Professional Documents
Culture Documents
To cite this article: David Fortus, Jing Lin, Knut Neumann & Troy D. Sadler (2022) The role of
affect in science literacy for all, International Journal of Science Education, 44:4, 535-555, DOI:
10.1080/09500693.2022.2036384
Introduction
Roberts distinguished in his 2007 handbook chapter between two visions of education for
science literacy that lie at different ends of a continuum of approaches to science edu-
cation (Roberts, 2007). Vision I begins from the canonical products and processes of
science and may then apply these products and processes to make sense of and solve
phenomena, problems and issues. Vision II starts from issues, problems and phenomena
in which science plays an important role, but which also involve non-scientific (econ-
omic, political, etc.) perspectives, and then reaches into science to find how it can help
make sense of these situations. These are situations which students are likely to encounter
and to view as important and relevant to themselves. One the one hand, many national
science education standards, for example in Germany (Sekretariat der Ständigen Konfer-
enz der Kultusminister der Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland [KMK], 2005a,
2005b, 2005c), China (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2011,
2017, 2020), Israel (Israel Ministry of Education, 2014), and the USA (NGSS Lead
States, 2013), adopt a Vision I perspective, specifying the products and the processes
of science and engineering, and leave it to curriculum developers and teachers to
design and present contexts in which to ground and apply these products and processes.1
On the other hand, many of these documents, such as the Framework for K-12 Science
Education (National Research Council, 2012), which in the USA provided the conceptual
underpinnings of the NGSS, used a Vision II perspective to justify why all students
should learn science:
The overarching goal of our framework for K-12 science education is to ensure that by the
end of 12th grade, all students have some appreciation of the beauty and wonder of science
[a cultural argument]; possess sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in
public discussions on related issues [a democratic argument]; Are careful consumers of
scientific and technological information related to their everyday lives [a utility argument];
are able to continue to learn about science outside school; and have the skills to enter careers
of their choice, including (but not limited to) careers in science, engineering, and technology
[an economic argument]. (National Research Council, 2012, p. 1)
Whether they draw upon a Vision I or a Vision II perspective, when closely reading many
national documents such as the NGSS or the Framework, it is apparent that the docu-
ments’ authors focused almost entirely on prescribing the core knowledge and practices
that underlie science literacy and that all students need to develop. Sorely missing is
attention to any affective characteristics that may need to be fostered in parallel to con-
ceptual knowledge and skills. For example, in the Framework there is a section titled Con-
necting to Students’ Interests and Experiences. This section describes the importance of
building off students’ prior interests. Fostering interest in science is undoubtedly impor-
tant in science education (Krapp & Prenzel, 2011). Indeed, since 2006, PISA has also
measured interest in these domains as an outcome variable (Drechsel et al., 2011).
However, the Framework includes no sections that address the importance of promoting
students’ interest in science. Since interest is described in the Framework only as an input
to science education rather than both a desired input and output, it is not surprising that
promoting interest in science is not an educational goal and is not mentioned anywhere
in the NGSS. Self-efficacy or self-concept are not mentioned a single time in the Frame-
work. Confidence is mentioned only twice in a passing manner in that document and
never in the NGSS. The situation is similar in the other national standards documents
with which we are familiar. Why then should teachers engage in instructional practices
that can encourage and support interest or self-efficacy in science unless they believe that
fostering interest or self-efficacy in science may lead to improved learning?
The aim of this position paper is to indicate why affect is so important for the devel-
opment of science literacy, to critique the assumptions underlying many national stan-
dards documents, and to highlight the importance of affect to the continuing learning
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 537
of and engagement with science after compulsory schooling has been completed – the
lifelong learning of science. By affect we mean the emotions and the expressions of
these emotions that influence the way we think about science and about ourselves in
relation to science, the ways in which we actively seek out (or ignore) opportunities to
engage with science. Following (Fortus, 2014), we focus in particular on the following
manifestations of affect: (a) interest in scientific ideas and phenomena, both situational
(Hidi et al., 1992) and individual (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), (b) attitudes towards
science (Osborne, Simon, et al., 2003) and attitudes towards life-long learning of
science (OECD, 2021), (c) self-efficacy (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2006) and self-concept
(Coopersmith & Feldman, 1974) in relation to science, and (d) the motivation to
engage (or disengage) with science, which includes the initiation, direction and mainten-
ance of goal-oriented behaviour (Pintrich & Schunk, 1995). We recognise that there are
other additional manifestations of affect that likely play important roles in shaping the
lifelong learning of science, such as continuing motivation (Fortus & Vedder-Weiss,
2014). Their omission should not be interpreted as indicating their lesser importance,
just that in the arguments that follow they seemed to the authors to play a less prominent
role and so were omitted in order to keep the arguments streamlined.
We are not the first researchers to recognise the importance of affect in learning and
teaching. In a highly cited article, Pintrich, Marx and Boyle (1993) critiqued the ‘coldness’
of contemporary conceptual change models. Since then, researchers have written of the
importance of the ‘warming trend’ in conceptual change research (e.g. Alsop & Watts,
2003; Sinatra, 2005). In spite of these and other later efforts (e.g. Falk et al., 2016; Höft
& Bernholt, 2019), the national standards documents with which we are acquainted still
adopt a ‘cold’ perspective, focusing almost entirely on conceptual outcomes and ignoring
affective outcomes and the role they play in reaching the conceptual outcomes.
We believe that without explicit attention to the promotion of positive affective
characteristics towards science, in standards and in practice, the goal of science literacy
for all will remain unattainable. To do so, in Section I we revisit arguments that have been
presented in the past to justify why science literacy for all is important and demonstrate
how each argument actually suggests the importance of the explicit promotion of various
affective characteristics in relation to science. Then, in Section II, based on the con-
clusions we reach in Section I, we consider the crucial role affect plays in becoming
and remaining a lifelong learner of science.
Academies of Sciences, 2016; Osborne, Collins, et al., 2003; Ryder, 2001) have built off
these five arguments when justifying the importance of promoting science literacy.
The quotation from the Framework presented earlier shows that the authors of this docu-
ment were aware of these arguments when justifying the importance of science education
for all – see the square brackets in the quotation.
In this section we present each of the five arguments – the economic, the utility, the
democratic, the social, and the cultural argument – verbatim, and then consider which
conclusions can be reached from them about the importance of affect in developing
science literacy.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) cautioned that
the lack of skilled scientists and engineers leads to a barrier towards innovation and that
basic levels of education are no longer sufficient in economies which involve continuous
change (OECD, 2000). Improving the leverage of public science, engineering, technology,
and mathematics (STEM) education and its quality are therefore often key concerns in
many countries. As a result, many countries have made the promotion of expertise in
STEM fields an immediate goal, initiating substantial reforms (e.g. National Research
Council, 2012) and investing significant amounts in the promotion of education in
STEM fields (National Science Board, 2018). To be able to monitor the effects of these
efforts, many countries participate in international large-scale assessments such as the
Trends in Science and Mathematics Study (TIMSS) or the Program for International
Student Assessment (PISA).
Since 2000, every three years, PISA evaluates 15-year-olds’ mathematics, science and
reading literacy across all OECD (and some non-OECD) countries. PISA reports stu-
dents’ performance on a scale defined such that the average across all countries is 500
points and the standard deviation is 100 points. The score is meant to represent the effec-
tiveness of the countries’ mathematics, science and reading education and, based on the
belief that economic success depends on a citizenship literate in these areas, predict the
countries’ future economic wellbeing (DeBoer, 2011). And indeed, as shown in Figure 1,2
there is a positive relationship between countries’ PISA scores and their Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) per capita. Taking PISA scores as a proxy for the general scientific knowl-
edge of the school-age population, we conclude that there is a significant correlation
between the scientific knowledge of nations’ adolescents and the nations’ economic
wealth. But is this correlation causal? If there is a causal connection between wealth
and PISA scores, is it not more likely that the wealthier a nation is, the more it invests
in education, better preparing their students to take standardised tests, resulting in
higher PISA scores?
In their book ‘The Knowledge Capital of Nations’, Eric Hanushek and Ludger Wöss-
mann presented a series of studies supporting the assumption that students’ mathematics
and science achievement is predictive of countries’ future economic prosperity
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 539
Figure 1. GDP per capita vs. science PISA scores for 2012.
(Hanushek & Wössmann, 2015). More specifically, Hanushek and Wössmann showed
that countries’ average score in large-scale assessments between the 1960s to 2000s
were significantly correlated with the countries’ average annual growth during that
period of time, even when controlling for countries’ initial GDP per capita. This
finding holds, even when considering students’ average scores between the 1960s and
1980s and annual growth between the 1980s and 2000s – suggesting that these students
have indeed actively contributed to the countries’ economic growth. A more differen-
tiated analyses also showed that this applied to both low and high achieving students.
The authors concluded that a 10 percent increase in all students’ mathematics and
science literacy scores predicted an increase in the annual growth in GDP by .3
percent, while an increase of 10 percent in the scores of the top-performing students pre-
dicted an additional 1.3% annual growth in GDP. This finding is supported by a strong
positive correlation between the number of scientists and engineers that are engaged in
research and development in a country and its economic wealth (The World Bank,
2016a, 2016b). Assuming that scientists and engineers are largely responsible for the gen-
eration of economic wealth (Hanushek & Wössmann, 2015), Figure 2 supports the
OECD’s alarm that the lack of scientists and engineers in many countries may be
leading to a barrier in innovation and economic growth, threatening future prosperity.
For increased test scores to translate into future economic wealth, it is necessary that
many of the students that participate in international large-scale assessments choose to
study STEM subjects at the postsecondary level. However, research shows that it is not
automatic that the students performing at the top-level in mathematics or science
choose to study a STEM subject (Taskinen et al., 2008, 2013). More specifically, there
is no significant effect of students’ science performance on their intent to choose a job
in this field (Taskinen et al., 2008), whereas factors such as students’ enjoyment of
science or self-concept in science have a substantial effect on students’ motivation to con-
tinue studying science (Taskinen et al., 2013). So, the economic argument is less about
how to (further) improve scores in STEM education and more about how to encourage
students to consider STEM professions and how provide them with the underlying
experiences that will allow them to reach sound judgments about the appropriateness
540 D. FORTUS ET AL.
Figure 2. GDP per capita vs. number of scientists and engineers per million people.
of STEM careers for them. This means that until students reach the age at which they are
expected to choose which subject(s) they wish to emphasise in their studies, (for example,
the end of 9th grade in Israel or the beginning of college in the US), an important econ-
omically-driven goal of science education should be to increase students’ interest in
STEM,3 their self-efficacy towards STEM, and their motivation to learn more STEM,4
thus increasing the odds that they will choose to major in STEM and hopefully also con-
tinue on to a STEM-related profession. Before students choose their major, the focus on
conceptual knowledge, skill at engaging in scientific and engineering practices, and
awareness of scientific norms and culture, which lies at the heart of most present day
compulsory science education, has economic importance primarily if it is an engine
for boosting the number of students who choose to major in science; the economic
importance of this focus is much smaller if it has no significant impact on students’
choices. Once students have already chosen their majors, there is economic value in pro-
moting students’ understanding of science primarily if the students are potential STEM
professionals.5
To summarise, the economic goal of science literacy for all is chiefly to maximise the
number of students that choose to specialise in STEM. Therefore, the most important
economic outcome of science education, until the stage where students choose their
majors, are enhanced interest in STEM, a sense of self-efficacy in one’s ability to
engage with STEM, and motivation to continue studying STEM.
The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century is often
described as a time when an understanding of science and technology was, and still is,
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 541
especially important for utilitarian reasons, largely due to massive influx of computer-
based technologies into every aspect of life. It has been claimed that knowledge of
science and technology should allow us to make better decisions and choices on issues
related to our lives, for example: ‘Science, engineering, and the technologies they
influence permeate every aspect of modern life. Indeed, some knowledge of science
and engineering is required to … make informed everyday decisions, such as selecting
among alternative medical treatments or determining how to invest public funds for
water supply options’ (National Research Council, 2012, p. 7). Is this indeed the case?
We take up this question in two ways: first we consider how modern computer technol-
ogy has influenced the extent to which science is actually needed for navigating life in the
twenty-first century. Next we reflect on how people actually use knowledge relative to the
behavioural decisions they make.
think that vaccinations are safe and can prevent illnesses? Or, are the parents, using a
term coined by Noah Feinstein, competent outsiders (Feinstein, 2011), and do they
make their own informed decision? We hope/assume most readers’ opinions lie some-
where between the last two possibilities. In that case, what is the knowledge that the
parents need to be able to reach a reasonably informed choice? Clearly they need to
know about the characteristics of the various pathogens that are present in the environ-
ment, the probability that their child will be exposed to them, the odds that their child
will become sick if exposed, the workings of the immune system, whether their child’s
immune system is compromised and if so in what way, how the various vaccines work
and how they are tested, the potential dangerous side effects involved in taking
various vaccines, why vaccines are given according to certain schedules, possible herd
immunity effects on others, and so on … Many, if not most of these things will not be
taught in K-12 science education because there is not enough time to teach everything
and because new relevant knowledge is being created all the time.
Therefore, to increase the odds that people will draw upon their knowledge when
making decisions, it is crucial that they be lifelong learners, people who actively seek
out information related to the situations they face and try to make sense of it. To
enhance science education’s utilitarian value, it must promote the tendency of people
to become lifelong learners of science. Indeed, the OECD recognised attitudes toward
life-long learning of science as an important component of science literacy and included
items assessing this attitude in PISA (OECD, 2021).
This is reminiscent of the preparation for future learning (PFL) perspective of transfer
(Bransford & Schwartz, 1999), according to which an important measure of the quality of
prior learning is how well it prepares you for future learning. A study by Belenky and
Nokes-Malach (2012) showed that the more students were mastery-goals oriented,7
the more they were likely to engage in PFL-type transfer, meaning the more likely
they were to learn new necessary information and then use it to complete a task.
People who are mastery-goal oriented learn because they have an inner need to under-
stand and develop a sense of competence or of mastery (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus,
2012). Mastery-goal orientation for a topic is strongly related to self-efficacy towards
one’s ability to learn and make sense of the topic (Urdan, 1997). This is because if we
do not believe that we have the ability to understand something, it is unlikely that we
will begin to invest the time and energy needed to develop this understanding.
To summarise: We believe that we should have modest expectations regarding the uti-
litarian value of science literacy, and that to enhance this utilitarian value we need to
focus not only on promoting conceptual knowledge and skills, but also on promoting
students’ mastery orientation towards science, their self-efficacy for autodidactic learning
of science, and their attitudes towards life-long learning of science.
Once again, as with the utility argument, we see that the democratic value of K-12
science education is enhanced if it helps students develop into lifelong learners of
science. Earlier we mentioned the importance of a mastery goal orientation towards
science, of self-efficacy regarding one’s ability to learn new things in science on one’s
own and of positive attitudes towards the lifelong learning of science; we will further
discuss later what we believe is required to be a lifelong learner of science.
To summarise, the democratic argument in favour of science literacy for all leads to
two conclusions: One of the goals of K-12 science education should be to help students
develop knowledge about science alongside their knowledge of science, and a second goal
of K-12 science education should be to develop lifelong learners of science (just like the
utilitarian argument), meaning that it needs to promote a mastery-goal orientation
toward science, self-efficacy for the autodidactic learning of science, and positive atti-
tudes towards lifelong learning.
Our discussion of this argument and of the next one (the cultural argument) is very brief
because the arguments quite clearly align with the point that has already been made –
they are about the need to foster and maintain positive attitudes toward science, not
about the need to develop conceptual understanding of science. The question is
whether it is possible and feasible to promote positive attitudes towards science
without fostering knowledge of and about science.
Whether science is the major achievement of our culture is open to debate. Whose/which
culture are we talking about? But regardless of the outcome of this debate, we doubt that
anyone would argue against science as a major cultural achievement and that everyone
should be able to understand it and appreciate it. We argue that the same is true for
music, art, drama, and many other achievements. Should everybody be required to
learn music, literature and drama throughout K-12 education? Absolutely. Yet in how
many schools, districts and countries are these subjects elective rather than compulsory
like science?
If the goal is to celebrate science as a cultural product, is it important that all students
reach pre-determined levels of competence? Isn’t it just as important to emphasise the
aesthetic side of science, the achievements of science, and the stories of the heroes of
science as it is to help student develop competence at doing science? We believe that
the cultural argument, like the social argument, is about promoting positive attitudes,
546 D. FORTUS ET AL.
Interim summary
A summary of the main conclusions reached in our analysis of the five arguments for
science literacy for all is presented in Table 1: (a) the economic argument – until students
choose in which field to major, the central economic goal of science education is to
encourage students to major in science fields by enhancing their interest in STEM, by
enhancing their self-efficacy towards STEM, and by enhancing their motivation to con-
tinue studying STEM; (b) the utility argument – we should have modest expectations
regarding the utilitarian value of K-12 science education. To enhance its utilitarian
value, K-12 science education should foster the development of the characteristics that
promote lifelong learning – mastery-goal orientation, self-efficacy towards autodidactic
learning, and positive attitudes towards lifelong learning; (c) the democratic argument
– K-12 science education should promote self-efficacy, mastery-goal orientation and
positive attitudes towards lifelong learning; (d) the social argument – promote positive
attitudes towards science and an awareness of the ways in which science has changed
and is changing our lives for the better; and (e) the cultural argument – foster appreci-
ation of science and positive attitudes toward science by emphasising the beauty in
science, the achievements of science, and also the human stories in science.
Note that none of these conclusions address what knowledge and skills students
should have at the end of high school or if it is important that students reach a certain
level of proficiency in science by the end of high school. We do not claim that learning
the products and processes of science is not important, just that we need to expand the
goals that direct our teaching of science to include more than just knowledge and skills.
Since high-stakes testing drives so much of science education in many countries, it is
crucial that national standards and other national policy documents that specify what
is expected of all students, focus not only on desired conceptual outcomes but also expli-
citly specify the desired affective characteristics as well. While knowledge of and about
science are important, the economic, utilitarian, democratic, social and cultural argu-
ments indicate that if (a) a desire to learn about science, (b) a sense of self-efficacy in
one’s ability to learn more science on one’s own and to use this knowledge to make
sense of the world, (c) a mastery orientation towards science, (d) positive attitudes
Table 1. Arguments for science literacy and the affective goals they promote.
Goal 1 Goal 2 Goal 3
Economic Interest in science Science self-efficacy Motivation to continue
studying science
Utility Mastery-goal orientation Self-efficacy towards autodidactic Positive attitudes towards
toward science learning of science lifelong learning
Democratic Science self-efficacy Mastery-goal orientation towards Positive attitudes towards
science lifelong learning
Social Positive attitudes towards Awareness of the ways in which science
science improves lives
Cultural Positive attitudes toward
science
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 547
towards lifelong learning, and (e) positive attitudes toward the scientific enterprise are
not fostered during K-12 schooling, it is unlikely that students will become scientifically
literate and lifelong learners of science.
In section II we now present self-initiated intentional learning (the basis of lifelong
learning) and discuss why the affective characteristics mentioned above are crucial for
the self-initiated intentional learning of science to occur.
skills and accumulating knowledge’ (OECD, 2021, p. 25). Yet most people often do not
engage in self-initiated learning, but instead frequently let these opportunities slip by.
Why? We hypothesise that three conditions must be met for intentionally self-initiated
learning to occur: (a) a situation must trigger one’s awareness that something was or
is not as expected, creating an internal sense of disequilibrium. This can be an eastern
wind in a place where the wind usually comes from the west, a medical test result indi-
cating that your child suffers from cystic fibrosis, or a report by a UN agency that eating
meat is one of the main causes of global pollution; (b) one must feel an inner need to
resolve the disequilibrium created by the discrepant information by understanding
what is going on rather than by ignoring it. As we mentioned earlier, this inner need
is usually ascribed to a mindset referred to as mastery-goal orientation (Ames, 1992;
Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012) or as positive attitudes towards life-long learning
(OECD, 2021); and (c) one should feel efficacious regarding one’s ability to find relevant
new information, make sense of it, and then act on one’s new understandings. These
three conditions are reminiscent of the attitudes that the OECD (2021) identified as
being typical of individuals who tend to engage in lifelong learning: (a) motivation to
gain new knowledge, (b) a sense of personal efficacy, and (c) the ability to research
and evaluate information (Candy, 1991).
A science education that strives to promote intentional self-initiated learning should
therefore focus on helping learners notice discrepant events and information, develop the
inner need to resolve cognitive disequilibria by constructing new learning rather than by
ignoring them, and develop the belief in their ability to find, learn, and make sense of new
information. We claim that the explicit expectations regarding the ways science should be
taught, as reflected by national standards, is off track in many nations because it is not
helping students develop into intentionally self-initiated learners.
We once again refer to the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research
Council, 2012) and the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) from the USA as examples. Both
are policy documents that specify what is important in science education and what stu-
dents should be able to do at the end of different grades. The promotion of self-initiated
lifelong learning of science is clearly a central aim of these documents. Yet, while they
emphasise three conceptual and epistemic forms of knowledge – (A) disciplinary core
ideas, (B) scientific practices, and (C) cross-cutting concepts – not one of the affective
conditions for lifelong learning is explicitly addressed.
While we would be surprised if the authors of these documents objected to the impor-
tance of self-efficacy in science, mastery goal orientation or positive attitudes towards
lifelong learning, we believe that things that are important have to be foregrounded,
one cannot assume that they will develop on their own. That is why policy documents
are written.
Research on self-efficacy (e.g. Bandura, 1982; Dorfman & Fortus, 2019; Usher &
Pajares, 2008) indicates that its development is dependent on four factors: (i) past experi-
ences of success or failure, (ii) vicarious experiences of success or failure through other
individuals, (iii) encouragement or discouragement provided by significant others, and
(iv) psychological states. Past experiences of success or failure in science, that is, the
person’s interpretation of their previous performance on science-related tasks and in
science-related situations, has been repeatedly shown to be the most important contribu-
tor to the development of science self-efficacy (Dorfman & Fortus, 2019). Past science-
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 549
related experiences seen by the individual as successful experiences tend to raise one’s
science self-efficacy, while unsuccessful ones lower it (Usher & Pajares, 2008). Thus,
we need to provide students with plentiful opportunities to experience success in learning
science on their own and in using their new science knowledge to make sense of situ-
ations. The development of science self-efficacy appears to be dependent upon the way
science is taught, not on which or how much science content is taught.
Mastery-goal oriented people tend to accept challenges, persist, exert effort, self-regu-
late their learning processes, and retain information over the long term. Mastery orien-
tation in science develops (for better or for worse) as students interpret what they
perceive to be the intentions and goals of their surroundings and adapt their own
goals to be more in line with those of their environment (Fortus & Touitou, 2021),
with different environmental factors, such as parents and teachers, having different
levels of influence on the students’ mastery goal orientations at different stages in their
lives (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2013). Like self-efficacy, the development of a mastery
orientation appears also to be less dependent on which specific content knowledge
and practices are being taught and more on the way science is taught, and the individual’s
interpretation of the expectations of their parents, teachers, peers and school (Vedder-
Weiss & Fortus, 2013).
One of the authors recently went on a hike with a friend who is an earth science edu-
cator. The science educator kept on pointing out things that the author had seen, but not
noticed, such as unusual rock formations and fossilised mollusks. The ability to notice
discrepant events or patterns is dependent on prior knowledge and experiences (Brans-
ford & Schwartz, 1999; Broudy, 1977). Therefore, the learning of science content and
practices should have a positive effect on people’s ability to notice and identify situations
that can become triggers for further learning.
The NGSS and the other national standards documents with which we are acquainted
promote only one of the three conditions for self-initiated learning (i.e. the propensity to
recognise new opportunities to learn). If the affective conditions are not supported as
well, it is unlikely that the present generation of students will become lifelong learners
of science. There is a broad research base that demonstrates the importance of the
affective domain, but many national standards have ignored this research base.
Without promoting affect towards science, it is unlikely that students will develop the
capacity for lifelong learning of science, and without this capacity, the ability of citizens
to use science in reaching decisions and guiding their lives and in being active partici-
pants in public debates on socio-scientific issues, two of the main reasons given for
the importance of science literacy for all, will be too under-developed to be useful.
Some readers may have reached the impression that we think that the learning of
science content and practices in K-12 classes is inconsequential and unnecessary. That
is not at all the case. The learning of science and about science in K-12 classes is impor-
tant. But when knowledge of science is not combined with affective characteristics such
as a mastery orientation towards science, interest in science, self-efficacy regarding one’s
ability to learn science, and positive attitudes towards life-long learning of science, it is
not used and re-used and will likely fade away (Healy & Sinclair, 1996). It will not
lead to science literacy. We think that a new balance between cognitive outcomes and
affective outcomes needs to be struck (Fortus, 2014), with more recognition by the stan-
dards documents of the broad research base indicating the importance of the affective
550 D. FORTUS ET AL.
domain (e.g. Alsop & Watts, 2003; Fortus, 2014; Kayumova & Tippins, 2016; Krapp &
Prenzel, 2011; OECD, 2021; Osborne, Simon, et al., 2003; Taskinen et al., 2013),
leading to a greater emphasis on the affective aspects of learning science than they
have traditionally received in classroom instruction and in policy documents. We are
not the first researchers who have identified the need to integrate conceptual and
affective goals in science education and the challenges of including affective elements
in assessments of science learning (e.g. Falk et al., 2016; Höft & Bernholt, 2019; Kayu-
mova & Tippins, 2016; Krapp & Prenzel, 2011; Shepard et al., 2018).
We are well aware that the development and revision of standards are complex pro-
cesses involving numerous stakeholders. The policy documents that emerge from these
processes are consensus documents and, as such, will never represent perfect solutions.
We recognise these limitations and are not suggesting that the incorporation of affective
goals into science education policy will create a quick fix for widespread scientific lit-
eracy. However, by omitting affective goals, the current wave of policy documents
creates significant barriers to enacting a vision of science education that has any
chance advancing lifelong learning and scientific literacy. There will come a time, we
would argue in the not-too-distant future, when the policy documents guiding current
science teaching, learning, and assessment will be seriously reconsidered, revised, or
replaced. With this position paper, we are calling on the community of science educators
and researchers to be prepared for this moment through the necessary incorporation of
affective goals in science education.
Affective characteristics are not just things that instruction can and should build on;
they (or the lack of them) are also outcomes of instruction. As Plutarch wrote, ‘for the
mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting’ (Waterfield,
1992). Until affective goals are explicitly highlighted and delineated by standards docu-
ments as one of the expected outcomes of science education, it is unlikely that they will be
emphasised in many science teachers’ practice.
Notes
1. From here onwards we will use USA documents (the Next Generation Science Standards
[NGSS], the Framework for K-12 Science Education) for all our examples, primarily
because they are in English, although in principle documents from other countries could
have been used as well.
2. Three outliers were removed from the graph – Qatar, Norway and Liechtenstein – having
extremely high GDP per capita as a result of natural resources (Qatar and Norway) or a
very low population (Liechtenstein).
3. As mentioned earlier, recognising interest as a component of science literacy, PISA began
assessing students’ interest in 2006 (Krapp & Prenzel, 2011) by embedding interest items
in the conceptual sections of the test (Drechsel et al., 2011).
4. ‘Interest refers to either (a) the psychological state of being engaged or the inclination to
reengage with particular classes of objects, events, or ideas over time (Hidi & Renninger,
2006), which is often called individual interest or (b) situational interest which is a state
of heightened awareness that is prompted by particular features of the environment (Hidi
et al., 1992) … Self-efficacy is a competence belief. Self-efficacy is an expectancy about
one’s capabilities to learn or perform a given task (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2006) … Motiv-
ation is the process that initiates, directs and maintains goal-oriented behaviours (Pintrich
& Schunk, 1995). Interest pulls you or is the state of being pulled toward an object, idea, or
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 551
event; it influences the direction in which you may act. On the other hand, motivation is
what pushes you away from where you are and causes you to act, though it too can
influence direction’ (Fortus, 2014).
5. A possible indirect economic justification for teaching science to non-STEM majors is that
enhancing their appreciation for science may bolster their support for continued STEM
research and development – see the section on the social argument for STEM for all.
6. ‘A man who doesn’t read has no advantage over a man who can’t read’ (Ward & Duncan,
2001).
7. ‘Goal orientation theory focuses on … the reasons why individuals engage in learning activi-
ties. The theory distinguishes between two main goal orientations: mastery goals orientation
and performance goals orientation. Mastery-oriented individuals strive to develop compe-
tence in order to achieve a sense of mastery; they learn because they want to understand …
Performance-oriented individuals strive to demonstrate competence and are therefore con-
cerned with others’ perceptions of their competence and with their ability relative to others’
(Fortus, 2015).
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Alliance for Improving Scientific Literacy for all (AISL) at Beijing
Normal University for bringing the authors together and providing us with an environment that
supported the preparation of this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The preparation of this manuscript was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China [grant number 62077008].
ORCID
David Fortus http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6157-4505
Jing Lin http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3721-710X
Knut Neumann http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4391-7308
Troy D. Sadler http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9401-0300
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