Evaluation of abilities in interpreting media reports of scientific research

With development of 'scientific literacy' in mind, this study explored earl y secondary school pupils' written evaluations of media reports of contempo rary science research in a classroom setting. Their abilities of evidence e valuation were contrasted with those of people with greater experience of s cience education-college science students and science graduates. The vast m ajority of each of these three groups distinguished between established fac ts and areas of uncertainty in media reports. A similar proportion of pupil s and students (40%) showed logical but limited reasoning in recognizing th e problems of extrapolating from insufficient evidence, with pupils perhaps aided by the pedagogical context. In contrast, 80% of science graduates re asoned logically invoking methodological limitations of the research eviden ce presented. There was little distinction between the nature and extent of pupils' and students' responses, except that only amongst pupils was perso nal experience invoked in reasoning. Results suggest that, at present, only through extensive experience of formal science education do skills of evid ence evaluation develop fully. However, pupils and students exhibit the pot ential for abilities to be developed further through explicit teaching.