Designed to help educators address science-related social issues, this publication considers: (1) major challenges associated with science-related social issues; (2) the extent to which these challenges are being met; (3) ways in which educators can improve the education of citizens in science, technology, and social issues; and (4) promising practices that can contribute to building connections between social studies and science curricula. Three challenges outlined in the first of five sections include: (1) informing citizens about complex social issues and decisions, (...) (2) connecting diverse fields of knowledge in school curricula, and (3) resisting antagonists of science and technology. In order to determine the extent to which these challenges are currently being met, the second section examines: goal statements in curriculum reports and major reports in the social studies and the sciences; research findings on student knowledge and attitudes regarding science, technology, and society; and analyses of current curricula and textbooks. The third section describes ways in which "integrative threads" can be used to provide common learning experiences within and between distinct courses in the social studies and sciences. The fourth section presents promising practices that can contribute to this building of connections between social studies and science curricula; the use of "decision trees" and case studies, the use of role play and simulation, and the use of instructional television and microcomputers. Concluding observations in the final section and a bibliography listing over 170 publications conclude the document. (LH). (shrink)

In some practical uncertain situations decision makers are presented with described events that are out of sequence when having to make a causal attribution. A theoretical perspective concerning the causal coherence of the explanation is developed to predict the effect of this on causal attribution. Three experiments investigated the effect on causal judgement when the described order of events did not correspond to their causal order. Participants had to judge the relative probability of two possible causes of an outcome in (...) scenarios in which presentation order varied. All three experiments found that there was a preference to judge that the cause associated with events described in causal order was more responsible for the outcome when events associated with one cause were interleaved in their presentation order with those from a second cause. This occurred when there was a strong causal relationship between events. The results were consistent with the causal coherence explanation. (shrink)