Limitation of the Review Study
Even though Science, Technology and Society (STS),
Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) and Context-Based Curricula
include contexts, their principal focuses are varied. In other
words, STS mainly means interrelated use of science and
technology as a context for society, and emphasizes the
importance of providing a real world context for under-standing societal issues using scientific knowledge (e.g.
Sanger and Greenbowe1996; King2009). In brief, the STS
approach prioritizes the social significance of science
(Deboer 1991) and interrelationship amongst science,
technology and society (e.g. Zeidler et al. 2005). Because
the STS approach does not consider the psychological and
epistemological growth of the child, the ethical dimensions
of science, the moral reasoning of the child, nor the emotional development of the student (e.g. Sadler2004;
Zeidler et al.2005), the socio-scientific issues driven sci-ence education pays more attention to these issues. Bennett
et al. (2002) pointed out the difference between STS and
context-based courses: ‘‘It is worth noting that the Salters
courses (a type of context-based courses) are quite different
from a number of other courses which might also be
described as ‘science through STS content’ in that they also
had to meet externally imposed national specifications of
curriculum content. Thus, decisions made about course
content and structure related to when and how particular
science ideas might be introduced, and not if they should
be included.’’ (p. 15)