Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

5 Science Literacy for Individuals
Pages 85-104

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 85...
... We assess the current empirical evidence regarding the outcomes of science literacy for individuals, including evidence on the association between science literacy and attitudes towards, perceptions of, and support for science and the relationship between science literacy, health literacy, and behaviors (particularly behaviors related to health)
From page 86...
... It explores research examining the relationship between science knowledge and a set of broad attitudes toward science that reflect an individual's assessment of the scientific research enterprise generally, as well as the relationship between knowledge and a more focused set of attitudes toward specific scientific controversies (such as nuclear power, climate change, stem cell research, and genetically modified foods)
From page 87...
... Science Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Science Among the most heavily cited analyses assessing the direct link between science knowledge and attitudes toward and public perceptions of science is a meta-analysis that analyzed publicly available survey data from 193 surveys conducted across 40 countries between 1989 and 2004 (Allum et al., 2008)
From page 88...
... Controlling for measures of age, gender, and education that were common to all 193 datasets, the meta-analysis found that there was a small, positive overall relationship between science knowledge and attitudes. Equally important, however, the study found that the size of this relationship varied substantially by whether the measure of attitudes was focused on general science or a specific topic and whether the knowledge measure was a general science measure or one
From page 89...
... For example, the data suggested almost no relationship between general science knowledge and attitudes about genetically modified food, a potentially negative relationship between biology-specific knowledge and attitudes about genetically modified food, and a small, but negative relationship between that same general science knowledge measure and attitudes toward environmental science (see also Gaskell et al., 2004; Priest et al., 2003)
From page 90...
... explored public perceptions toward biotechnology in both the United States and Europe. While the authors found science knowledge and educational levels to correlate differently with several different application areas of biotechnology (from a strong, positive correlation of 0.6 for medical applications to weak correlations of 0.05 in areas of food applications and animal cloning)
From page 91...
... Mediators and Moderators As illustrated above, there is increasing evidence that the direct link between science knowledge and attitudes toward scientific issues is weak and is mediated or moderated by other factors.3 Acknowledging that the psychology of attitudes is complex and that cognitive and affective factors have to be taken into account, scholars have explored what factors might shape the connections between knowledge and attitudes. Much of this recent work shows that the 3A moderator variable is one that influences the strength of a relationship between two other vari ables, and a mediator variable is one that explains the relationship between the two other variables.
From page 92...
... Although they found a negative effect of science literacy and numeracy on climate change concern, they also found that general science knowledge interacted with worldviews in predicting such attitudes. Specifically, knowledge served to polarize the viewpoints of egalitarian communitarians and hierarchical individualists, with increased literacy elevating concern about climate change for the communitarians and decreasing the concern of the indi
From page 93...
... More research is needed to understand this phenomenon. Effects of Interventions to Increase Knowledge on Attitudes Experiments related to science knowledge typically seek to assess the effect of providing individuals with new information and comparing the views of those individuals to groups who received either no new information, different information, or some other intervention.
From page 94...
... To summarize, the available evidence suggests that providing people with an opportunity to learn about a topic may result in some learning, but it is unlikely to substantially affect attitudes on scientific issues. The reason that individuals likely do not change their attitudes in response to new information is similar to the reason that variables such as ideology or worldview moderate the relationship between existing science knowledge and attitudes about science.
From page 95...
... We first present frameworks for understanding the relationship between knowledge and action and then analyze the evidence on the relationship between science knowledge, health knowledge, and health-related behaviors. Most of the evidence as to the application of science literacy and health literacy focuses on health-related behavior and does not include a wider set of behavioral outcomes.
From page 96...
... It is not the committee's intent to make claims about science literacy and health literacy unfalsifiable. Rather, the committee believes science literacy and health literacy require an assessment of their value on the basis of a range and type of circumstances in which they do appear to shape thoughts, actions, and behaviors in a positive way.
From page 97...
... . Science Literacy and Behaviors Though most of the evidence on use of health literacy examines effects on behaviors related to health, literature in the field of environmental science explores the relationship between knowledge and a nonhealth science-related behavior.
From page 98...
... Much of the research on the relationship between health literacy and behaviors related to health at the individual level focuses on compliance behaviors and the use of health care services. In the field of health literacy, this research tends to use cross-sectional surveys to assess health literacy of a sample of respondents and measure various outcomes.
From page 99...
... . For example, in a meta-analysis reviewing the relationship between health literacy and medication adherence, Zhang and colleagues (2014)
From page 100...
... Despite this finding, the available evidence does not demonstrate that science literacy is directly related to specific health behaviors. If enhanced science literacy can be empirically linked to enhanced health literacy, it could indirectly be associated with some behaviors related to health.
From page 101...
... Most studies evaluating health literacy interventions have demonstrated improvements that disproportionately accrue to those with adequate health literacy, or they yield similar improvements across health literacy. Most studies do not report the effects on vulnerable subgroups by, for example, stratifying results by race, ethnicity, or educational attainment.
From page 102...
... In contrast, most of the literature on science literacy assesses the relationship between science knowledge and attitudes toward, perceptions of, and support for science. CONCLUSION 10  Research examining the application of science literacy and health literacy has focused on different things: studies on the impact of health literacy have looked for impact on health-related behaviors and actions (e.g., compliance with medical advice, shared decision making, etc.)
From page 103...
... The research on the relationship between science literacy, health literacy, and behaviors related to health is limited, but the examples that exist highlight the weak correlation between science literacy and health literacy and behaviors. Like the relationship between science knowledge and attitudes toward science, the causal pathway between science literacy and health literacy and behaviors is complex and mediated or moderated by personal and external factors.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.