New Perspectives in Science Education

The purpose of this study was to explore how the research-based science news regarding medical treatment were presented in the internet news agencies and the elements of scientific inquiries and uncertainties were chosen for this content analysis. A total number of 115 articles from four Taiwan local daily cyber science news were collected for analysis. The analysis showed that “Results”, “Experiment” and “phenomenon” were the three most common elements appeared (29% for results, 14.5% for experiment and 13.9% for phenomenon) in these texts. The other element related to scientific inquiries such as hypothesis, theory, model and evidence were not evident as expected. Furthermore, the uncertainty features of science, such as range limits, definitions, variables, process, measurement, inferences and risks were scarcely indicated for potential audiences. Nevertheless, there were still about 70% of the statements appeared were causal assertions and suggestions to the general publics. Considering the attainment of a scientifically literate society and citizenship, these results may provide some implications for science education and science communication and the related reflections will be discussed during the conference.

Keywords: Content analysis, Science news, Scientific Inquiry;