Paper Title
The Improvement of Grade Six Students’ Socio-Scientific Decision-Making in The Establishment of Petrochemical Industry

Abstract
Careful and thoughtful making decision on socio-scientific issues is important for the citizen to resolve controversy. Therefore, fostering students’ decision-making abilitiesis regarded as a crucial goal in science education nowadays. The purpose of this study was to improve grade six students’ decision-making abilitiesin the instructional context ofthe establishment of petrochemical industry, in which we put emphasis on training students to develop and apply criteria for selecting solutions to make decision. The study adopted quasi-experimental design. The experimental group I (N=30) received the decision-making instruction, and the experimental group II (N=35) received the decision-making instruction with deep reflection on the whole process of their decision. The instruction related to the socio-scientific context of establishment of petrochemical industry last seven hours. One questionnairewas developed to collect data. It consisted of one context regarding the controversies—the expansion of petrochemical industry in Yunlin in Taiwan, and five questions whichwere asked for students to make decision on whether or not they agree the expansion of petrochemical industry in Yunlin.The questionnaire was administered before and after the instruction. Results showed that there were statistically significant improvements in decision-making abilities in both groups after teaching intervention. The experimental II outperformed the experimental I in total scores of making decision, andin sub-abilities of making decision--formulating solutions, making criteria, assessing each solution in terms of criteria, andreflect the whole process of making decision. The implication of decision-making instruction, curriculum design and learning transfer were discussed. Index terms - Decision-making ability, Reflection, Socio-scientific issues