Conceptualising Risk and Risk Literacy—results of a Delphi Study Konzeptualisierung von Risiko und Risikokompetenz – Ergebnisse einer Delphi-Studie

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p> Risk is an integral part of modern societies and therefore school education, and in particular mathematics education, should develop students’ risk literacy. Students’ risk literacy is part of the interdisciplinary research project siMINT (Understanding complex STEM topics: Using simulations to promote competences for the 21st century). One first challenge in this project was to find a common ground for the inconsistently conceptualised terms of risk and risk literacy. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the conceptualisation of risk and risk literacy. The first part of this paper provides a literature review on these areas, resulting in a working conceptualisation of the two concepts. We further carried out two consecutive steps of a Delphi study with <jats:italic>N</jats:italic>  = 15 and <jats:italic>N</jats:italic>  = 12 experts respectively, to develop a common conceptualisation based on the plurality of different dimensions and elements of risk and risk literacy. Based on the results of the first step of the Delphi study, we modified our working conceptualisation, using a common model of risk and risk literacy with different dimensions. In the second step of the Delphi study, the experts comment on (i) the dimensions and (ii) the elements of risk and risk literacy in these dimensions. The results showed that the experts are able to locate their individual definitions of risk in the model with three dimensions (relation between risk/uncertainty, connotation, and mathematical object) that we developed and to formulate reasons for their allocation. Furthermore, the results revealed that risk literacy consists of subsets of mathematical and non-mathematical elements that the experts rate differently with regard to their importance. In general, the results contribute to clarifying the constructs of risk and risk literacy as a basis for developing approaches to improve risk literacy. </jats:p>