Exploring the impact of socio-scientific issues and scaffolding on student engagement and performance: implications for education for sustainable development

This study investigates the impact of the methods of socio-scientific issues (SSI) and scaffolding on students’ engagement and performance in chemistry education, with a focus on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The research explores in a quasi-experimental intervention with a 2 × 2 pre-/post-design whether the integration of SSI, scaffolding, or a combination of both enhances students’ learning outcomes in the context of selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is being explored because it is still unclear to what extent ESD learning materials can be effectively implemented in everyday school life and what influence they have on both affective and cognitive learning factors. A total of 662 students from 35 classes in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, participated in a 6 week intervention. Using linear mixed effect models, the SSI and scaffolding groups showed significantly higher performance gains compared to the control group, while the students in the combination group did not profit more from the learning material. Engagement was examined both as an overall construct and across five subdimensions (cognitive, emotional, behavioural, agentic, and value-related). Analyses of engagement subscales revealed divergent developmental patterns. Cognitive and agentic engagement showed small but significant increases over time, with gains in cognitive engagement being positively related to performance gains. In contrast, emotional and behavioural engagement declined significantly across measurement occasions, while value-related engagement remained unchanged. These results contribute to the growing body of research on ESD in chemistry education by highlighting the potential of SSI and scaffolding to enhance affective and cognitive learning outcomes. This study underlines the need for further research to optimize the combination of differentiation approaches and explores their potential for fostering long-term performance and engagement.