The STS outlook profiles of Israeli high‐school students and their teachers

The contemporary STS outlook profiles of both 11th grade students and their teachers in the existing science, non‐science and technological tracks in Israeli high schools were established in terms of three categories: views/positions (1), beliefs/attitudes (2), and literacy (3). In this ‘ex post‐facto'‐type study we have found that: (a) there are significant differences between the STS outlook profiles of the three trends in both categories (2) and (3) but not in (1); (b) there are differences between the STS outlook profiles of the students and their teachers in categories (1) and (2) but not in (3); and, (c) there are some minor differences between the STS response profiles of science and non‐science teachers (in category 2 only). These findings confirm our predictions, which were based on our previous studies. They suggest that a special effort in the ‘STS literacy’ domain should be made within both student STS teaching and teacher‐training programmes.