Socioscientific Decision Making in the Science Classroom: The Effect of Embedded Metacognitive Instructions on Students' Learning Outcomes

e purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of cooperative training strategies to enhance students’ socioscienti􀄕c decision making as well as their metacognitive skills in the science classroom. Socioscienti􀄕c decision making refers to both 􀁩describing socioscienti􀄕c issues􀁷 as well as 􀁩developing and evaluating solutions􀁷 to socioscienti􀄕c issues. We investigated two cooperative training strategies which differed with respect to embedded metacognitive instructions that were developed on the basis of the IMPROVE method. Participants were 360 senior high school students who studied either in a cooperative learning setting (COOP), a cooperative learning setting with embedded metacognitive questions (COOP+META), or a nontreatment control group. Results indicate that students in the two training conditions outperformed students in the control group on both processes of socioscienti􀄕c decision making. However, students in the COOP+META condition did not outperform students in the COOP condition. With respect to students’ learning outcomes on the regulation facet of metacognition, results indicate that all conditions improved over time. Students in the COOP+META condition exhibited highest mean scores at posttest measures, but again, results were not signi􀄕cant. Implications for integrating metacognitive instructions into science classrooms are discussed.