Teaching science & technology: components of scientific literacy and insight into the steps of research
Mateja Ploj Virtič
Abstract
Trust in science is indispensable and very important for the development of global health, and can certainly be gained by developing the scientific literacy of the whole population. The article presents various definitions of scientific literacy and seeks its connections to science education. It further explores the progress in developing scientific research skills among university students. The students participated in a one-week seminar and workshop on scientific literacy and were given an assignment. Using the pretest and posttest, we assessed students' development of scientific research skills, specifically the following procedural skills in scientific research: (a) a student poses high-quality research questions; (b) a student formulates a scientifically testable hypothesis(es) that includes a dependent and an independent variable; and (c) a student designs the experiment. The results show that the students' procedural knowledge of scientific research has improved in relation to the areas covered. The experiment showed no statistically significant difference in procedural knowledge in scientific research between undergraduate and postgraduate students. Scientific activities, properly integrated into the educational process, have great potential at all levels of education to improve the scientific literacy of the entire population.