Epistemic emotions as markers and mechanisms in socio-scientific issue learning through digital curation

Socio-Scientific Issues Teaching and Learning (SSI-TL) has been widely recognized for promoting meaningful science learning and civic engagement. However, classroom implementation remains limited due to the lack of pedagogical models that integrate SSI complexity and digital learning practices. To bridge this gap, the SSI-TL framework was recently expanded to include a learning pathway, SSI-DC (Digital Curation), that supports students in curating, evaluating, and organizing digital resources as they develop informed positions on complex SSIs. This study examines the role of epistemic emotions within the SSI-DC pathway, conceptualizing them as both markers of cognitive conflict, uncertainty, or engagement and as process-level mechanisms implicated in exploration, evaluation, and collaborative knowledge construction. Although epistemic emotions such as confusion, frustration, curiosity, and enjoyment are central to how learners navigate the uncertainty of SSI contexts, little is understood about how they unfold dynamically in authentic classrooms or how they are expressed alongside engagement across the structured phases of SSI-TL. An instrumental case study was conducted in a 10th-grade biology classroom in Israel in which students (n = 35) engaged in four SSI-DC learning units on animal welfare. Data included reflective reports, semi-structured interviews, and classroom video recordings. A combined deductive–inductive content analysis traced the activation and transformation of epistemic emotions across the Encounter, Develop/Consider, and Synthesize phases. Findings revealed a distinct emotional trajectory: initial struggles characterized by confusion, frustration, and anxiety gradually shifted toward curiosity, enjoyment, and surprise. These emotional shifts not only reflected students’ engagement with the moral and scientific complexities of SSI but were associated with moments of conceptual clarification, collaborative participation, and agentic contributions as students progressed through the SSI-DC pathway. The study thus offers an empirically grounded account of how epistemic emotions are expressed and taken up as integral components of learning processes within SSI-DC instruction.