the last half century, public awareness of issues such as population growth,
environmental pollution and the threat of nuclear war has pressured science education to
reform to increase student social responsibility. The emerging Science-Technology-
Society (STS) movement addressed these concerns by developing numerous strategies
and curricula. Considerable diagnostic research has been conducted on student
knowledge of the nature of science, but not on the wider scope of STS content (e.g., the
nature of science and technology and their interactions with society). However,
researchers have not widely studied the impact of comprehensive STS curricula on
students’ knowledge o f STS content nor the nature o f STS teaching practice that
influenced this knowledge gain.