Open AccessScience Education: Defining the Scientifically Literate Person
Author(s) -
Poh Lay Tan
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
sfu educational review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1916-050X
DOI - 10.21810/sfuer.v9i.307
Subject(s) - scientific literacy , literacy , context (archaeology) , perspective (graphical) , nature of science , science education , information literacy , epistemology , sociology , engineering ethics , mathematics education , pedagogy , psychology , computer science , engineering , history , philosophy , archaeology , artificial intelligence
Science literacy and scientific literacy are terms that have been used synonymously in the field of science education. Although many published papers and resources used them interchangeably, there are scholars who place the notion of science literacy and scientific literacy on opposite ends of the literacy spectrum. In this context, science literacy refers to one who understands the concepts, content and methods in science and in contrast, scientific literacy refers to one who, in addition to content knowledge, applies the process of science and frequently reflects on his/her actions from a scientific perspective and, more importantly, holistically evaluates and questions scientific facts from different perspectives.