Gifted students’ decisions and justifications on a socioscientific dilemma related to the COVID-19 pandemic: Decisions and justifications on a socioscientific dilemma

The study focuses on the socioscientific dilemma which arises in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and is frequently voiced in the society and media: “Should we get a COVID-19 vaccine or not?”  The study group of the current research employing the holistic single case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, is comprised of gifted students (n:32). As a result of the study, it was determined that the students made positive and negative decisions regarding getting vaccinated, and some of them stated that they would decide to get vaccinated or postpone the decision depending on whether some criteria would be met. The justifications proposed by the students making a positive decision include protection against the virus, fear of being infected and increasing number of deaths while the students making a negative decision gave justifications including not trusting the WHO (World Health Organization) and the vaccines produced by other countries, wanting to develop immunity through natural ways and believing that free vaccine is dangerous.  Some of the students stating that they would decide depending on whether the criteria would be met emphasized some criteria such as the vaccine’s being tried and approved, development of the vaccine in their own country and its content’s being harmless