Bridging theory to practice: unpacking the mechanism of SSIBL for developing problem-solving skills within Egypt's dual-curriculum schools (a qualitative case study)

Full Text

Introduction

The modern era, characterised by rapid technological change and an unprecedented abundance of accessible data, has fundamentally reshaped the kinds of skills that education systems are expected to cultivate at the international level [1, p. 64]. Consequently, our educational objectives must move beyond the efficient delivery of declarative knowledge, compelling us to fundamentally shift the primary emphasis toward developing genuinely transformative competencies that enable learners to act, adapt, and contribute effectively in complex, changing societies [2, p. 1].

This necessity is powerfully articulated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4): the core mission of high-quality education must now center on equipping students with the ethical agency and critical analysis skills required to navigate and sustain life in our increasingly complex global environment [3]. This challenge becomes particularly acute in educational systems that have traditionally prioritised content mastery over the cultivation of cognitive flexibility and higher‑order reasoning [4, p. 24]. The practical result of this accelerated change is the rise of numerous controversial Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI). These are not mere technical problems; they constitute intricate, real-world dilemmas such as climate changethat are grounded in robust scientific evidence yet carry profound social, ethical, and economic implications [3, p. 389; 5, p. 7].

 For students to engage with these issues in a competent and responsible way, they need access to well‑structured cognitive and ethical frameworks that support informed judgement, value clarification, and action rather than rote recall.

This necessity firmly establishes the acquisition of problem-solving skills as an indispensable objective within modern science education curricula [1; 6, p. 151; 7, p. 1]. Fundamentally, problem-solving is a student’s ability to leverage their prior conceptual and domain knowledge to generate effective strategies for overcoming novel or structurally ambiguous learning obstacles [4; 7, p. 288; 9, p. 134]. This complex ability is deeply intertwined with advanced metacognition, compelling students to execute a variety of higher-order intellectual processes: detailed analysis, synthesis, abstraction, critical evaluation, decision-making, and continuous self-reflection [1; 9].Fundamentally, leading scholarship in the field argue that problem-solving is either tightly linked to or indistinguishable from core scientific inquiry and rigorous critical thought [10, p. 2; 11]. From this perspective, the central purpose of contemporary education is to build the capacity for students to proficiently manage and resolve the intricate academic, civic, and personal challenges they will face outside the classroom [12, p. 228].

Despite the broad professional agreement on problem-solving’s vital role in cultivating Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), a persistent gap remains in its practical implementation globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries [6, p. 152; 7, p. 2]. This chronic implementation deficit is sharply evidenced by consistently underwhelming results in prominent global evaluations. For example, Egypt's theoretical curriculum standards – such as those set by its National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education – fail to translate into measurable student performance. This is evidenced by the persistently stagnant scores in international assessments such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) For instance, Egypt ranked in the bottom 5 % in PIRLS 2016 and ranked 130 out of 137 in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report in 2017–2018 [13].

Empirical studies across diverse educational environments uniformly corroborate a trio of persistent pedagogical challenges. These challenges include: a prevailing reliance on didactic, teacher-centered instruction; the widespread conditioning of learners towards the passive memorization of discrete facts and concepts and a resulting difficulty for students to meaningfully transfer existing knowledge to resolve unfamiliar or emerging problem scenarios [14, p. 60; 15, p. 480]. The fundamental genesis of this shortfall resides in the pervasive, deeply rooted pedagogical ethos. This ethos disproportionately elevates the necessity for stringent content assimilation and quantifiable, near-term performance metrics, often at the expense of cultivating sustained deep inquiry and the resource-intensive development of Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) [3, p. 477–478; 16].

The Egyptian Ministry of Education and Technical Education (MoETE) has trying addressed these systemic deficiencies by launching the Education 2.0 (EDU 2.0) reforms, aligned with the broader Vision 2030 framework. Notwithstanding this national reform impetus, the Al-Azhar Preparatory Institutes pose a distinctly challenging and unique research setting. These institutes adhere to a mandated dualistic curriculum, compelling the seamless integration of empirical sciences with traditional theological and ethical doctrines. This dualism generates a critical pedagogical paradox: although students acquire a robust grounding in moral and religious ethics, the dominant instructional model one heavily anchored in textual fidelity and rote knowledge acquisition precludes their acquisition of the necessary procedural tools to effectively apply those ethical principles to contemporary scientific and SSI dilemmas. Consequently, this scenario mandates a focused pedagogical intervention. The goal is to decisively bridge the current educational chasm by deliberately harmonizing the moral and ethical dimensions of student learning with the principles of rigorous scientific investigation. For this specific challenge, the Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) model emerges as the most theoretically and practically viable framework.

Literature review

Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) is an instructional framework designed precisely to address the limitations of traditional science education by reintegrating societal values and ethical dilemmas into the curriculum [7; 4]. SSIBL, defined as researching a question aimed at improving local or global conditions through democratic processes and scientific knowledge [3, p. 480; 5, p. 5; 8], is deeply rooted in contemporary learning theories, notably the epistemology of Critical Realism [2, p. 4]. The model is structured around three interconnected pillars that guide the entire learning process [1; 7]: Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE), Socio-Scientific Issues (SSIs), and Citizenship Education (CE). [3, p. 481]. These theoretical components are implemented through a three-stage pedagogical process (Ask-Find Out-Act), requiring students to engage in multi-perspective analysis, reflective thinking, and the application of scientific knowledge to societal dilemmas, thereby directly cultivating the cognitive skills involved in higher-order problem-solving [5, p. 8; 5].

Despite the clear theoretical suitability of SSIBL as a methodology for developing problem-solving skills [17; 18], a significant empirical gap remains [5, p. 15; 19]. While the efficacy of the model is well-documented in Western contexts, there is scarce evidence regarding its implementation in developing countries. Crucially, international literature lacks a deep, qualitative understanding of the mechanism by which SSIBL structurally transforms students' reasoning, particularly within unique non-Western educational paradigms such as Al-Azhar. In these settings, the spread and sustainability of such innovative models are complicated by systemic challenges and the presence of obligatory cultural elements within the educational framework. The current study fills this critical gap by conducting a rigorous qualitative case study of SSIBL within the unique Al-Azhar preparatory system.The research is significant because it offers the first in-depth, process-focused analysis of how SSIBL's mechanism – the intentional integration of ethics/values and scientific inquiry – develops problem-solving processes and proficiency levels in this critical context. The findings will provide vital pedagogical insights for MoETE and Al-Azhar policymakers and critically enrich international educational psychology literature with evidence from a unique and underrepresented non-Western context.

Accordingly, the primary objectives of this study are to:

1. Investigate the process by which the Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) model contributes to the development of problem-solving proficiency among Al-Azhar preparatory students.
2. Conduct a qualitative analysis of the quality and structure of students' problem-solving processes when utilizing the SSIBL model.

To operationalize these objectives, the study utilizes a conceptual framework that integrates the three pedagogical stages of the SSIBL model (Ask, Find Out, and Act) with core problem-solving proficiencies. As illustrated in Fig. 1, this mapping ensures that each inquiry phase provides the necessary scaffolding for specific procedural competencies, ranging from initial problem identification to the final application of learned experiences in new contexts.

 

Fig. 1. Conceptual framework for integrating problem solving skills within the stages of the SSIBL model

 

Materials and methods

Research Design.This investigation adopted a Qualitative Case Study Design to gain an in-depth understanding of the developmental process of problem-solving proficiency when students engage with the Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) model. The design focused on the analysis of sequential, performance-based qualitative data collected from students throughout the intervention period. The Case Study approach was selected to provide a rich, detailed description of the cognitive and procedural shifts occurring within the specific, unique setting of the Al-Azhar Preparatory Institute, focusing on how and why proficiency levels evolved rather than merely measuring the magnitude of change (effect size).

Participants and setting. The study employed a purposive sampling approach, with the participants consisting of second-grade preparatory students from an Al-Azhar institute located in Barakat Al-Sabaa district, Menoufia Governorate, Egypt. A total of 35 students were assigned to the Study Group. The selection of the Al-Azhar institute was based on the study's goal to investigate the SSIBL model within this unique dualistic curriculum context. The instruction was delivered by a trained instructor to ensure the fidelity of the SSIBL intervention, and a standardized instructional guide was strictly followed. The intervention was applied to the study group over a period of nine weeks.

Instruments and Data Collection. The core data were gathered using a set of Performance Rubrics specifically designed to evaluate students’ responses on the socio-scientific tasks, as rubrics are essential for performance-based assessments. The Rubrics were structured around the six problem-solving skills previously mapped to the SSIBL framework (see Fig. 1). These skills include:problem identification, information gathering and organization,problem dimension analysis, data and opinion evaluation, conclusion drawing, and application of learned experience. The Rubrics used a four-level scale (Advanced, Proficient, Developing, and Beginning) to categorize performance. To ensure the reliability of the qualitative analysis, the researcher utilized a double-coding approach with an independent second rater, achieving an inter-rater agreement (Holsti’s method) of 0,92.The qualitative data was collected via three repeated measures (at Weeks 3, 6, and 9) throughout the intervention, allowing for the analysis of the sequential progression in problem-solving skills and the structural transformation in student performance.

Intervention Procedures. The SSIBL model was implemented with the Study Group over a nine-week period, from October 15 to December 14, 2023. The instructional content was meticulously aligned with the official science curriculum of the Egyptian Ministry of Education, focusing on four core thematic units:Water, Atmospheric Layers, Ozone Layer Depletion and Global Warming, and Fossils and Extinction. The teaching process strictly followed the three-stage SSIBL inquiry cycle: Ask, Find Out, and Act. To facilitate this, the researcher developed a comprehensive Teacher’s Guide and a Student Activity Workbook, specifically designed to link the SSIBL inquiry stages with the targeted problem-solving skills. Within these units, students were challenged with various socio-scientific issues (SSI) such as water pollution, air quality management, global warming, and the sustainable exploitation of fossil resources versus biodiversity conservation. Each lesson comprised a series of interconnected activities aimed at fostering specific problem-solving skills, while also accounting for individual differences among learners. To ensure the pedagogical and scientific validity of the instructional materials, both the Teacher’s Guide and the Student Workbook were reviewed and validated by a panel of experts in the fields of curriculum development and science instruction.

Data Analysis.The qualitative data collected from the Performance Rubrics were subjected to a thematic content analysis across the three repeated measures. This process involved calculating the percentage distribution of students across the four predefined performance levels (Advanced, Proficient, Developing, and Beginning) for each problem-solving skill over time. The analysis focused on identifying structural shifts and thematic patterns in student performance. These findings are used to provide an in-depth interpretation of the progression of problem-solving skills and to highlight the specific cognitive processes facilitated by the SSIBL model in the Al-Azhar context.

Research results

Problem-Solving Performance The Thematic Analysis of performance data collected via the Performance Rubrics across three repeated measures illustrates a significant upward progression in students' problem-solving proficiency (see Table).

 

Percentage distribution of students' performance levels across the three repeated measures

Measure	Level	Problem Identification, %	InformationGathering, %	Problem Dimension Analysis, %	Data/Opinion Evaluation, %	Conclusion Drawing, %	ApplicationofLearnedExp., %
First	Beginning	0	0	20	11,40	8,60	60
	Developing	31,40	22,90	42,90	51,40	68,60	37,10
	Proficient	45,70	51,40	25,70	34,30	22,90	2,90
	Advanced	22,90	25,70	11,40	2,90	0	0
Second	Beginning	2,90	0	0	2,90	20,00	2,90
	Developing	8,60	8,60	20	28,60	37,10	34,30
	Proficient	51,40	48,60	68,60	51,40	28,60	45,70
	Advanced	37,10	42,90	11,40	17,10	14,30	17,10
Third	Beginning	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Developing	11,40	5,70	14,30	0	11,40	20
	Proficient	28,60	48,60	42,90	45,70	45,70	45,70
	Advanced	60	45,70	42,90	54,30	42,90	34,30

 

At the first measure, the majority of students were concentrated in the 'Beginning' and 'Developing' levels, particularly in "Problem Identification" (60 % Beginning) and "Information Gathering" (68,6 % Developing). By the final measure, a substantial impact was evident as the 'Beginning' level was completely eliminated (0,0 %) across all skills. Remarkably, 60 % of students reached the 'Advanced' level in "Learning Application," and 54,3 % in "Dimension Analysis." These results demonstrate that the SSIBL model facilitates a deep structural transition in how students identify and resolve complex socio-scientific issues, providing the empirical foundation for the following discussion on the structural cognitive changes induced by the SSIBL model.

To more clearly illustrate the developmental trajectory of student performance, Fig. 2 visualizes the proportional shift in proficiency levels. The transition from a predominance of 'Beginning' and 'Developing' levels in the first measure to a significant concentration of 'Proficient' and 'Advanced' levels in the final measure confirms the structural growth in students' problem-solving capacities. The comprehensive layout of Fig. 2 provides a granular view of the longitudinal shift in proficiency levels. The visual transition – characterized by the systematic contraction of lower-level tiers and the significant expansion of upper-level tiers across all eighteen bars – illustrates a consistent and holistic improvement in students’ problem-solving architecture. The complete elimination of the 'Beginning' stage across all dimensions by the third measure serves as the empirical foundation for the following discussion on the structural cognitive changes induced by the SSIBL model.

 

Fig. 2. Longitudinal progression of students' proficiency levels across the six problem-solving skills during the SSIBL intervention

 

Discussion and conclusions

The evolving performance patterns across the three measurement points indicate that the Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) model did not merely raise students’ scores on six separate problem-solving skills but contributed to a deeper reorganisation in how they think about and engage with socio-scientific issues. Students gradually shifted from a clear concentration in the lower performance bands for skills such as problem dimension analysis and application of learned experience to a predominance of Proficient and Advanced levels, with the complete disappearance of the Beginning category in the post-intervention measure, signaling a qualitative rather than purely quantitative change in performance.

The observed progression can be understood in light of the SSIBL model’s inherent scaffolding features, which enabled the study to achieve its first objective by making the trajectory of skill development explicit. The model maintained a high level of procedural fidelity, producing notable learning gains at both the entry and exit points of the problem‑solving sequence, as interpreted through the internal logic of the SSIBL cycle (Ask – Find Out – Act). Within this structure, the intervention units were organized around socio‑scientific issues embedded in the Egyptian curriculum, including water scarcity, air pollution, and global warming, thereby grounding the process in locally relevant content.

In the Ask stage, The marked improvement in problem identification, with 60 % of students reaching the advanced level,which we can underscores the effectiveness of the Ask phase.By engaging learners with ill‑structured, contextually meaningful socio‑scientific issues, the SSIBL model helps move students away from passive reception of information toward active ownership of the problem. This capacity to transform a vague, real‑world situation into a focused, researchable question forms the essential starting point for all subsequent phases of inquiry.During the Ask stage, students were supported by expressing the problem in their own words, clarifying what is at stake, and mapping out the various stakeholders and their potentially conflicting interests. These practices make the social, ethical, and scientific dimensions of the issue more visible and offer a convincing explanation for the pronounced gains in problem identification, which emerged as one of the strongest outcomes by the end of the intervention. This pattern aligns with characterizations of SSIBL as grounded in authentic, student‑generated questions that drive meaningful inquiry and informed social action.

In the Find Out stage, students engaged with scientific data, media accounts, and contrasting stakeholder viewpoints, repeatedly interrogating source credibility and analysing potential bias. This sustained work with heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting information is reflected in the marked increase in advanced‑level performance in data and opinion evaluation, and resonates with SSIBL’s emphasis on integrating scientific, social, and personal inquiry when exploring socio‑scientific issues. During this phase, students systematically collected, compared, and scrutinised diverse forms of evidence – formal scientific information, news coverage, and perspectives from different stakeholders – and were frequently required to reconcile, or at least navigate, competing interpretations and claims. Such practices not only deepened their understanding of the complexity and contestation surrounding real‑world problems, but also strengthened their capacity to make reasoned, evidence‑informed judgements in the face of uncertainty.

In the act Phase, students were expected to design and justify action plans that were both scientifically credible and ethically defensible, marking a decisive shift from merely understanding a problem to applying what they had learned in new, real-world contexts. This emphasis on linking knowledge with informed intervention echoes characterisation of SSIBL as gearing social action to scientific knowledge,in which inquiry culminates in decisions and actions oriented toward change.The Act phase required learners to propose concrete courses of action and to argue for them not only on technical grounds but also in terms of social acceptability and ethical responsibility. When students experience this triadic movement – Ask, Find Out, Act – repeatedly across different topics, they begin to internalise a richer "problem‑solving script" that moves beyond linear, algorithmic routines towards more cyclical, reflective, and context‑sensitive forms of reasoning about complex socio‑scientific issues.Aparticularlystriking finding concerns the skill "Application of Learned Experience," which began as the weakest area (with 60 % of students at the Beginning level) but showed a dramatic improvement, with 79 % reaching the Proficient or Advanced levels by the end of the intervention. This outcome is especially significant because it suggests that the Act stage of SSIBLeffectively supports cognitive transferability, enabling learners to carry problem‑solving schemas from one situation to another. The capacity to transfer a problem‑solving framework to novel situations is often regarded as a hallmark of deep learning and remains one of the most challenging competencies to cultivate within more traditional, content‑driven pedagogical models.

The performance data speak directly to the second research objective – qualitatively analysing the quality and structure of students’ problem-solving processes – by showing how learners increasingly learned to manage, rather than evade, uncertainty when working with complex socio-scientific issues (SSI). The clearest signs of structural change emerged in the metacognitive skills situated in the "Find Out" phase, especially Problem Dimension Analysis and Data/Opinion Evaluation. The large proportion of students reaching the Advanced level in evaluation (54,3 %) indicates that the SSIBL model actively invited them to engage with epistemological uncertainty instead of searching for a single, pre-packaged answer.Because socio-scientific issues are intrinsically characterised by conflicting data, moral tensions, and disagreement among experts, students had to rely on more sophisticated criteria – such as source credibility and bias analysis – to reconcile competing claims. This process generated the kind of productive cognitive conflict that SSI research describes as a hallmark of this instructional approach [20]. Thesuccess in this critical phase suggests that the SSIBL intervention nurtured epistemic agility, helping students move beyond fragmented, recall-driven strategies typical of traditional instruction toward a more nuanced, reflective stance.The rubric trajectories, which trace how performance levels evolved over time, reinforce the conclusion that students’ problem-solving repertoires were not simply broadened but structurally reshaped.Rather than just coping with larger volumes of information, students gradually internalised a cyclical problem-solving script grounded in deliberate planning, continuous self-monitoring, and a readiness to revisit solution paths when confronted with conflicting evidence. This change unfolded in phases: early gains clustered around procedural skills such as information gathering and organisation, while the most substantial advances towards Advanced performance appeared later in conceptually demanding skills like Data/Opinion Evaluation and Application of Learned Experience, mirroring constructivist accounts in which higher-order competencies emerge through repeated restructuring of cognitive schemata across diverse tasks.

Across this developmental pathway, performance rubrics aligned with six clearly articulated problem-solving skills played a central mediating role. In this study, the rubrics functioned not only as assessment tools but also as metacognitive scaffolds that made expectations visible, open to discussion, and actionable for learners. The four-level scale provided a stable reference point for distinguishing between "Beginning" and "Advanced" performance in each domain, enabling students to monitor their own progress, compare their work against explicit criteria, and deliberately refine their strategies.Taken together, these findings show how carefully designed.

This study makes a distinctive theoretical contribution by showing that SSIBL is pedagogically viable in a dual religious-general curriculumsuch as that of Al‑Azhar. Becousefindings show that SSIBL can retain its pedagogical strength in systems that explicitly seek to integrate scientific understanding with moral and religious responsibility. Seen from this angle, the pre‑intervention situation is better understood not as a lack of student potential but as a structural practice deficit, in which routine classroom practices offered few opportunities to rehearse core inquiry and critical‑reasoning skills. By placing critical evaluation of evidence, argumentation about socio‑scientific issues, and reflection on values at the centre of classroom activity, the SSIBL intervention directly addressed this deficit. In doing so, it offers a conceptual blueprint for embedding rigorous scientific inquiry in traditional school systems and contributes to wider debates on how SSIBL can support agendas such as Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and education for global citizenship.

These findings have significant practical ramifications for teacher preparation and curriculum development. High-impact instructional innovation does not necessitate a complete replacement of current curricula, as demonstrated by the careful alignment of SSIBL with the official Egyptian Ministry of Education science curriculum through specially created Teacher's Guides and Student Workbooks. Instead, it relies on a deliberate redesign of classroom pedagogy so that, while still adhering to current content standards, questioning, evidence evaluation, and reasoned judgment on socio-scientific issues become standard components of science lessons.

About the authors

Gamal Mohamed Mahmoud Yahia

Tanta University

Author for correspondence.
Email: PG_169279@edu.tanta.edu.eg
ORCID iD: 0009-0003-6500-052X

Postgraduate Researcher at the Department of Learning and Instruction

Egypt, 31527, Tanta, Al Gharbia, El-Geish st.

Abeer Abdalhalim Albhnsawy

Tanta University

Email: drabeerabdhalim@edu.tanta.edu.eg
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2998-320X

Associate Professor at the Department of Learning and Instruction

Egypt, 31527, Tanta, Al Gharbia, El-Geish st.

Hanan Hamdy Ahmed Abouraya

Tanta University

Email: hanan.abouraya@edu.tanta.edu.eg
ORCID iD: 0009-0006-8844-888X

Professor at the Department of Learning and Instruction

Egypt, 31527, Tanta, Al Gharbia, El-Geish st.

References

Supplementary files