supervisor: hannie gijlers
Topic
In today’s society, citizens are increasingly expected to engage with complex socio-scientific issues — real-world problems where scientific knowledge, ethical values, and social considerations are tightly interwoven. Examples include discussions about sustainability, digital technology in education, or the balance between public safety and personal privacy. These issues often involve multiple stakeholders with conflicting interests and require not only factual understanding but also ethical reflection and perspective-taking.
Although these topics may seem advanced, research has shown that even primary school pupils are capable of engaging with such complexity when issues are presented in a meaningful and age-appropriate way. Understanding how children perceive and reason about socio-scientific issues can offer valuable insights into their developing worldview, their sense of fairness, and their emerging civic and scientific literacy. It is especially important to explore how children take into account the viewpoints and interests of different stakeholders (such as classmates, parents, school leaders, companies, or society at large) as this forms the basis for empathy, critical thinking, and responsible decision-making.
However, assessing how children understand these layered issues is not straightforward. Traditional written assessments often fall short in capturing the richness of children’s thinking, especially when it involves complex relationships between people, values, and causes. This thesis explores the use of concept maps as a method to assess primary school pupils' understanding of socio-scientific issues. Concept maps may offer a more open and visual way for children to express what they know, what connections they see, and which perspectives they consider important.
Method
The goal of this study is to develop and test a concept mapping approach that can help researchers and educators gain insight into how children represent and reason about socio-scientific issues. Using age-appropriate examples such as the use of surveillance cameras, in schools, fast fashion, or the introduction of new technologies in the classroom. This study examines whether concept maps can make visible how children think through dilemmas that involve science, ethics, and society.
Potential Research questions
- How do primary school pupils represent their understanding of a socio-scientific issue using concept maps?
- What types of concepts and relationships do pupils include when mapping a socio-scientific issue?