Abstract
The goal of science education largely remains to continue promoting science literacy within our societies, which includes equipping learners with the skills to evaluate and debate scientific issues and processes critically, along with the reasoning skills vital to making informed decisions. Accordingly, Socioscientific Issues (SSIs) have the potential to serve an important catalytic role in the acquisition of science literacy within the framework of science education. The theory of evolution is a topic embedded with SSIs and, if adequately addressed in the Life Sciences classrooms, can increase learners’ levels of science literacy. Research in South Africa on the theory of evolution has mainly focused on pre- and in-service teachers’ understanding and acceptance of the theory of evolution, as well as the challenges faced when teaching the topic in the classroom. What is absent from the literature is teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) regarding the topic of evolution. The study presupposes that by integrating and addressing SSIs when teaching the theory of evolution, learners will engage with concepts of evolution meaningfully. PCK is the knowledge base that enables teachers to present and transform the content of the subject in order to make it comprehensible to learners (Shulman, 1986)...
M.Ed. (Science and Technology Education)