Using Provocative Questions to Address Societal Health Issues

AbstractDebates about healthcare, abortion, stem cells, and other issues illustrate that health decision-making can be a societal challenge. This article posits that museums can take an active role in helping visitors participate in public health decision-making by asking them to think about socio-scientific issues through the lens of argumentation. As a part of the development of exhibits focusing on public health and human biology, the Museum of Science, Boston conducted a front-end study to understand the potential of socio-scientific questions to generate discussion, the abilities of visitors to create socio-scientific arguments, and the impact of the questions on these arguments. Findings indicate that visitors have a variety of views about these issues, that they use different kinds of supports (values, science evidence, and informal evidence) as part of their arguments, and that the claim a visitor chooses may impact the supports they use.