During the work with SSI, students considered the interesting and relevant cases, especially the girls.
Almost all students claimed that they have learnt new facts during the work. The more interesting they found
the case, the more they claimed they have learnt. The students reported that they learnt to argue for their
standpoint and search for and scrutinize information. The principal component analysis shows that SSI work
forms are important for explaining outcomes, with functioning group work and discussions being especially
important. The work forms did not differ much between the cases and were quite similar to what they were
used to in regular teaching. One difference is that most classes exclude laboratory exercises when working with
SSI. The students considered the assignments easy to solve. They did not find it difficult to search for
information, mostly from Internet, about the cases. Very few students were interested in doing more SSI
assignments, and 25% of them reported enhanced interests in science. On the other hand, students from
multicultural schools express a higher interest in working with SSI compared with their normal science class.
These students do not relate SSI to the public debate as much as those from mono-cultural schools, neither do
they use Internet as much in their work with SSI. The students in the multi-cultural schools found the
discussions interesting, and that their opinions were considered important by their peers. Given this, it was
somewhat surprising that they also found the lack of single correct answers that is inherent in SSI: frustrating.