Socioscientific Issues Approach in Analytical Chemistry Learning for Enhancing Food Safety Literacy

Abstract

Health issues that occur in society today are increasingly complex. To deal with health issues caused by consuming unsafe food, students need to be equipped with food safety literacy. This literacy can be improved through relevant and humanistic learning approaches, including socioscientific issues (SSI) learning. The SSI approach uses complex, controversial, and contemporary social issues in learning. This research aims to enhance students' food safety literacy through the SSI approach in analytical chemistry learning. The study used a quasi-experimental method with a non-equivalent control group design. The research samples were undergraduate pharmacy students who were taking analytical chemistry courses namely food analysis, at one university. The sample was taken by purposive sampling of as many as 106 students, consisting of 53 class A students as a control group who used problem-based learning and 52 class B students as an experimental group who used the SSI approach to problem-based analytical chemistry learning. The instrument was in the form of food safety literacy questions total of 40 multiple-choice questions, which have been declared valid and reliable. The research was conducted in seven class meetings over seven weeks. Pretests and posttests were carried out in each class, followed by the N-Gain test to determine the increase in the average grade of the class and the Mann-Whitney difference test to determine the significance of the difference in scores between the two classes. The results showed that the experimental class experienced a higher average score increase with an N-Gain value of 0.62 compared to the control class with an N-Gain value of 0.47, even though both were still in the medium category. The pretest results of the experimental class were no different from the control class with a significance value of 0.681. The posttest results of the experimental class were significantly different from the control class with a significance value of 0.013. Therefore, the SSI approach in problem-based analytical chemistry learning enhances food safety literacy.