Teachers’ approaches to genetics teaching mirror their perceptions of teaching controversial, societal and sensitive issues

Abstract

The skills required to understand genetic phenomena and transfer knowledge to real world situations are an important part of 21st century scientific literacy. While socio-scientific issues (SSI) are increasingly emphasised in science curricula, teachers have low interest in adopting SSI in teaching. Little is known about how teachers choose content for their teaching, although this process translates curricula to teaching practice. We explored how teachers choose content and contexts for biology courses on cells, heredity, and biotechnology by interviewing ten Finnish upper-secondary school teachers. We studied how the teachers described teaching on genetically modified organisms, hereditary disorders, and human traits. Teachers perceptions on genetics teaching were classified to Developmental, Structural and Hereditary approaches. The approaches were connected not only to the teachers perceptions of the more important content, but also teacher inclinations towards teaching genetics in the human context and perceptions of students interest in different topics. Teachers justified their choices by national, local school, and teachers personal-level factors. While teachers mentioned that SSI are important, they were never mentioned among the important contexts. Nevertheless, some teachers embraced teaching genetics in the human context while others avoided them. Teachers justified their avoidance for personal and pedagogical factors, such as their competence in dealing with these contexts. Experience played a part in the approach that teachers had, and contrary to the results of previous research, the less experienced teachers were more open to discussing human genetics. We conclude that curriculum development is important to encourage teachers to adopt more SSI-oriented teaching. Disclosure statementTuomas Aivelo has participated in writing biology textbooks for upper-secondary school biology for eOppi Oy. None of the teachers involved in this study used biology textbooks from eOppi Oy.