By Yaela Golumbic, Keren Dalyot, Yael Barel Ben-David and Melanie Keller.
Here is a
scenario some of you might find familiar:
You decide
it's time to promote your physical health, start eating more healthy foods and
maybe even lose some weight. You look online for the best scientifically proven
diet, and what do you find? A mix of contradicting statements and suggestions,
all promising they are the best way to go.
This scenario is the basis for the "everyday science reasoning scale"; a scale developed to measure people's ability to reason with science in daily life.
Why is it important to measure scientific reasoning?
Science is
all around us. Whether we choose to or not, we encounter
science in numerous daily situations and are expected to make decisions on
issues such as health, nutrition, vaccination and more. Making informed decisions requires some
familiarity with the scientific concepts used while conducting scientific
research and which are fundamental in inferring scientific findings and drawing
conclusions.
For example, the connection between cause and effect (causality) is an important concept in determining the influence of one element over another. Causality is often confused with 'correlation' which describes relationships between elements, but not necessarily causal ones. Relationships between two variables that appear to be causal but are not are termed 'spurious correlations'. Many humorous websites were built on this premise, presenting correlations – but not causation - between ice cream consumption and murder/ putting on a seat belt and odds of space accidents, and many more… (if you are a fan, we recommend googling the term "spurious correlations"). But in fact, confusing these terms is problematic and may lead to misinterpretation of scientific findings, resulting for example, in choosing an inappropriate dietary plan.
In order to investigate how non-scientists
understand and use science in everyday life, we gathered 11 scientific concepts,
common in scientific practice, which knowing them and their meaning can support
our everyday decision-making.
Back
to the "everyday science reasoning scale"
In our study
published recently in Public Understanding of Science, we describe the
development, validation and use of the everyday science reasoning scale. Using
scenarios from people's daily life, the tool meets people where they are at, streamlining the
process of understanding scientific concepts.
We have
found education to be a central enabler of scientific reasoning, and as
education level progressed from K–12 to tertiary (higher) education, scientific
reasoning also increased among respondents of the study. This was regardless of
the respondent's area of study and whether their degree was scientific or not. In other
words, science reasoning seems to be developed through exposure to academia rather than within school environments.
These
results have positive propositions as to scientific reasoning skills of people
from varying fields of education. At the same time, they suggest K–12 education
has been insufficient in supporting students to develop important scientific
reasoning skills. As formal school education aims to provide students opportunities
to develop the knowledge and skills they need to live in today's contemporary, scientifically
induced world, some reflection is necessary as to the methods and processes needed
to achieve this goal.
Read the original article: Establishing an everyday scientific reasoning scale to learn how non-scientists reason with science.
Find practical tips and tools for the everyday science reasoning scale in your research on the everyday science reasoning scale webpage.
Dr. Keren Dalyot is a senior research associate at the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on how publics engage with socio-scientific issues in different platforms and how we can cultivate in youth interest in socio-scientific issues.
Dr. Yael Barel-Ben David is the director of the Citizen Lab – a hub for citizen science and science communication aiming to bring science and communities closer together. Her research interests include science, risk and health communication.
Dr. Melanie Keller is a postdoctoral researcher at IPN - Leibniz-Institute for Science and Mathematics Education in Kiel, Germany. Her research focuses on emotional processes in science education and science communication.