Elementary School Teachers' Ethical Sensitivity on Socio-scientific Issues

As curriculum statements require addressing ethical and social issues which are raised by modern science and technology, the ability to perceive ethical and social issues regarding science is necessary for teachers to introduce socio-scientific issues (SSI) in their science class. The purpose of this study is to explore elementary school teachers' ethical sensitivity on SSI and attempts to give implications for teacher education. To explore the ethical sensitivity in the context of SSI, the revised version of the Test for Ethical Sensitivity on Science (TESS) was used. Two socio-scientific issues (genetic engineering and radioactive waste) were provided to read and write down five possible questions they believed should be considered before reaching a decision. Data was collected from eighty-two elementary school teachers in Korea. To analyze the ethical sensitivity, the responses including ethical considerations were analyzed by situation and ethical issues. The result showed that 81 out of 82 teacher participants provided at least more than one ethical consideration on each scenario of this study. However, not many teacher could raise various ethical issues and situation that ethical issue might occur. There were only a few teaches who could consider all the situations, 'process of scientific research', 'application of science and technology', and 'science influenced by society', that ethical issues might occur. Especially, teachers failed to consider that the ethical issue can occur in the situation when science is influenced by society. Based on the results, we suggest that during teacher education teachers need to experience finding various ethical issues that can occur in the context of SSI and especially considering the ethical issues when science is influenced by society.