Intellectual humility – an important content-transcendent goal for science education

Many arguments for learning science often emphasize content transcendent goals, such as preparing students to become ‘critical consumers’ of scientific claims. These goals are not dependent on any specific content and persist long after specific content knowledge has been forgotten. In this essay, we argue that intellectual humility (IH) should be one unifying, content-transcendent goal for science education. We begin by making the case for the importance of intellectual humility in the teaching and learning of school science. To do so, we draw on evidence which shows the benefits of this character trait, especially in an information context predominated by the internet, social media, and AI. We then examine several contemporary pedagogical activities, such as fostering awe and wonder, engaging students in argumentation, exploring uncertainty, investigating socioscientific issues, and developing science media literacy to show how science education might contribute to the development of students’ intellectual humility. In doing so, we make the case for why developing intellectual humility should be an explicit content-transcendent goal for K-12 science curricula.