVA analysis, ANCOVA technique was used. According to ANCOVA results, a significant difference was found between the ATSIS posttest scores of the experimental and control groups in favour of the experimental group. However, there was no statistically significant difference between CTRS and RTS posttest scores of the experimental and control groups.

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