This study investigated undergraduate students' knowledge, argumentation skills and the relationship between them in the context of a socio-scientific issue-Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Eighty undergraduate students were categorized into two groups: biology majors and non-biology majors. Two open-ended questionnaires were respectively used to evaluate students' argumentation skills and to measure their understanding of three kinds of GMO knowledge-ontological, epistemological and situational knowledge. The results revealed that biology majors scored significantly higher than non-biology majors in ontological knowledge, epistemological knowledge, situational knowledge and in overall knowledge (p<.001). Biology majors broadly performed significantly better than non-biology majors on argumentation quality (p<.05). A significantly positive correlation exists between the students' argumentation skills and their respective scores on ontological knowledge, situational knowledge and overall knowledge (r=.21-.27, p<.05). The educational implications for improving university students' knowledge about GMO issues and argumentation skills were discussed.
大學生 ; 社會性科學議題 ; 知識 ; 基因改造作物 ; 論證
University Students ; Socio-Scientific Issues ; Knowledge in Science ; Genetically Modified Organisms ; Argumentation