No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The pedagogy of argumentation in science education: science teachers’ instructional practices
International Journal of Science Education
Abstract
Argumentation has been a prominent concern in science education research and a common goal in science curriculum in many countries over the past decade. With reference to this goal, policy documents burden responsibilities on science teachers, such as involving students in dialogues and being guides in students’ spoken or written argumentation. Consequently, teachers’ pedagogical practices regarding argumentation gain importance due to their impact on how they incorporate this practice into their classrooms. In this study, therefore, we investigated the instructional strategies adopted by science teachers for their argumentation-based science teaching. Participants were one elementary science teacher, two chemistry teachers, and four graduate students, who have a background in science education. The study took place during a graduate course, which was aimed at developing science teachers’ theory and pedagogy of argumentation. Data sources included the participants’ video-recorded classroom practices, audio-recorded reflections, post-interviews, and participants’ written materials. The findings revealed three typologies of instructional strategies towards argumentation. They are named as Basic Instructional Strategies for Argumentation, Meta-level Instructional Strategies for Argumentation, and Meta-strategic Instructional Strategies for Argumentation. In conclusion, the study provided a detailed coding framework for the exploration of science teachers’ instructional practices while they are implementing argumentation-based lessons.
... DFE, 2014;NRC, 2012). Researchers have given special attention to teachers' knowledge (Chen et al., 2019;Christodoulou & Osborne, 2014;Evagorou & Dillon, 2011;McNeill & Pimentel, 2010;Simon, Erduran, & Osborne, 2006;Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar, & Erduran, 2017). Particularly, some authors have taken the teachers' knowledge related to argumentation as a specific kind of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) (McNeill, González-Howard, Katsh-Singer, & Loper, 2015;McNeill & Knight, 2013;Sengul, Enderle, & Schwartz, 2020;Wang & Buck, 2016;Yilmaz et al., 2017), PCK for argumentation. ...
... Researchers have given special attention to teachers' knowledge (Chen et al., 2019;Christodoulou & Osborne, 2014;Evagorou & Dillon, 2011;McNeill & Pimentel, 2010;Simon, Erduran, & Osborne, 2006;Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar, & Erduran, 2017). Particularly, some authors have taken the teachers' knowledge related to argumentation as a specific kind of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) (McNeill, González-Howard, Katsh-Singer, & Loper, 2015;McNeill & Knight, 2013;Sengul, Enderle, & Schwartz, 2020;Wang & Buck, 2016;Yilmaz et al., 2017), PCK for argumentation. In this regard, such authors have based themselves on the PCK model as proposed by Magnusson, Krajcik and Borko (1999) and adopted the idea of PCK for argumentation to investigate the teachers' knowledge related to argumentation or some of its dimensions, such as instructional strategies specific to argumentation. ...
... Following, we increased the analytical tool from an empirical study (Ibraim, 2018). When so doing, the actions were created or changed from reflective processes concerning the actions listed in the previous tool and in the light of the aspects discussed by Yilmaz et al. (2017). We have also realized that some of the original names assigned to the actions were not very clear about their characterizations. ...
In argumentation-based science teaching, teachers play an important role and are the main party responsible for the introduction of argumentation in classrooms. In this study, we discuss how actions that contribute to science teaching involving argumentation are expressed by a teacher on leading different types of didactic sequences, and how such actions relate to teachers’ knowledge with regard to argumentation and teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). For this reason, we have constructed an instrumental case study, based on the observation of four didactic sequences led by an experienced teacher, and through interviews with her. From their analysis, we conclude that the goals set by the teacher in the didactic sequences have had an influence upon the actions that contribute to science teaching involving argumentation shown by the teacher, suggesting a strong link between the elements of PCK and those of the Knowledge for Teachers’ Actions through Argumentation. As possible consequences, we draw attention to the need to add value to a hybrid method for teaching argumentation, involving implicit and explicit teaching, as well as the proposal of the set of actions that contribute to science teaching involving argumentation. This can contribute towards the investigations into the role of teachers within argumentation-based science teaching, and to teacher education.
... Several countries have contributed to argumentation research in science education, including Indonesia, Turkey, the USA, Taiwan, Colombia, and the People's Republic of China, either in the form of journals or proceedings. Argumentation research in science education has attracted researchers around the world in the last decade (Yilmaz et al., 2017). Science education research has been conducted through various learning environments that support argumentation skills (Erduran et al., 2015;Lazarou et al., 2016). ...
... Argumentation skills based on the results of analysis using VOSviewer have a close relationship with several other research topics. Argumentation research is still getting a lot of attention from researchers, especially in recent years, and has become an objective in the curriculum in various countries (Yilmaz et al., 2017). Argumentation research will be one of the interesting research topics in the future, especially for science learning in relation to its relationship with scientific literacy and level thinking skills. ...
Argumentation has an important role in science education. One of the aims of science education is to develop argumentation skills as a basis for building scientific characterization. The role of argumentation in science education is one of the research topics that has received a lot of attention from academics. The purpose of this study was to analyze the research trend of argumentation in science education from 2015-2023. The research method used preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses and network meta-analyses, or PRISMA for short, which consists of identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. The articles analyzed were obtained using the publish or perish search engine from Scopus and Google Scholar, as many as 340 articles from a total search of 1013 articles. The analysis was conducted using content analysis and bibliometric using VOSviewer, which was reviewed based on network visualization, overlay visualization, and density visualization. The results were analyzed based on country of origin, research area, research method, research subject, research instrument, learning intervention, and argumentation type. The conclusion of this study shows that argumentation skills are one of the important topics in research that are linked with several other variables in science education and have received attention from researchers in recent years. Recommendations for future argumentation research should identify the characteristics of argumentation types and their relationship with teaching materials, learning models, and assessments in science education.
... Likewise, the linkage of inquiry in developing students' research skills (Dikilitaş & Bostancioglu, 2019) and research skills and creativity (Rodríguez et al., 2019). Meanwhile, argumentation is an important component in science learning by giving meaning to the learning process, considering that science is developed through the construction of knowledge and theories equipped with explanations and evidence that make it the knowledge believed today (Yilmaz et al., 2017). Argumentation in science learning is also applied to develop critical thinking skills, reasoning abilities, and understanding concepts (Roviati & Widodo, 2019). ...
... While an argument refers to the content or substance that arises in the activity of argumentation. According to Toulmin framework (1958) an argument is built from the components of claims, data, warrants and supporting evidence (Yilmaz et al., 2017). Argumentation in science learning is also applied to develop critical thinking skills, reasoning abilities, and understanding concepts (Roviati & Widodo, 2019). ...
The application of effective teaching methods needs to be implemented to improve the quality of microbiology education which can empower important competencies in the current era. This study aims to analyze the application and trajectory of argumentation-based inquiry learning through the application of microbiology lectures. This research uses research design methods consisting of preliminary design steps, teaching experiments and retrospective analysis. The source of the data comes from student learning activities in argumentation-based inquiry learning implemented in microbiology courses. The results showed that the learning trajectory of Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) in microbiology lectures with an argumentation-based inquiry model was in accordance with the stages of student research ranging from determining research themes, compiling proposals, designing and implementing data collection, analyzing data, discussing research results, writing research reports to conducting scientific publications in journals. Students who carry out microbiology lectures using argumentation-based inquiry learning through the implementation of different research in the field of microbiology experience a similar learning trajectory so that a specific and distinctive set of Hypothetical Learning Trajectory (HLT) can be formulated.
... The teaching profession eventually rises to a crucial standing in society and serves as a basis for other professions. To fulfill the emerging demands of the teaching profession, it is a need of the hour to make the teachers well-trained with modern instructional strategies (Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017). Science education is a crucial aspect of modern education, and science teachers play a vital role in shaping the future of the scientific community. ...
... Therefore, it is essential to explore science teachers' knowledge about instructional strategies, as this knowledge can significantly impact the quality of science education. Moreover, previous studies have emphasized that instructional strategies can be quite effective at fostering opportunities and offering guidance for teachers to improve teachers' ability to employ argumentation in the context of science education (Erduran, & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2008;Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017). Various studies highlight that an effective teacher plays a central role in student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2000;Marzano, 2007). ...
This research study delves into the realm of science education, specifically focusing on the knowledge and utilization of instructional strategies by science teachers. The primary objective is to investigate whether there are discernible gender-based differences in science teachers' awareness, understanding, and implementation of various instructional strategies, encompassing lecture-based methods, demonstration techniques, problem-solving approaches, questioning and inquiry-based strategies, as well as cooperative learning strategies within the classroom. The study employs a quantitative methodology, utilizing multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQs) to gather data from a diverse sample of 826 secondary school science teachers and analyze the gender-based level of secondary school science teachers’ knowledge about instructional strategies using Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS-24). This study uncovers that gender-based differences exist not only in the level of awareness and understanding of instructional strategies but also in their practical implementation. The outcomes of this study hold significance for both educational theory and practice. By identifying gender-related trends in science teachers' instructional strategy awareness and application, science teachers, administrators, and policymakers can gain insights into areas that might necessitate targeted professional development or intervention.
... To address these challenges, many studies have developed different strategies to teach argumentation in the classroom, such as utilizing explicit instruction and teaching argumentation from a socio-cultural perspective (Berland & Hammer, 2012). Explicit instruction, such as modeling thinking strategy (Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017) and providing writing frames to scaffold students' thought processes for argument construction , have proven beneficial when teaching argumentation. Equally, studies that teach this from a socio-cultural perspective through students' engagement in smaller or larger group discussions also shown positive results (Capkinoglu et al., 2019;. ...
... Although much research advocated the importance and necessity of argumentation in science education (Berland & Hammer, 2012;Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007;Kuhn & Moore, 2015;Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017), there is limited research on the assessment of student competency in argumentation (Osborne et al., 2016). Furthermore, some teachers show disinclination in teaching argumentation about SSI due to the difficulties in assessing the structure of students' argumentation (Nielsen, 2012). ...
In recent years, there has been growing interest in exploring argumentation about socio-scientific issues (SSI) in the classroom to improve students’ scientific literacy. Thus, this research aims to investigate how intervention based on argumentation about SSI affects secondary students’ patterns of informal reasoning and reasoning quality. The action research was conducted with 16 secondary students in which all of them were given pre-test and post-tests. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The results suggest that participants frequently relied on rationalistic informal reasoning or integrated informal reasoning patterns to solve SSI. Students’ reasoning quality also improved as there were higher frequencies of students with a higher level of reasoning quality and a significant increase in the construction of supportive argument, counterargument, rebuttal, and the total number of arguments in the two post-tests when compared to the pre-test. This study provided clear support for the potential of argumentation to improve secondary student’' scientific literacy by promoting the construction of evidence-based arguments to assist in making rational decisions when solving SSI.
... The task design may employ activities such as question-and-answers to help students show their conceptual understanding in writing. Table 1 shows example strategies that instructors employed during different stages of argumentation in their IBWI classroom interactions (Yilmaz et al., 2017(Yilmaz et al., , p. 1451. ...
... We do not agree with the other ideas because. . . (Yilmaz et al., 2017) Another popular model in WTL is Scientific Writing Heuristics, or SWH (Choi et al., 2013;Stephenson & Sadler-McKnight, 2016;Xu & Talanquer, 2012). This model aims to provide structured scaffolding in lab experiments at different inquiry levels, including guided inquiry, verification, conceptual knowledge formation, and reflection. ...
In science disciplines, students need sufficient and well-designed support to successfully gain writing competence along the different stages of their writing development. This study examines effective inquiry-based writing pedagogies and the contextualization of scientific writing instruction for supporting student writers in the scientific community. The researchers first systematically reviewed effective pedagogical practices that can help students gain writing competence through inquiry-based learning, then explicated how scientific writing is situated in inquiry-based writing instruction (IBWI) with respect to text structures using a genre-based approach. A systematic review of 40 empirical studies published between 2000 and 2021 was conducted. The researchers examined the pedagogies, methods, and models that effectively support IBWI and identified some emerging trends that aim to raise undergraduates’ scientific writing communicative competence. Implications for how scientific writing should be situated in IBWI were provided to help disciplinary faculty respond more precisely to science students’ writing needs in tertiary settings.
... Several studies in science education have looked into the argumentative practices of teachers in the classroom. For example, Özdem Yilmaz et al. (2017) analysed Turkish science lessons to identify instructional strategies used for argumentation and found that some of their practices were aimed at developing pupils' meta-level knowledge about argumentation pertaining to its role in knowledge construction. ...
... Codes were generated both deductively and inductively, partly from the literature on teacher's instructional use of argumentation in the classroom (e.g. challenge the accuracy, setting expectations, encourages further justification) (Simon et al., 2006;Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017) and partly from the emergent descriptions of the data (e.g. reflect on the argumentation process, distinguish evidence from reasoning). ...
Argumentation is widely recognised as a core practice of science, but the relation between argumentation in the teaching of science in contrast to the teaching of other school subjects has not been sufficiently addressed. In this study, we investigate science and religious education (RE) teachers’ instructional practices related to argumentation in lower secondary lessons in England. Through qualitative analysis of a pair of science and RE teachers’ instructional practices, we characterise how the teachers participating in a professional development project understand and teach argumentation. Data sources included questionnaires, lesson materials, classroom video recordings, and written teacher reflections. Findings suggest that both teachers recognised the value of argumentation in their subject, but some variations existed in the nuances of their views and particularly how different instructional strategies were utilised to achieve the lesson goals related to argumentation. The study highlights the teachers’ different understandings and enactments of argumentation as a disciplinary practice and an instructional objective in science and RE lessons. We call for further consideration of argumentation in different school subjects and how argumentation can enrich science teaching in interdisciplinary contexts.
... A scientifically literate citizenry among populations in every country promises to provide a sound foundation for enabling the ways of thinking and decision making that are necessary for people to go about their daily lives while facing today's global challenges (Özdem Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar, & Erduran, 2017). Given the interconnected global economy and the proliferation of computing and networked technologies, socio-scientific complexities abound in virtually every decision made by individuals, families, businesses, and governments alike. ...
... If this trend continues, students will remain underprepared with the guidance and training necessary to be successful in 21st century careers due to lack of access and opportunity to authentic experiences for skill practice. In addition, with the documented reduction of curricular time focused on essential 21st century skills in socio-scientific literacy, scientific inquiry, and interdisciplinary connection-making, K-12 students increasingly miss the chance to develop these key skills within their coursework in lieu of the emphasis on standardized testing, rigid educational standards, and an already-full educational day (Johnson, Bailey, & Van Buskirk, 2017;Özdem Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar, & Erduran, 2017;Perdana, Jumadi, & Rosana, 2019). Open-ended educational environments that embrace complexity and problem-solving skills, such as ESGs, give students a rich environment for exploring dynamic, authentic challenges that expose them to content from multiple domains and engage them with key socio-scientific practices that are key to success in today's knowledge economy (D'Angelo et al., 2014;Moshen, Abdollahi, & Omar, 2018;Suephatthima & Faikhamta, 2018). ...
In this chapter, the authors present the case of GlobalEd, a virtual educational simulation game (ESG) that focuses on the development of student written argumentation and socio-scientific literacy skills over the course of play. Interactions within the simulation emphasize the use of written argumentation among players throughout the game's entire duration through an online communications system that is a fundamental part of all play interactions. Through this case illustration, they describe the rationale and design for GlobalEd, particularly toward its primary learning outcomes of written communication, argumentation, and collaboration. They illustrate the interactive portions of the game that are designed to elicit skill development in these areas and provide examples of actual interactions by students as they work toward these goals. Finally, they provide a brief synopsis of the studied effects of GlobalEd over the last decade in authentic classroom settings through experimental and other efficacy analyses.
... Lambeth Council 2015;Northumberland Council 2016), creating a precedent for its theoretical and empirical study in education. Argumentation research within science education has taken an interdisciplinary approach as the synthesis with varying conceptual areas has produced 'constructive research agendas ' and pertinent 'practical applications' in the teaching and learning of argumentation (Erduran and Jimenez-Aleixandre 2007;Lazarou and Erduran 2021;Ozdem et al. 2017). Argumentation in the context of traditionally disparate school subjects such as science and RE raises questions about how argumentation is framed. ...
... Future studies can focus on teachers' as well as students' engagement in intellectual humility to contribute to existing literature on teachers' argumentation (e.g. Martín-Gámez and Erduran 2018; Ozdem et al. 2017). Considering the increasing prominence of argumentation in science education internationally, as evidenced by key curriculum standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards in the USA (NGSS Lead States 2013), the study reported in the paper provides some insight into how students engage in argumentation at the interface of the evolution versus creationism debate can go beyond the tensions identified in the literature (BouJaoude et al. 2011). ...
Background
Argumentation, the justification of claims with reasons and/or evidence, has emerged as a significant goal in science education in recent years. Yet, there is limited understanding of secondary students’ arguments and particularly their use of warrants in interdisciplinary contexts such as science and religious education. Furthermore, research on argumentation in science education has not paid sufficient attention to how students’ arguments may potentially reflect intellectual humility. The concept of intellectual humility reinforces the view that one is not excessively arrogant regarding their beliefs, or excessively dismissive of their or others’ beliefs
Purpose
It is important to understand students’ engagement in argumentation particularly in the context of topics such as evolution and creationism that often present tension and conflict. For classroom argumentation activities to be fruitful, students’ understanding of warrants as well as their intellectual humility are prerequisite.
Sample
The data are drawn from Year 9 students’ engagement in a card sort activity in the context of a funded project in England. The activity engaged the students in a task on the origins of life, where evidence and reasons were related to evolution versus creationism.
Design and Methods
The card sort activity was designed to limit students’ contributions about different evidence and emphasise specifically, the link (warrant) by providing fixed evidence and claims. During the activity, students were presented with ‘evidence cards’. Students were asked to consider each card and place it under the claim that they felt the card supported even if the student did not support that claim personally. They were further asked to explain why they thought the evidence might be used to support that claim. Students’ verbal accounts of their warrants for placing cards were explored.
Conclusion
Students’ warrants included repetition of evidence statements without articulating the reasons. As intellectual humility concerns accurately tracking the positive epistemic status of a belief or argument, a lack of coherence within students’ arguments contradicts the embodiment of intellectual humility.
... This approach provides a handson learning experience that allows students to integrate scientific data into their arguments. In this case, argumentation is central to education, especially science education, to make meaning and have an important effect on learning [18]. This is based on several opinions that state that students' involvement in scientific arguments can improve conceptual, epistemological, and methodological understanding of science [19] and support students enculturation into science practice [20]. ...
Citizen Science is considered a way to improve the relationship between research, education, and action by involving non-professionals in scientific research. Through Citizen Science, students will be trained to think critically and construct scientific arguments based on data and evidence they collect on their own. However, the scientific argumentation ability of students in several high schools in Region III of Cirebon is still relatively low. Based on the results of surveys and interviews with Biology teachers in the region, learning is still dominated by the Teacher-Centered approach, where the learning process is more teacher-centered. This research is a descriptive qualitative research conducted to determine students' perceptions of Citizen Science's contribution to scientific argumentation skills on environmental change and sustainability, using a descriptive method. The population in this study is MA and SMA in the Cirebon City/Regency area, while the schools sampled in this study are SMA Negeri 1 Source, SMA Negeri 8 Cirebon City, and MA Salafiyah Cirebon City. The data collection techniques used in this study are structured interview techniques and questionnaires, and based on questionnaires and interviews there are a variety of answers obtained, but in general many students are new to Citizen Science, and students' interest in agreeing to the Citizen Science hypothesis can improve scientific argumentation skills and critical thinking skills, in addition to the level of relevance between Citizen Science and environmental change and sustainability materials have great potential to be implemented.
... Learning by applying innovative strategies and subject matter can improve thinking skills (Anwar & Susanti, 2019). Several studies have shown that science debate activities can create a learning environment that provides learning experiences to improve argumentation skills (Berndt et al., 2021;Iordanou et al., 2019;Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017). In its implementation, students' willingness to debate science is still minimal (Choi et al., 2021) due to the lack of evidence ownership, which impacts the ability to build scientific claims (Muntholib et al., 2021). ...
... This ability enlargement is required to transform the claimwarrant system in a more focused manner [35]. Facilitating the practice of argumentation in learning is necessary to enhance it since students must be able to put together warrants from credible evidence to make claims from a problem or topic they are dealing with [36]. It is crucial to develop students' skills in evaluating the reliability of sources and spotting arguments from reference materials while interpreting and analyzing online data [32] because it is an information processing stage, so empowering through appropriate learning models and strategies is needed [16]. ...
... Based on the research showed that students are weak in the construction of scientific arguments with valid concepts [6][7][8]. The involvement of students in scientific argumentation enhances their conceptual, epistemological, and methodological understanding of science and supports the enculturation of students into the practice of science [9]. ...
This study aimed to develop and determine the feasibility of an electronic worksheet based on Research Oriented Collaborative Inquiry Learning in a course on chemical equilibrium. The development model of this research was Research and Development. It follows the 4D model by Thiagarajan. The 4D development model consists of four research and development steps: define, design, develop and disseminate. The instruments in this study were questionnaires used to obtain input data for products and quantitative scores as the value of media feasibility. The results showed that the components of the e-worksheet on the aspects of the materials, learning, visual display, and software engineering were suitable for use by students. The percentage of assessment by chemistry teachers was 92.50%, peer reviewers were 90%, and students’ rating was 87%. Therefore, the electronic worksheet based on Research Oriented Collaborative Inquiry Learning (REORCILEA) is worthy of being used as a learning medium in the course on chemical equilibrium to improve scientific argumentation skills. The electronic worksheet has the advantage of being more practical and effective in learning. Keywords: electronic worksheet, collaborative inquiry learning, chemical equilibrium
... Students who are taught argumentation explicitly can significantly improve the quality of their scientific argumentation ability (Khishfe, 2014). Argumentative learning becomes constructivist learning because it teaches students to evaluate their knowledge claims (Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar, & Erduran, 2017). Through a combination of argumentation activities in the syntax of the IB-NOSA instructional model, we believe that students can improve the skills needed to argue properly and precisely, understand how to compose good and correct scientific arguments and learn content that is important as part of the process. ...
One of the important goals of science education is to improve scientific argumentation ability which is part of the core practice of science. The main goals of this research are to develop and validate the inquiry-based nature of science and argumentation (IB-NOSA) instructional model which is designed to improve scientific argumentation ability. The research design in this study is Research and Development (R&D) using the steps proposed by Borg & Gall. The feasibility test of the IB-NOSA instructional model was assessed using the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) method, an assessment of the IB-NOSA model book, and an instrument test of scientific argumentation ability involving four experts. The practicality test was assessed by a lower secondary school science teacher. The data were analyzed using quantitative methods, and the validity and reliability indexes were calculated. The results of the study show that the IB-NOSA instructional model is feasible and practical. Meanwhile, the validation results of the scientific argumentation ability test instrument show that each item is in the range of 0.92 to 1. This indicates that each item is valid for further use. Therefore, it can be concluded that the IB-NOSA instructional model has feasibility and practicality for use in science learning and for developing the scientific argumentation ability of lower secondary school students.
... Benedict-Chambers et al., 2017;Engle & Conant, 2002;Yilmaz et al., 2017). ...
Sensemaking has been advocated as a core practice of science education to support students in constructing their own understanding through a prolonged trajectory. However, the field lacks a discussion of teaching strategies that can better support students as they develop in the trajectory of sensemaking, which includes four phases: initial engagement with a driving question related to a target phenomenon; identification of incoherence and insufficiency in existing understanding; exploration of multiple resources to help develop plausible explanations; and synthesis of solutions and application of new understanding to interpret the target phenomenon. With the view that students' scientific uncertainty, including conceptual and epistemic uncertainties, can motivate or drive the trajectory of sensemaking coherent with students' understanding, this multiple case study examined how two science teachers, one from South Korea and one from the USA, supported students to navigate their scientific uncertainties to shape a trajectory of sensemaking that is coherent to them. Transcripts of video recordings of classroom discourses and student‐created artifacts were analyzed. We identified the dynamic nature of students' scientific uncertainties in the four phases and the teaching strategies in each phase. Three main findings emerged from this study: (1) student uncertainty as a key not only to initiate the trajectory of sensemaking meaningfully but also to continuously develop the trajectory along a coherent pathway, (2) conceptual and epistemic uncertainties having different roles in building different phases of sensemaking, and (3) teaching strategies that support student navigation of scientific uncertainty that drives the trajectory of sensemaking.
... This ability enrichment needs to be done for a more focused claim-warrant transformation (Viyanti et al., 2020). Students must be able to compile strong evidence warrants to make claims about a problem or issue they face, so facilitating the practice of argumentation in learning is needed to improve it (Yilmaz et al., 2017). Improving students' ability to assess the credibility of sources and recognizing arguments from reference sources that involve interpretation and analysis of online information is crucial because it is an information processing stage (Marttunen et al., 2021). ...
This study aims to analyze prospective science teachers’ information literacy and scientific argumentation skills and their correlations in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This survey research with a cross-sectional design involved 342 students from a state university in Surabaya. The survey was given online to all respondents with a response rate of 77%, consisting of 23 men and 241 women. The information literacy skill instrument was adapted from the eight indicators of the empowering eight model and declared valid. Indicators include the ability to identify, explore, select, organize, create, present, access input, and use information. The argumentation skills instrument consists of four indicators: the ability to identify claims and their qualifications, identify types of data and their quality, identify reasons and quality, and identify objections and counter-arguments. In contrast to the results of previous studies in this study, prospective teachers’ information literacy obtains an average of 83% in a good category. Based on the correct answers to the four indicators, the argumentation skills used obtained an average score of more than 50% on the less and very poor criteria. Based on the SPSS one-tailed correlation test, a correlation coefficient of 0.103 is obtained with very low criteria. This study concludes that students’ information literacy skills are in line with their argumentation skills but in very little correlation.
... Arguing is often colored by debates and arguments (Crowell, 2014;Arias, 2017;Fishman, 2017;Lin, 2017;Özdem, 2017;Erduran, 2018;Osborne, 2019;Sengul, 2019;Buseyne, 2023;Chan, 2023). For each person's opinion or views to be taken into account, he must have good argumentation skills (Berland, 2013;Bathgate, 2015;Chen, 2016;Arslan, 2023;Chan, 2023). ...
This study aims to increase the level of concept mastery and argumentation of senior high school students in Singkawang City, West Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The Physics Argumentation-Based Computer-Supported Collaborative Hybrid Learning (PABCSCHL) model in Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) especially on the topic of the forest fire on the peatlands has been developed with good validation categories by three pedagogical valida-tors and three assessment validators and been implemented to 200 students. Their argumentation skill levels are measured based on Toulmin Argumentation Pattern. The syntax of the PABCSCHL model is Reading (online), Concept Building, Discussing and Debating (offline), Experiment Designing (online), and Experiment Doing (offline). The core of this model is student collaboration in arguing, debating, and experimenting. From this research , most student solution to anticipate the fire forest on peatlands is burning and waiting until the fire is extinguished perfectly (70 students), monitoring periodically that the fire is completely extinguished (60 students), and limiting the burned area by digging trenches around the site (50 students). Student solutions describe students' understanding of solving problems posed in group discussion sessions and debates and prove their arguments with experimental data. Before implementing the model, no student has the highest level of argumentation and concept mastery. After that, 23 students have the highest level of concept mastery, and 25 students have the highest level of argumentation. The PABCSCHL model can increase the level of concept mastery and argumentation skills. This model is a new alternative hybrid learning in the post COVID-19 pandemic. Many more SSI can be learning topics to be implemented in this model.
... For decades, the different subcategories of KIS have referred exclusively to knowledge about how to effectively teach science content (Osborne, 2014). In recent years, several authors have also explored teachers' use of instructional strategies for different disciplinary science practices, including scientific argumentation (Knight-Bardsley & McNeill, 2016;Sampson et al., 2011;Yilmaz et al., 2017) and the construction of conceptual models (Williams & Clement, 2015). Despite the efforts made by some researchers, little is yet known about teachers' instructional practices and their influence on students' ability to elaborate scientific explanations (Tang & Rappa, 2020). ...
The construction of scientific explanations is recognised by science education researchers and curriculum developers as one of the core epistemic practices in which students should acquire proficiency. However, little is known about the knowledge and skills that teachers must and do put into practice to successfully engage their students in building explanations. Therefore, an exploratory study was conducted to analyse the instructional strategies that two secondary science teachers used to promote students’ participation in the elaboration of scientific explanations. To this end, a multi-method approach was used for data collection, which included observations and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was carried out in two stages: the first stage was aimed at inductively encoding the participants’ interactions and discursive actions, and the second stage was aimed at performing a cross-case examination of them through constant comparative analysis. Codes were refined and clustered into seven categories. The results show that teachers quite frequently use micro strategies to interact with and guide students in explanatory episodes, but very rarely structure them into/within a complete instructional sequence to purposely promote the formulation of scientific explanations. This suggests the need to promote an explicit and conscious science teacher training to enrich their knowledge of instructional strategies for fostering and scaffolding students’ explanations.
... Among this call for critical STEM skills training within schools is the mastery of argumentation and the skills for evaluating and generating arguments to succeed in navigating the deluge of information that is encountered in everyday life (NRC, 2014). To this end, argumentation is often cited as an essential life skill for success during this age of information ubiquity (Bathgate et al., 2015;Kuhn, Hemberger, & Khait, 2016a;Özdem Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar, & Erduran, 2017). Additionally, it has been argued that the teaching of argumentation skills provides opportunities for robust learning experiences in any discipline and for any career, as argumentation establishes relevant active learning contexts for teaching subject content instead of teaching through rote memorization of facts and conceptual definitions, particularly in social studies (Cavagnetto, 2010;Iordanou, Kuhn, Matos, Shi, & Hemberger, 2019). ...
In this study, different degrees of synchronous and asynchronous online social interactions are investigated in the context of an online educational roleplaying simulation game that is played across multiple classrooms simultaneously to teach argumentation skills and social studies. Results from 45 K-12 middle school social studies teachers and 867 students over 3 study conditions were compared based on the degree of real-time discussion that was embedded in each condition's version of game (i.e., two scheduled live conferences, one scheduled live conference, and asynchronous-only interactions or zero live conferences). All conditions exhibited significant small to moderate-level pre-post effect sizes, including the condition featuring asynchronous-only discussions. Additionally, the "mid-range" 1 live conference condition exhibited the greatest pre-post effect size in comparison to the other two conditions. This study demonstrates evidence for the benefits of implementing asynchronous-only discussions in digital interventions in comparison to live discussions when synchronous interaction may not be feasible. For designers, implementing both asynchronous and synchronous interactions based on available resources and feasibility can be used to maximize social presence among participants in educational roleplaying games and other virtual learning environments.
... Teachers explored the teaching of argumentation using appropriate pedagogical strategies. These strategies included posing open-ended questions, constructing a case for argumentation, encouraging the use of data as evidence, encouraging listening and prompting justification, and using writing frames (Simon et al., 2006;Yilmaz et al., 2017). In their groups, teachers also discussed some examples of these scientific argumentation teaching strategies and shared their ideas in the whole-class discussion about how they have used them or could use them in real classroom contexts. ...
Socio-scientific issues ( SSI s)-based instruction is considered a potentially useful pedagogical approach for helping teachers to address the scientific literacy competencies outlined in the national curriculum. However, its effective implementation in the classroom requires teachers to have adequate pedagogical knowledge and skills. In this study, we engaged 45 pre- and in-service biology teachers in an 8-week SSI s teaching-oriented course. The course was designed to provide teachers with theoretical knowledge and practical SSI s teaching experience. Using data collected from the SSI s-based instruction questionnaire, interviews, and course assignments, we explored teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards SSI s-based instruction. The results of quantitative and qualitative analysis indicated that teachers had a high awareness of some core aspects of SSI s-based instruction and perceived themselves as having sufficient knowledge about SSI s pedagogical aspects. Teachers also demonstrated positive attitudes and perceptions about SSI s-based instruction. However, teachers still recognized the challenges of the SSI s teaching implementation for biology teachers in Indonesian school contexts. Teachers considered factors such as curriculum requirements, teachers’ competency, and students’ characteristics as the SSI s teaching challenges. In addition, teachers expressed concerns about their capacity in managing the SSI s discussion activities.
... Although there is no literature on the relation between PD in PED and students' achievement, numerous studies have found that various pedagogies can change teachers' practices and students' learning (Adjapong & Emdin, 2015;Asamoah et al., 2020;Baker, 2013;Özdem et al., 2017), and some have discussed the features of different pedagogy in science teaching (Pugh & Girod, 2007;Schindel, 2016). ...
Teachers’ professional development (PD) is considered to be a topic of interest in science education. This study examines the impact of professional development in science pedagogy (PD in PED) on students’ achievement and how it influences teachers’ instruction based on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS)2019. The sample comprised 2,968 fourth-grade students and their 145 teachers and 3,265 eighth-grade students and their 150 teachers in Hong Kong. Teachers’ emphasis on science investigation (TESI) was included as a mediating factor. Multilevel mediation analyses revealed that PD in PED was significantly positively related to students’ science achievement, while the link between PD in PED and students’ science achievement was positively and completely mediated by TESI in the fourth grade. However, TESI had no mediating effect in the eighth grade, a finding that may be attributed to the characteristics of teacher PD programmes in different grades. The results also show that many teacher PD programmes are not of high quality and are intellectually superficial from the perspective of students’ achievement gains. Implications for teacher PD practices are discussed as well. Keywords: professional development, science achievement, hierarchical linear model, TIMSS
... Over previous decades, great emphasis has been dedicated to science teachers' pedagogical development and instructional strategies of scientific argumentation through PD initiatives/workshops focusing on strategies of scientific argumentation (McNeill & Knight, 2013;Simon et al., 2006) and teaching resources, including technology-enhanced learning tools (Simon & Davies, 2019;. Various courses also have been designed to enable both pre-service and in-service science teachers to practice and analyse the instructional strategies of scientific argumentation (Ozdem Yilmaz, Cakiroglu, Ertepinar & Erduran, 2017). There are also PD workshops for other teachers working in elementary schools to assist them with their professional development of scientific argumentation (Martin & Hand, 2009;Osborne, Borko, Fishman, Gomez, Rafanelli, Reigh, …. & Berson, 2019). ...
Examination of existing science curricula and school science practices reveals that scientific argumentation, among other approaches, in teaching science is effective for developing students' scientific enquiry and reasoning. However, much research has shown that science teachers have struggled to integrate it into science learning and teaching. This thesis explores science teachers' pedagogical development of scientific argumentation through sustained collaborative work and reflection. The study adopted an embedded case study approach and involved the generation of qualitative data from three science teachers working in a comprehensive school in London (through lesson planning, lesson observations, reflective interviews, and students' written work). This thesis also utilised the concept of agency to examine teachers’ pedagogical development. The comparative analysis of teachers' practice showed that their initial approach to implementing scientific argumentation evolved, with variations according to teachers’ characteristics, values and emphasis on teaching science, approaches and scaffolding scientific argumentation processes, timing and the organisation of their students for discussions. Reflection on practice and collaborative work with colleagues helped them construct a better understanding of scientific argumentation and its value for learning science. Additionally, the variations in students' written work provided insight into the differences in their teachers' scientific argumentation approach. The results indicate the need for better support for teachers in planning and incorporating scientific argumentation into their practice through more focused professional learning. Additionally, this study examined changes in teachers' pedagogical development through the lens of agency, specifically in the components of sense of purpose, mastery, autonomy to act, and reflexivity, and identified factors that seemed to support or hinder the development of agency. The findings of this thesis contribute to a better understanding of how scientific argumentation is incorporated into teaching science and how the concept of agency may be useful to examine teachers' pedagogical development of new teaching approaches.
... In science education, a range of various semiotic resources is intertwined with and inseparable from the content, such as graphs, formulas, signs, symbols , visual representations (Evagorou et al., 2015), argumentation (Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017), and even gestures (Zhang, 2016). Consequently, several recent studies have explored the specific demands that are put on students' multilingual and multimodal meaning-making in relation to these kind of resources Ünsal, Jakobson, Wickman, & Molander, 2018a;. ...
In recent years, translanguaging has emerged as both a theoretical and pedagogical concept through which to examine how multilingual speakers learn by leveraging their full set of linguistic resources (Vogel S, García O, Translanguaging. Publications and Research. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_pubs/402, 2017). With a translanguaging lens, researchers in STEM education have examined how multilingual learners draw on both home- and school-based, informally and formally taught concepts as they develop proficiency in math and science concepts and processes. This study examines unplanned (spontaneous) translanguaging practices in tertiary engineering lectures and provides an initial analysis of how faculty and students think about language and translanguaging as part of their teaching and learning. Finally, we explore how sharing information on spontaneous students translanguaging may provide faculty with insights into pedagogical practices that can address Hispanic and multilingual Spanish English-speaking students’ needs.KeywordsTranslanguagingSTEMHSIHigher educationLesson studySpontaneous
... Besides, the use of argumentation activities in science classrooms (and in mathematics as well, Zhou, Liu, & Liu, 2021, but less frequently, Kartika, Budiarto & Fuad, 2021) can promote the spirit of inquiry, develop linguistic skills, foster students conceptual understanding and be helpful in performing interdisciplinary knowledge (Faize, Husain & Nisar, 2017;Lambert, & Bleicher, 2017;Erduran et al., 2019;Archila, Molina, & Truscott de Mejía, 2018) and different strategies has been described to reach this objective (Özdem et al., 2017, Erenler & Cetin, 2019. Based on the aforementioned reasons, the objective of this study is to analyze the consequences observed in students, when using entertaining science activities in the formal scientific subject contexts in secondary schools, following a based inquiry learning methodology and encourage their use in education work to improve students' interest and motivation for science. ...
Considering students’ increasing lack of interest and motivation for science subjects, it becomes almost imperative to introduce different methodology approaches in classrooms. Besides, decontextualized science teaching, where hands on activities are not sufficiently taken into account, can make the students attitude toward science-learning even worse. Inquiry Based Learning where elements such as games, toys and short experiments are included is showed as a useful methodological proposal. This paper presents how the use of these entertaining science activities can improve students’ interest and encourage them to speak about science, acquiring better argumentation and inquiry skills when they are properly performed in a formal classroom context.
... Although students' participation in the scientific argumentation process is important in terms of both their learning of scientific concepts and their better understanding of the scientific argumentation process, it is reported that opportunities for participation in such discussions is limited (Sampson & Blanchard, 2012). In this case, the importance of science teachers' knowledge related to scientific argumentation and the teaching of scientific argumentation comes to the fore (Özdem Yilmaz et al., 2017). Studies conducted in this direction reveal the deficiency of teachers' knowledge related to the components of argumentation or the inadequacy of their teaching skills required to initiate, sustain and complete an argument (Aydoğdu & Buldur, 2013;Hiğde & Aktamış, 2017;Namdar & Tuskan, 2018;Sampson & Blanchard, 2012). ...
Full-text available: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IN0d2JLxT0f2ZCgIgDilDXUuQ5EE3oyZ/view
Metaphors are a crucial factor in students’ biological content learning as they are used to make abstract phenomena more comprehensible. Therefore, metaphors are used in biology education to support students’ learning. However, metaphors might even impede the understanding of non-native speakers: They must not be understood literally, but in a transferred sense, and the usage of metaphors differs between different languages as well as cultures. So far, it is still unclear what impact different first languages have on students’ use of metaphors with respect to their biological content learning. This study examines which metaphors students with different first languages use when talking about immunology as biological phenomenon and to what extent and kind the metaphors differ. For this purpose, guided interviews with 10th grade students (15-17 years old) were conducted. Additionally, information about students’ language biography was collected. The interviews are analyzed by using a combination of two methods: First, Qualitative Content Analysis is used to structure the content of the interviews, and afterwards, the data was analyzed by Systematic Metaphor Analysis to get a deeper insight into students’ metaphor use while talking about different aspects of the phenomenon. Using these methods, a deeper insight into the connection between content and language was gained. Results show that students' use of metaphors differs individually. Contradictory to the state of research, 18 different types of metaphors were found, of which some metaphors were used just by single students.
The third book in the ESERA 2023 Proceedings Book Series brings together
research that spans four key strands of science education: Nature of Science:
History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science (Strand 5), Interdisciplinarity
and Education (Strand 6), Discourse and Argumentation in Science Education
(Strand 7), and Scientific Literacy and Socio-scientific Issues (Strand 8). This
collection reflects the diverse yet interconnected themes that drive contemporary
research in science education and contribute to a deeper understanding of how
science is taught, learned, and applied in various contexts.
Improving the quality of education in Indonesia can be developed through the implementation of educational reform. One form of educational reform can be carried out by using a learning approach that can help teachers produce experts using the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) approach. Initial findings reveal that only around 47.8% of SMA N 2 Medan students (class This research aims to see the effectiveness of the STEM approach in improving the critical thinking skills of SMA N 2 Medan students. The research method used is an experimental design with Non Equivalent Control Group Design. The research subjects were students of SMA N 2 Medan. The results showed that the sig (2-tailed) Equal variances value was assumed to be 0.000 < 0.05. Therefore, Ho is rejected and Ha is accepted, which means there is a significant difference in critical thinking abilities after students use the Equal variance method. The STEM-PBL approach, compared with the innovative K13 approach. The average critical thinking skills scores of the control class in the pre-test and post-test were 38 and 79.5. The coefficient remains at 0.676 and is significant at 0.000. This means the correlation is positive. Therefore, learning with a STEM approach has proven to be effective in improving the critical thinking skills of SMA N 2 Medan students.
Argumentation is an important practice and an explicit goal in educational standards in multiple STEM disciplines. In this descriptive study of elementary teachers' practice, we draw on established frameworks to analyze teacher support for collective argumentation in integrated STEM. We watched over 100 h of video of classroom instruction from 10 elementary teachers and analyzed over 200 episodes of argumentation. We constructed an analytic methodology to categorize integrated STEM tasks, which draws on integrated STEM education literature and selected those teachers from our data who engaged their students in integrated STEM tasks, resulting in an in-depth analysis of five teachers' practice. We found that the teachers supported students by contributing argument components, using a variety of questions and other supportive actions, and adapting their contributions and supports in different settings. Previous research on collective argumentation has been discipline specific; our study contributes an analysis of teacher support for collective argumentation in integrated STEM.
Bu çalışmada, fen bilimleri öğretmenlerinin karar verme stratejileri bağlamında; sosyobilimsel konular (SBK) hakkındaki görüşlerini, Hidroelektrik Santraller (HES) ile ilgili informal muhakeme modlarını, karar verme ve argümantasyon düzeylerini belirlemek amaçlanmıştır. Çalışma Artvin ve Rize illerinde görev yapmakta olan 15 fen bilimleri öğretmeni ile yürütülmüştür. Olgubilim araştırma deseninin benimsendiği çalışmada; görüşmeler yoluyla elde edilen veriler betimsel ve içerik analizlerine tabi tutulmuştur. Öğretmenlerin çoğunun SBK’den haberdar olmadıkları ve bilgi eksikliğinin olduğu, nehir tipi HES ile ilgili farklı muhakeme yollarına başvurdukları, karar verme ve argümantasyon bakımından düşük düzeyde ve yüksek düzeyde becerilere sahip oldukları belirlenmiştir. Fen bilimleri öğretmenlerinin SBK bilgilerini, farkındalıklarını, muhakeme becerilerini, karar verme ve argümantasyon düzeylerini artırmak için öğretim programının amaçlarının ve kazanımlarının SBK bağlamında daha detaylı ele alınması ve ihtiyaç duyulan bilgi ve becerilerin sunulması önerilmektedir.
El objetivo principal del estudio fue realizar una revisión bibliográfica sobre los métodos que se pueden utilizar para fomentar el crecimiento del pensamiento crítico en los estudiantes de Educación Básica Regular. Para ello se utilizó una metodología documental, que consistió en la búsqueda y análisis de información pertinente contenida en publicaciones periódicas indexadas por buscadores académicos como Google académico, Ebesco, Eric, Redalyc, Scielo, Scopus y DOAJ. Los hallazgos indican que los objetivos de las estrategias de pensamiento crítico convergen en el desarrollo de un pensamiento reflexivo y analítico que se vincule a su contexto. Este tipo de pensamiento busca, a través de una educación basada en el pensamiento crítico, lograr una transformación tanto del entorno en el que viven sus practicantes como de la nación de la que son ciudadanos.
Recently, the number of studies oriented to multidisciplinary science education is becoming more widespread with the increasing prevalence of 21 century-based applications. It is necessary to determine the subjects that are focused on educational research and the subjects that are studied frequently or rarely in order to draw a framework. Identifying science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) -oriented studies in science education with systematic content analysis accelerates researchers working in this field and gives them clarity about the subjects, samples, and a variety of variables. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine STEM-oriented studies in science education between 2017 and 2021 with systematic content analysis in terms of different variables in Turkey. The study was conducted according to certain criteria. Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases and indexes were examined. the number of publications made in Turkish is greater than the number of publications in English. One of the striking findings in the data obtained is that the number of publications with two authors is the highest compared with the distribution of the number of other authors. The journal that has published the most articles is Science Activities-Projects and Curriculum Ideas. The most used sample is composed of secondary school students, and the most preferred range as the sample type is between 11 and 30. There is an almost equal ratio between the research methods (quantitative and qualitative) used in the studies. It is seen that the tools classified as alternative evaluations are used the most in the studies, whereas concept maps are the least used data collection tool. It is thought that the study will guide researchers who will conduct STEM-oriented studies in science education and will help with popular trend topics that have been widely discussed recently in Turkey.
El conocimiento pedagógico del contenido ha sido una línea de investigación que da identidad a los profesores como profesionales de la educación. En el ejercicio de los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje, los programas de desarrollo profesional docente son relevantes debido a que promueven en los profesores procesos de aprendizaje y de reflexión en la práctica pedagógica. Esta revisión sistemática de literatura tiene como propósito identificar las tendencias de los procesos de investigación de los programas de desarrollo profesional docente sobre el conocimiento pedagógico del contenido entre los años 2017 y 2023. Se exploró en bases de datos Scopus y Web of Science. Se identificaron 64 publicaciones, en las que los procesos de reflexión del docente es la categoría más estudiada, que busca promover aspectos como el trabajo en equipo, la capacidad de síntesis, el planteamiento de objetivos, y la identificación de dificultades en la enseñanza; por otro lado, se encuentra que una de las estrategias más usadas que recogen los elementos del conocimiento pedagógico del contenido es la Lesson Study (LS).
Resumen El conocimiento pedagógico del contenido ha sido una línea de investigación que da identidad a los profesores como profesionales de la educación. En el ejercicio de los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje, los programas de desarrollo profesional docente son relevantes debido a que promueven en los profesores procesos de aprendizaje y de reflexión en la práctica pedagógica. Esta revisión sistemática de literatura tiene como propósito identificar las tendencias de los procesos de investigación de los programas de desarrollo profesional docente sobre el conocimiento pedagógico del contenido entre los años 2017 y 2023. Se exploró en bases de datos Scopus y Web of Science. Se identificaron 64 publicaciones, en las que los procesos de reflexión del docente es la categoría más estudiada, que busca promover aspectos como el trabajo en equipo, la capacidad de síntesis, el planteamiento de objetivos, y la identificación de dificultades en la enseñanza; por otro lado, se encuentra que una de las estrategias más usadas que recogen los elementos del conocimiento pedagógico del contenido es la Lesson Study (LS). Palabras clave: desarrollo profesional, conocimiento del profesor, enseñanza de las ciencias, práctica pedagógica. Abstract Pedagogical content knowledge has been a line of research that gives identity to teachers as education professionals. In the exercise of teaching and learning processes, teacher professional development programs are relevant because they promote in teachers learning and reflection processes in pedagogical practice; this systematic literature review aims to identify trends in research processes of teacher professional development programs from pedagogical knowledge of content between the years 2017 and 2023. Scopus and Web of Science databases were explored. Sixty-four publications were identified, in which the teacher's reflection processes is the most studied category, which seeks to promote aspects such as teamwork, synthesis capacity, goal setting, identification of difficulties in teaching; on the other hand, it is found that one of the most used generation strategies that collect the elements of Pedagogical Content Knowledge is the Lesson Study (LS).
Nesse artigo, discutimos as ações favoráveis ao ensino envolvendo argumentação e reflexões manifestadas por licenciandas ao vivenciarem um ciclo pedagógico (planejar-ensinar-refletir) relacionado ao ensino de química envolvendo argumentação. Para isso, utilizamos dados provenientes de um arquivo texto de planejamento, gravações de duas aulas conduzidas pelas licenciandas, gravações das reuniões de grupo ao longo do processo formativo, dois questionários pré e pós aula e uma entrevista. As ações foram identificadas a partir de um conjunto de 27 ações favoráveis ao ensino envolvendo argumentação e a análise das reflexões ocorreu a partir da identificação de elementos enfatizados pelas licenciandas. A análise do ciclo pedagógico vivenciado pelas licenciandas indica que elas mobilizaram conhecimento teórico-prático sobre argumentação, uma vez que conseguiram elaborar aulas que poderiam engajar os estudantes nos processos argumentativos. Entretanto, na dimensão prática, elas enfrentaram dificuldades em promover a argumentação, principalmente, entre os estudantes, resultando na ênfase de ações de Suporte. Como implicação, ressaltamos as limitações de, em contexto de formação inicial, incentivarmos apenas a produção de planos de aulas envolvendo argumentação, ou ainda, a análise de planejamentos como estratégias para avaliar os conhecimentos relativos à argumentação de licenciandos, e a necessidade de criarmos oportunidades para que os licenciandos possam planejar e conduzir situações reais de ensino, interagindo com estudantes reais.
Teachers lack effective curriculum-based instruments to assess their students’ scientific competence that would provide information for modifying their inquiry instruction. The main purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Curriculum-Based Scientific Competence (CBSC) test to assess students’ scientific competence in a 1-semester Grade 9 curriculum. The initial 51-item CBSC test was administered to 318 Grade 10 students from 4 schools. The Rasch partial credit model was used to analyse the quality of the CBSC test. The final 44-item CBSC test demonstrated satisfactory item fit, threshold, and test reliability. Further, a 23-item PISA test was used to measure criterion validity. Results indicated that the CBSC test was valid for assessing students’ scientific competencies and can distinguish the effect of inquiry instruction from that of traditional instruction. A CBSC test would provide teachers the summative assessment of scientific competency for examining the effect of inquiry-based teaching. The model of development and validation of the CBSC test through the cooperation of teachers and researchers for each semester of a science programme is recommended.
DESCRIPTION
Science teaching practices have not been systematically reviewed in the scientific literature, and when they have been addressed, it has been in relation to the study of specific issues such as the implementation of pedagogical approaches, sequence design, the effects of training plans, etc. This chapter takes another view by focusing on practices and their characteristics, even if they are often the result of very different research perspectives. It thus reports the results of studies of these characteristics published in four major science education journals between 2015 and 2020. It is focused on teaching science in elementary, and middle school and physics in high school. More specifically, beyond descriptions and characterizations of practices as such, it takes stock of the relationships that practices have with student and teacher characteristics, with local or broader structures, with teacher training, with the resources available to teachers, or with the particular aspects of the taught content. The results show the great complexity and variety of science teaching practices, and allow us to understand the difficulty of grasping the expertise and ingenuity behind this human activity.
O trabalho objetiva discutir a argumentação científica no Ensino de Química analisadas em artigos publicados nas revistas classificadas no webqualis da CAPES - quadriênio 2013 - 2016, de estrato A1: Ciência & Educação (1998-2019), Enseñanza de las Ciencias (1983-2019) e International Journal of Science Education (1979-2019). As produções científicas foram analisadas à luz da Análise de Conteúdo de Bardin (2011), evidenciando as categorias “Formação de Professores”; “Utilização da Argumentação para Finalidades Pedagógicas” e “Discussões Teóricas”. O corpus da pesquisa foi constituído por meio da seleção das palavras “argumentação”, “argumentação científica”, suas derivações e respectivas traduções nos idiomas inglês/espanhol. Os resultados apontam mecanismos argumentativos associados a diversas estratégias de ensino e de aprendizagem, advindos de diferentes nacionalidades, a partir de estudos de abordagem quantitativa e qualitativa, ambas apontando o potencial da argumentação científica como recurso que auxilia na discussão de temas sociocientíficos e desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico, além de ressaltar a importância da presença da argumentação científica na formação inicial. Confirmou-se que a argumentação científica é debatida a nível internacional e, ainda que majoritariamente utilizada para fins pedagógicos, o campo na Formação de Professores e as Discussões Teóricas referentes à argumentação científica têm sido ascendentes, o que abre caminhos para que novos entrelaçamentos ao ensino de Química sejam feitos e, com isso, compreender os percursos argumentativos dos estudantes e auxiliá-los na aprendizagem dos saberes químicos.
Science education researchers have developed a refined understanding of the structure of science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), but how to develop applicable and situation-adequate PCK remains largely unclear. A potential problem lies in the diverse conceptualisations of the PCK used in PCK research. This study sought to systematize existing science education research on PCK through the lens of the recently proposed refined consensus model (RCM) of PCK. In this review, the studies’ approaches to investigating PCK and selected findings were characterised and synthesised as an overview comparing research before and after the publication of the RCM. We found that the studies largely employed a qualitative case-study methodology that included specific PCK models and tools. However, in recent years, the studies focused increasingly on quantitative aspects. Furthermore, results of the reviewed studies can mostly be integrated into the RCM. We argue that the RCM can function as a meaningful theoretical lens for conceptualizing links between teaching practice and PCK development by proposing pedagogical reasoning as a mechanism and/or explanation for PCK development in the context of teaching practice.
Bu çalışmanın amacı, ortaokul matematik öğretmen adaylarının teknoloji destekli argümantasyon tabanlı öğretim uygulamasıyla ilgili görüşlerini belirlemektir. Katılımcılar, 2019-2020 öğretim yılı güz döneminde, bir devlet üniversitesinin eğitim fakültesinde üçüncü sınıfta öğrenim gören ve o dönem Analitik Geometri-I dersini alan 21 ortaokul matematik öğretmen adayıdır. Çalışmada nitel araştırma yaklaşımlarından biri olan durum çalışması deseni kullanılmıştır. Veriler beş açık uçlu sorudan oluşan bir açık uçlu anketle toplanmıştır. Verilerin analizinde nitel veri analiz tekniklerinden betimsel analiz ve içerik analizi kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda katılımcıların büyük bir bölümünün teknoloji destekli argümantasyon tabanlı öğretimin verimli olduğunu düşündükleri görülmüştür. Öğretmen adaylarının hem bir öğretmen hem de bir öğrenci gözüyle yaptıkları değerlendirmeler, bu tarz bir öğretim uygulamasının avantaj ve dezavantajlarına ilişkin farklı görüşlere sahip olduklarını ortaya koymuştur. Öğretmen adayları bu tarz bir öğretimin, teknoloji kullanımına ilişkin yeterliklerine pozitif etkisi olduğunu, somutlaştırma ve materyal kullanarak görselleştirme becerilerini geliştirdiğini belirtmişlerdir. Teknoloji destekli argümantasyon tabanlı öğretime uygun konularla ilgili görüşlerde geometri konularının öne çıktığı görülmüştür.
This research focuses on robotic anthropomorphism and how it impacts the learning environment of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD students show a greater interest in anthropomorphic characteristics in robots. Social interaction between robots and students by employing anthropomorphism degrees in a robot’s physical design and behavior has boosted productivity in ASD students. As robots enter our social space, we will inherently impose our interpretation on their actions, similar to the techniques we employ in rationalizing, for example, a pet’s behavior. This propensity to anthropomorphize is not seen as a hindrance to social robot development but rather a helpful mechanism that requires careful examination and employment in social robotics research. Specifically, this chapter examines social-cognitive intelligence in relation to artificial intelligence, emphasizing privacy protections and ethical implications of HRI, while designing robots that are ethical, cognitively, and artificially intelligent, as well as human-like in their social interactions.KeywordsRobotic AnthropomorphismRobotic IntentionalitySocial CognitionAutism Spectrum DisorderHuman–Robot InteractionHumanoid RobotsSocial RoboticsHuman–Robot Interaction (HRI)
Instructional practices in Education for Sustainable Development are thought to play a crucial role in the cultivation of students' action competence towards Sustainable Development issues. This paper explores teachers' interests and their action-oriented instructional practices in ESD. The Action-orientation in ESD Questionnaire (AoESD-Q) employs a survey methodology consisting of vignettes describing different instructional practices and following open questions. Thematic analysis was employed to reveal teachers' interests, and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and frequency analyses to detect the least or more often reported interests and instructional practices. The study revealed that teachers in this study have poor interest in and limited instructional practices of action-orientation in ESD. As such, they mostly apply low action-oriented instructional practices. Teachers' interested in action-oriented instructional practices also apply mostly low action-oriented instructional practices. Potential factors are discussed which are responsible for teachers’ poor interest in action-oriented practices and limited implementation in ESD teaching and implications for teacher professionalization programmes.
Argumentation is central to science learning. Students in every domain of science should have the opportunity to develop the ability to think and act in ways associated with argumentation. When engaged in argumentation, students learn how to puzzle through problems, to see multiple ways of finding solutions, to gather and evaluate evidence on different sides of issues, and communicate scientific knowledge. These skills can ultimately equip students with the ability to function effectively at work and in the everyday world. In this study, argumentation was processed as a dialogical interaction for students who are in a dialogical relation with others, and who contribute to a conversation by means of thinking, sense making, reasoning, and problem solving in the science classroom. Eighty-seven students completed 48 written tasks, twelve of which deal with problem-solving tasks on mechanics concepts and 36 other tasks concerned with features of how they make and defend arguments. The results show that about two-thirds of the students tended to place primacy on claim making and evidence evaluation on problem-solving tasks that have clear solutions. However, when they had to solve problem tasks that have multiple solutions or no clear-cut answers, regardless of the type of scenarios, their performance dropped considerably. These findings provided additional insight for where more emphasis needs to be placed in both students' arguments and pedagogical explanations on how argumentation in science classrooms can be conceptualized.
Science education researchers have developed a refined understanding of the structure of science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), but how to develop applicable and situation-adequate PCK remains largely unclear. A potential problem lies in the diverse conceptualisations of the PCK used in PCK research. This study sought to systematize existing science education research on PCK through the lens of the recently proposed refined consensus model (RCM) of PCK. In this review, the studies’ approaches to investigating PCK and selected findings were characterised and synthesised as an overview comparing research before and after the publication of the RCM. We found that the studies largely employed a qualitative case-study methodology that included specific PCK models and tools. However, in recent years, the studies focused increasingly on quantitative aspects. Furthermore, results of the reviewed studies can mostly be integrated into the RCM. We argue that the RCM can function as a meaningful theoretical lens for conceptualizing links between teaching practice and PCK development by proposing pedagogical reasoning as a mechanism and/or explanation for PCK development in the context of teaching practice.
This chapter focuses on the complexity of learning processes in a translanguaging science classroom (TSC). We explore multilingual students’ use of their first and second languages in authentic meaning-making in translanguaging situations in a middle school in Sweden. In the analysis, we interpret these classroom situations as multilingual hybrid spaces, in which both content and languages are simultaneously negotiated in order to create meaning. The aim is to investigate how these situations may contribute to the development of students’ conceptual knowledge and language use in science. The negotiations are illustrated as movements in multilingual discursive loops, which includes immediate and dynamic movements between “national languages” (Swedish and Arabic) and different discourses (every-day and scientific) with support from multimodal resources. We describe these movements in a model and conclude that the students’ language and conceptual development is largely enabled by opening up the multilingual negotiation spaces that constitute a TSC.KeywordsLanguage and conceptual developmentMultilingual discursive loopsScience educationSubject-specific languageTranslanguaging
Estudos que abordam a relação entre leitura e ensino de Ciências podem ser encontrados desde a década de 1980, sendo inegável o papel importante que a leitura possui em todas as áreas do conhecimento. Diante disso, esta pesquisa investigou como o trabalho com a leitura e o ensino de Ciências na Educação Básica se apresenta nas publicações das edições do Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências (ENPEC), objetivando compreender a relação apresentada entre o trabalho com a leitura e o ensino de Ciências. Para isso, realizamos uma pesquisa qualitativa e do tipo bibliográfica nas atas das edições do ENPEC de 1997 a 2019, buscando por trabalhos que tratavam da temática “leitura e ensino de Ciências”. Entre os trabalhos encontrados, 63 discutiam essa temática, sendo 28 deles referentes à Educação Básica. A pesquisa possibilitou construir um panorama das investigações realizadas e divulgadas sobre o trabalho com leitura e ensino de Ciências nesse evento, apontando que a discussão está presente em poucas pesquisas apresentadas. A análise denotou, ainda, que as tendências dos trabalhos encontrados estão direcionadas para diversas vertentes, desde o uso exclusivo do livro didático como único suporte para a atividade de leitura até discussões sobre a inquestionável importância da leitura no processo da Alfabetização e Letramento científico, denunciando a enorme preocupação da segregação entre leitura e ensino de Ciências.
A significant amount of research is invested in examining instructional practices for science education. Many countries around the world have established reforms in science education, including how the sciences are taught. For instance, in 2013, many states in the United States established new standards for science education, the next generation science standards (NGSS). Similarly, in 2018, Israel’s Ministry of Education published a “Portfolio of Lesson Plans” that emphasized the development of students’ scientific skills and establishing a new era of instructional strategies in the sciences. In Israel’s Arab community, science is considered an important discipline and it holds an important place in the educational system. Previous studies have shown that Arab teachers regularly use teacher-centered teaching strategies. The present study sought to identify instructional practices used by Arab science teachers, comparing these to the NGSS, and understand the beliefs underlying the choice of methods. It also examined how these practices are related to the teacher’s years of experience. The study employed mixed methods. The quantitative portion was based on the science instructional practices survey. In accordance with teachers’ self-reports, the results indicate that Arab science teachers in Israel primarily use traditional, non-NGSS instructional practices such as direct instruction; NGSS teaching practices, such as empirical investigations and critique, explanation, and argumentation, are used much less often. Novice teachers reported significantly more use of NGSS teaching practices than did experienced teachers. This difference was attributed to the hours of professional development dedicated to science instructional practices that novice teachers participated in as part of their in-service period. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight teachers to gain further insight into the beliefs and motivations underlying their choice of teaching methods. The findings highlight the teachers’ belief that their main role is to transmit scientific knowledge to students, who should acquire the knowledge in a passive manner.
Students’ difficulties in scientific argumentation have been widely reported in the literature. Researchers argue that these difficulties result mainly from students’ lack of understanding of the goals and norms of argumentation. Therefore, designing and implementing appropriate instructional scaffolds to facilitate such essential knowledge of argumentation holds pedagogical significance. In this qualitative case study, two kinds of argument-focused metacognitive scaffolds (AMS) – questioning and prompting, and modelling of thinking – were designed and integrated into an elementary science classroom. One science teacher and her 19 students participated in this case study. To explore the pedagogical contributions of AMS, data were collected from multiple sources including classroom observation, interviews with students, and students’ works. AMS in this study supported students to engage in argumentation reflectively, as these scaffolds facilitated the development of students’ understanding of the goals and evidence-related norms of argumentation and abilities of metacognitive monitoring during argumentation. These influences were also recognised and appreciated by students. When AMS gradually reduced, students’ knowledge of argumentation and abilities of metacognitive monitoring were retained and affected how they performed argumentation in new contexts. Pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.
We designed Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) debate projects to take advantage of internet resources and promote student understanding of science. Design decisions were guided by the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration instructional framework. We report on design studies that test and elaborate on our instructional framework. Our learning studies assess the arguments students construct using the Knowledge Integration Environment debate project about light propagation and, explore the relationship between students' views of the nature of science and argument construction. We examine how students use evidence, determine when they add further ideas and claims and measure progress in understanding light propagation. To a modeate degree, students' views of the nature of science align with the quality of the arguments.
The primary objective of this paper is to provide a review of research on argumentation in science education based on publications from 1998 to 2014 in three science education journals. In recent years, the teaching and learning argumentation (i.e. the coordination of evidence and theory to support or refute an explanatory conclusion, model or prediction) has emerged as a significant educational goal. Argumentation is a critically important discourse process in science and it should be taught and learned in the science classroom as part of scientific inquiry and literacy. Argumentation stresses the evidence-based justification of knowledge claims, and it underpins reasoning across STEM domains. Our aim in this study was to investigate how argumentation has been positioned within the publications of three top academic journals: Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, and Journal of Research in Science Teaching. A methodology for content analysis of the journals is described using quantitative and qualitative techniques.
One of the contributions of our analysis is the illustration that researchers studying argumentation from a linguistic perspective have been emphasizing related concepts in different ways. While the emphasis has been on discourse and discussion across all journals, the related concepts of talk, conversation, dialogue and negotiation were observed to a lesser extent. Likewise, the fine-level analysis of the key epistemic concepts such as reasoning, evidence and inquiry indicates variation in coverage.
The findings can provide evidence-based indicators for where more emphasis needs to be placed in future research on argumentation, and in particular they can provide guidelines for journals in soliciting articles that target underemphasized aspects of argumentation in science education.
The research reported in this paper focussed on the design of learning environments that support the teaching and learning of argumentation in a scientific context. The research took place over two years between 1999 and 2001 in junior high schools in the greater London area. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first developmental phase, working with a group of 12 science teachers, the main emphasis was to develop sets of materials and strategies to support argumentation in the classroom and to assess teachers‘ development with teaching argumentation. Data were collected by videoing and audio recording the teachers attempts to implement these lessons at the beginning and end of the year. During this phase, analytical tools for evaluating the quality of argumentation were developed based on Toulmin‘s argument pattern. Analysis of the data shows that there was significant development in the majority of teachers use of argumentation across the year. Results indicate that the pattern of use of argumentation is teacher specific, as is the nature of the change. In the second phase of the project, teachers taught the experimental groups a minimum of nine lessons which involved socioscientific or scientific argumentation. In addition, these teachers taught similar lessons to a control group at the beginning and end of the year. Here the emphasis lay on assessing the progression in student capabilities with argumentation. Hence data were collected from several lessons of two groups of students engaging in argumentation. Using a framework for evaluating the nature of the discourse and its quality, the findings show that there was an improvement in the quality of students‘ argumentation. In addition, the research offers methodological developments for work in this field.
The research reported in this study focuses on an investigation into the teaching of argumentation in secondary science classrooms. Over a 1-year period, a group of 12 teachers from schools in the greater London area attended a series of workshops to develop materials and strategies to support the teaching of argumentation in scientific contexts. Data were collected at the beginning and end of the year by audio-recording and video-recording lessons where the teachers attempted to implement argumentation. To assess the quality of argumentation, analytical tools derived from Toulmin's argument pattern were developed and applied to classroom transcripts. Teachers' use of argumentation developed across the year, the pattern of use was teacher-specific, as was the nature of change. To inform future professional development programmes, transcripts of five teachers, three showing a significant change and two showing no change, were analysed in more detail to identify features of teachers' oral contributions that facilitated and supported argumentation. All teachers attempted to encourage a variety of processes involved in argumentation; teachers whose lessons included the highest quality of argumentation (Toulmin's argument pattern analysis) also encouraged higher-order processes in their teaching. The analysis of teachers' facilitation of argumentation has helped to guide the development of in-service materials and to identify the barriers to learning in the professional development of less experienced teachers.
Research shows that scientific knowledge develops through a process of decision‐making as well as discovery, and that argumentation is a genre of discourse crucial to the practice of science. Students should therefore be supported in understanding the scientific practices of dialectical and rhetorical argumentation as part of learning about scientific inquiry. This study focuses on supporting scientific argumentation in the classroom through a customized online discourse system. “Personally‐seeded discussions” support learning and collaboration through an activity structure that elicits, shares, and contrasts students’ own ideas to engage them in the discourse of science argumentation and inquiry. Students use an online interface to build principles to describe data they have collected. These principles become the seed comments for the online discussions. The software sorts students into discussion groups with students who have built different principles so that each discussion group can consider and critique multiple perspectives. This study explores the efficacy of this personally‐seeded approach based on a coding scheme developed by Erduran, Osborne, and Simon that analyzes argument structure from a Toulmin perspective. As part of this exploration, the study outlines a method for parsing personally‐seeded discussions into oppositional episodes for analysis, and discusses future directions for supporting argumentation in asynchronous online discussions.
This study examines the development of teachers' metastrategic knowledge (MSK), a component of metacognitive knowledge, in the context of higher order thinking. Participants were 14 junior high school and high school science teachers who attended a professional development course. Data collection was carried out by triangulation of several data sources: classroom observations, individual interviews, written assignments, and recordings of discussions that took place during the course. The Findings section provides a detailed analysis of the professional development of 2 teachers, as well as an analysis of the development of the 14 teachers as a group. The data provide evidence for the types of knowledge teachers need for applying MSK in the course of instruction, the most specific of which are MSK of thinking skills (that must be explicit) and pedagogical knowledge regarding MSK. The considerable overall development in teachers' MSK following an in-service course consisted of at least 3 different patterns of development: (a) learning MSK regarding new thinking skills, (b) transforming initially implicit metalevel knowledge into explicit metalevel knowledge, and (c) introducing changes in the class culture to value new forms of discourse regarding thinking. The implications for professional development courses in this field are discussed.
This paper reports data from a case study of role-play debates on the controversial issue of wolves in Norway. The participants are 23 students at the age of 14-15 and their teacher. Transcripts from the role-play debates are the data sources. The focus of the paper is the teacher role regarding manage-ment and teacher interventions in activities involving argumentation. A typology of teacher inter-ventions and reasons for these is developed, that might serve as a useful tool for student teachers and teachers not experienced in managing debates and discussions. Sonja M. Mork has for several years worked as a secondary school science teacher, but is now a doctoral student at the Viten project and situated at the Department for Teacher Education and School Development at the University of Oslo. She is writing a thesis on the use of the digital teaching resources at the web-site www.viten.no. Mork also works as a program developer in the project "ABM – school and web", directed by Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Autho-rity (ABM). In this project a digital teaching program connecting schools and the activities of ABM is developed.
Scientific argumentation is seen as an increasingly important aspect of science education. However, engaging in argumentative discourse requires that students and teachers take on new roles and develop epistemic criteria that are more consistent with that of the scientific community. Thus, engaging in scientific argumentation requires transforming traditional classroom norms. In this paper we argue for a practice-based approach to supporting teachers and students in which we examine the ways in which the existing classroom norms support and inhibit student participation in scientific argumentation. Using this lens we see that we must "create a need" in the classroom environment for students to produce coherent, scientific arguments. To that end, we developed three design strategies to create this need for students and teachers to transform their classroom norms in order to engage in scientific argumentation. We conclude with preliminary data of a class that is utilizing our design strategies in which the students are engaging in scientific argumentation.
Science education reforms consistently maintain the goal that students develop an understanding of the nature of science, including both the nature of scientific knowledge and methods for making it. This paper articulates a framework for scaffolding epistemic aspects of inquiry that can help students understand inquiry processes in relation to the kinds of knowledge such processes can produce. This framework underlies the design of a technology-supported inquiry curriculum for evolution and natural selection that focuses students on constructing and evaluating scientific explanations for natural phenomena. The design has been refined through cycles of implementation, analysis, and revision that have documented the epistemic practices students engage in during inquiry, indicate ways in which designed tools support students' work, and suggest necessary additional social scaffolds. These findings suggest that epistemic tools can play a unique role in supporting students' inquiry, and a fruitful means for studying students' scientific epistemologies. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed88:345–372, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/.sce10130
The research reported in this study focuses on the design and evaluation of learning environments that support the teaching and learning of argumentation in a scientific context. The research took place over 2 years, between 1999 and 2001, in junior high schools in the greater London area. The research was conducted in two phases. In phase 1, working with a group of 12 science teachers, the main emphasis was to develop sets of materials and strategies to support argumentation in the classroom, and to support and assess teachers' development with teaching argumentation. Data were collected by video- and audio-recording the teachers' attempts to implement these lessons at the beginning and end of the year. During this phase, analytical tools for evaluating the quality of argumentation were developed based on Toulmin's argument pattern. Analysis of the data shows that there was significant development in the majority of teachers use of argumentation across the year. Results indicate that the pattern of use of argumentation is teacher-specific, as is the nature of the change. In phase 2 of the project, the focus of this paper, teachers taught the experimental groups a minimum of nine lessons which involved socioscientific or scientific argumentation. In addition, these teachers taught similar lessons to a comparison group at the beginning and end of the year. The purpose of this research was to assess the progression in student capabilities with argumentation. For this purpose, data were collected from 33 lessons by video-taping two groups of four students in each class engaging in argumentation. Using a framework for evaluating the nature of the discourse and its quality developed from Toulmin's argument pattern, the findings show that there was improvement in the quality of students' argumentation. This research presents new methodological developments for work in this field. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 994–1020, 2004
An outcome of science education is that young people have the understandings and skills to participate in public debate and
make informed decisions about science issues that influence their lives. Toulmin’s argumentation skills are emerging as an
effective strategy to enhance the quality of evidence based decision making in science classrooms. In this case study, an
Australian science teacher participated in a one-on-one professional learning session on argumentation before explicitly teaching
argumentation skills to two year10 classes studying genetics. Over two lessons, the teacher used whole class discussion and
writing frames of two socioscientific issues to teach students about argumentation. An analysis of classroom observation field
notes, audiotaped lesson transcripts, writing frames and student interviews indicate that four factors promoted student argumentation.
The factors are: the role of the teacher in facilitating whole class discussion; the use of writing frames; the context of
the socioscientific issue; and the role of the students. It is recommended that professional learning to promote student argumentation
may need to be tailored to individual teachers and that extensive classroom based research is required to determine the impact
of classroom factors on students’ argumentation.
KeywordsArgumentation-Genetics education-Socioscientific issues
This book brings together the work of leading experts in argumentation in science education. It presents research combining theoretical and empirical perspectives relevant for secondary science classrooms. Since the 1990s, argumentation studies have increased at a rapid pace, from stray papers to a wealth of research exploring ever more sophisticated issues.
This volume constitutes a unique collection and covers fundamental issues in argumentation such as cognitive, methodological and epistemological aspects; classroom-based research in teaching and learning of argumentation in science classrooms; and argumentation in context such as in socio-scientific and moral contexts. The book’s underlying premise is that argumentation is a significant aspect of scientific inquiry and plays an important role in teaching and learning of science. Argumentation also contributes to the agenda of informed citizenship where students are encouraged and supported in evidence-based reasoning in their everyday lives.
"Arumentation appeared as a major theme in science education research during the mid-1990s. Since that time, researchers working on themes such as the nature of science in science education, science education for citizenship, and language in the science classroom have all addressed argumentation in their work. This book brings together key lines of work and key scholars, presenting a state-of-the-art review of argumentation in science education."
Professor John Leach
The University of Leeds, UK
Despite being identified as an essential scientific practice, argumentation is rarely integrated into instruction. This could be influenced by teachers’ pedagogical design capacity (PDC), which considers teaching as a design activity influenced by both instructional resources (such as tools and professional development (PD)) and teacher resources (such as beliefs and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)). In this study, we investigated how the development of five upper elementary and middle school teachers’ beliefs and PCK impacted their design and integration of argumentation within their instruction. Data sources included pre- and postsurveys, videotaped lessons, and interviews. Our analyses resulted in two groups of teachers. While several teachers offloaded some of
their lesson design by using PD resources, others adapted the PD resources and renamed an aspect of their current instruction as argumentation. Moreover, the teachers who offloaded some of their lesson design exhibited argumentation within their instruction and greater change in their beliefs or PCK for argumentation. This suggests the importance of future teacher education experiences supporting teachers’ PDC by providing multiple opportunities to offload, try out, and reflect on instruction. Future research should explore whether teachers understanding of the PDC framework supports their understanding of argumentation.
Argumentation studies in science education are relatively young. It can be said that classroom-based research in scientific argumentation began in the 1990s. The first batch of studies focused on exploring whether science classroom environments favoured argumentation, an exploration with negative outcomes (e.g., Driver, Newton & Osborne, 2000), as well as on investigating students’ argumentation (e.g., Duschl, Ellenbogen, & Erduran, 1999; Jimenez-Aleixandre, Bugallo & Duschl, 2000; Kolste, 2006; Kortland, 1996). As the field continued to develop, the focus shifted towards an interest in the quality of arguments, or how to analyze the development of students’ argumentation competences (e.g., Erduran, 2008; Erduran, Simon & Osborne, 2004). In the last few years there is an emerging interest about how to support students’ engagement in argumentation, through the design of learning environments (e.g., Jimenez-Aleixandre, 2008; Mork, 2005) and professional development of science teachers (e.g, Erduran, Ardac & Yakmaci- Guzel, 2006; Erduran, 2006; Simon, Erduran & Osborne, 2006).
Basing its arguments in current perspectives on the nature of the scientific enterprise, which see argument and argumentative practice as a core activity of scientists, this article develops the case for the inclusion and central role of argument in science education. Beginning with a review of the nature of argument, it discusses the function and purpose of dialogic argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge and the interpretation of empirical data. The case is then advanced that any education about science, rather than education in science, must give the role of argument a high priority if it is to give a fair account of the social practice of science, and develop a knowledge and understanding of the evaluative criteria used to establish scientific theories. Such knowledge is essential to enhance the public understanding of science and improve scientific literacy. The existing literature, and work that has attempted to use argument within science education, is reviewed to show that classroom practice does provide the opportunity to develop young people's ability to construct argument. Furthermore, the case is advanced that the lack of opportunities for the practice of argument within science classrooms, and lack of teacher's pedagogical skills in organizing argumentative discourse within the classroom are significant impediments to progress in the field.
Despite the recent emphasis on science practices, little work has focused on teachers' knowledge of these key learning goals. The development of high quality assessments for teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of science practices, such as argumentation, is important to better assess the needs of teachers and to develop supportive teacher education experiences. In this paper, we present lessons learned from a development process to conceptualize, design, and pilot a measure of teachers' PCK of argumentation. We use the results from our pilot test with 103 middle school science teachers, cognitive interviews with 24 middle school science teachers, and feedback from 10 advisors to present these lessons learned. Specifically, this work resulted in the refinement of our conceptualization of PCK of argumentation in two areas: (1) Moving beyond pseudoargumentation of surface level features to target the quality of structural components and students' dialogic interactions as well as the use of instructional strategies that align with student needs and (2) Focusing on dialogic argumentation in terms of the quality of student interactions in which they build off of and critique each others' claims, rather than goals such as persuasion that are difficult to observe. In addition, the iterative design process suggested that PCK of argumentation assessments should use classroom contexts (such as vignettes, student writing, and video) to activate teachers' knowledge in use by connecting to their prior experiences; however, the student argumentation examples need to highlight one specific strength or challenge and provide sufficient detail around the example to focus the assessment item. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach
This chapter describes a comprehensive research program addressing metastrategic knowledge (MSK), i.e., general conscious awareness of the thinking strategies applied during instruction and knowledge of their general characteristics. A series of three consecutive studies investigated the effects of explicit instruction of MSK. The findings of all three studies showed dramatic developments in students’ strategic and metastrategic thinking following instruction. The effect of the treatment was preserved in delayed transfer tests. Explicit teaching of MSK had a particularly strong effect on low-achieving students. The findings show the significance of explicit teaching of MSK for teaching higher-order thinking to all students and in particular to LA students. The final sections of this chapter report two additional studies concerning teachers’ knowledge in the context of teaching MSK. These studies showed that teachers’ initial metastrategic knowledge was lacking and insufficient for teaching purposes. Following professional development, considerable progress was made in teachers’ knowledge of MSK and in their pedagogical abilities to use this knowledge in the classroom. These findings show that a professional development course can indeed help teachers make considerable progress with respect to the knowledge that is required for applying MSK in the classroom. MSK, which is the metacognitive component applied in this chapter, consists of knowledge about tasks (referring to task characteristics that call for the use of a strategy or “when” to use a strategy) and knowledge about strategies (referring to “why” and “how” to use a strategy).
En Europa, el concepto «competencias clave» ha cobrado importancia en los últimos años, tanto a nivel político como en los centros escolares. Se consideran competencias clave las capacidades y actitudes esenciales para que los jóvenes europeos triunfen, no solo en la economía actual y en la sociedad moderna, sino también en su vida personal. Las competencias clave se han definido a escala europea y comprenden: 1) la capacidad para comunicarse rápida y fácilmente en la lengua materna, 2) la capacidad para hablar lenguas extranjeras, 3) la competencia matemática y las competencias básicas en ciencia y tecnología, 4) la
competencia digital, 5) las competencias sociales y cívicas, 6) el sentido de la iniciativa y el espíritu de empresa, 7) la capacidad de aprender a aprender y 8) la conciencia y la expresión culturales.
Los países europeos han logrado avances significativos respecto a la incorporación de estas competencias clave en los currículos nacionales y otros documentos estratégicos, hecho que demuestra el compromiso por conseguir que las competencias que se enseñan a los jóvenes en los centros escolares sean las más relevantes posibles para su vida y para la sociedad. No obstante, quedan desafíos pendientes –especialmente en lo que respecta a la aplicación práctica de los currículos reformados.
Este folleto destaca los principales logros y desafíos en relación con la implantación de las competencias clave en el contexto escolar en Europa. Se tienen en cuenta todas las competencias clave mencionadas, salvo «aprender a aprender» y la «sensibilidad y expresión culturales». El informe abarca la enseñanza obligatoria y la educación secundaria general en 31 países europeos (Estados miembros de la UE, Croacia, Islandia, Noruega y Turquía) durante el curso 2011/12.
"El desarrollo de las competencias clave en el contexto escolar en Europa. Desafíos y oportunidades para la política enla materia" (p.1)
One of the hallmarks of science and science education is the production of new knowledge about the natural world through objective argument and critique. Teachers’ understanding of scientific argumentation impacts how they incorporate this important scientific practice into science classrooms. This study examined how three professional development workshop series grounded in authentic practice impacted seventy elementary, middle, and high school teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for scientific argumentation. Data sources included pre and post surveys, videotapes of the workshops, artifacts produced by the teachers, and samples of student writing. Results from the analysis suggest that the workshops were successful in teachers’ development of pedagogical content knowledge for argumentation in relation to the structural components of students’ science writing. However, the teachers also had a number of challenges. Specifically, teachers struggled with analyzing classroom discussions for both structural and dialogic characteristics of argumentation, had difficulty applying the reasoning component of argumentation to classroom practice, and found designing argumentation questions to be challenging. Finally, elementary teachers connected argumentation to other disciplines, while high school teachers focused more on the science content. These challenges and differences between teachers should be considered in the design of future professional development and pre-service teacher education.
This paper provides a rationale for the changes advocated by the Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. It provides an argument for why the model embedded in the Next Generation Science Standards is seen as an improvement. The Case made here is that the underlying model that the new Framework presents of science better represents contemporary understanding of nature of science as a social and cultural practice. Second, it argues that the adopting a framework of practices will enable better communication of meaning amongst professional science educators. This, in turn, will enable practice in the classroom to improve. Finally, the implications for teacher education are explored.
Constructing scientific explanations and participating in argumentative discourse are seen as essential practices of scientific inquiry (e.g., R. Driver, P. Newton, & J. Osborne, 2000). In this paper, we identify three goals of engaging in these related scientific practices: (1) sensemaking, (2) articulating, and (3) persuading. We propose using these goals to understand student engagement with these practices, and to design instructional interventions to support students. Thus, we use this framework as a lens to investigate the question: What successes and challenges do students face as they engage in the scientific practices of explanation and argumentation? We study this in the context of a curriculum that provides students and teachers with an instructional framework for constructing and defending scientific explanations. Through this analysis, we find that students consistently use evidence to make sense of phenomenon and articulate those understandings but they do not consistently attend to the third goal of persuading others of their understandings. Examining the third goal more closely reveals that persuading others of an understanding requires social interactions that are often inhibited by traditional classroom interactions. Thus, we conclude by proposing design strategies for addressing the social challenges inherent in the related scientific practices of explanation and argumentation. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 93:26-55, 2009
This study examines whether students enrolled in a general chemistry I laboratory course developed the ability to participate in scientific argumentation over the course of a semester. The laboratory activities that the students participated in during the course were designed using the Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) an instructional model. This model gives a more central place to argumentation and the role of argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge. The development of the students' ability to construct a scientific argument and to participate in scientific argumentation was tracked over time using three different data sources. These data sources included a performance task, which was administered at the beginning, middle, and end of the course, video recording of the students participating in episodes of argumentation, and the lab reports the students wrote as part of each lab activity. As time was the independent variable in this study, a repeated measure ANOVA was used to evaluate changes in the ways students performed on each task over the course of the semester. The results of the analysis indicate that there was significant growth in the quality of the students' written arguments and nature of their oral argumentation. There also was a significant correlation between written and oral arguments. These results suggest that the use of an integrated instructional model that places emphasis on argument and argumentation can have a positive impact on the quality of the arguments students include in their investigation reports, the argumentation they engage in during lab activities, and their overall performance on tasks that require them to develop and support a valid conclusion with genuine evidence. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50: 561–596, 2013
Current research indicates that student engagement in scientific argumentation can foster a better understanding of the concepts and the processes of science. Yet opportunities for students to participate in authentic argumentation inside the science classroom are rare. There also is little known about science teachers' understandings of argumentation, their ability to participate in this complex practice, or their views about using argumentation as part of the teaching and learning of science. In this study, the researchers used a cognitive appraisal interview to examine how 30 secondary science teachers evaluate alternative explanations, generate an argument to support a specific explanation, and investigate their views about engaging students in argumentation. The analysis of the teachers' comments and actions during the interview indicates that these teachers relied primarily on their prior content knowledge to evaluate the validity of an explanation rather than using available data. Although some of the teachers included data and reasoning in their arguments, most of the teachers crafted an argument that simply expanded on a chosen explanation but provided no real support for it. The teachers also mentioned multiple barriers to the integration of argumentation into the teaching and learning of science, primarily related to their perceptions of students' ability levels, even though all of these teachers viewed argumentation as a way to help students understand science. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 1122–1148, 2012
The present study was a follow-up to Tsai and Wen's (2005) earlier research, in which 802 articles published in the International Journal of Science Education, Science Education, and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching from 1998 to 2002 were analysed in terms of author's nationality, research type, and research topic. In the present study a total of 869 papers published in the three journals from 2003 to 2007 were analysed, and the results were compared with those of Tsai and Wen. Moreover, this study also identified 31 highly-cited papers published during 1998-2002 and 20 highly-cited papers published during 2003-2007. The results showed that authors from countries other than the four major English-speaking countries (i.e., the USA, the UK, Australia, and Canada) published an increasing number of articles in the past decade. During these five years (2003-2007), science educators showed relatively more interest in research topics involving the context of student learning. Besides, science educators have changed some of their research interests during 1998-2007, with a shift in the research topics from student conception learning and conceptual change (1998-2002) to student learning contexts (2003-2007). Moreover, the investigation of highly-cited papers in the past decade revealed that studies on argumentation have gained significant attention among science educators.
This study explores the arguments used by 14-year-old students in making decisions about the design of a road in their area. The whole activity was based on an actual problem at the time the research took place. The procedure was a sequence, where students worked first individually, then in groups and finally they had to take a class decision. Then they had to realize one of the final proposals and design the construction of a bridge that their planning had involved. This paper first elaborates the general perspective of such an approach; it then describes the process of argumentation and analyses the nature of the students' arguments, which are discussed on the basis of a specifically constructed network.
A central theme throughout the impressive series of philosophical books and articles Stephen Toulmin has published since 1948 is the way in which assertions and opinions concerning all sorts of topics, brought up in everyday life or in academic research, can be rationally justified. Is there one universal system of norms, by which all sorts of arguments in all sorts of fields must be judged, or must each sort of argument be judged according to its own norms? In The Uses of Argument (1958) Toulmin sets out his views on these questions for the first time. In spite of initial criticisms from logicians and fellow philosophers, The Uses of Argument has been an enduring source of inspiration and discussion to students of argumentation from all kinds of disciplinary background for more than forty years.
Curriculum materials for Grades K–12 that are intended to promote teacher learning in addition to student learning have come to be called educative curriculum materials. How can K–12 curriculum materials be designed to best promote teacher learning? What might teacher learning with educative curriculum materials look like? The authors present a set of design heuristics for educative curriculum materials to further the principled design of these materials. They build from ideas about teacher learning and organize the heuristics around important parts of a teacher’s knowledge base: subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge for topics, and pedagogical content knowledge for disciplinary practices. These heuristics provide a context for a theoretically oriented discussion of how features of educative curriculum materials may promote teacher learning, by serving as cognitive tools that are situated in teachers’ practice. The authors explore challenges in the design of educative curriculum materials, such as the tension between providing guidance and choice.
Effective argumentation is the distinguishing feature of a classroom that employs discovery teaching and student inquiry methodologies. In the long term, the objective of the program is to understand how to design learning environments and curriculum, instruction, and assessment models that promote student self-reflection. The study evaluates the effectiveness of the Science Education through Portfolio Instruction and Assessment (SEPIA) curriculum-instruction-assessment learning environment design features in developing learners' abilities to reason about and evaluate scientific claims. (Contains 38 references.) (YDS)
In this article, the author presents the science and engineering practices from the recently released "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" (NRC 2011). The author recognizes the changes implied by the new framework, and that a new generation of science education standards will present new perspectives for the science education community. Although the NRC report is a framework and not standards, it is prudent for those in the science and technology education community to begin preparing for the new standards. This article focuses primarily on one aspect of the new NRC framework--science and engineering practices--because these practices are basic to science education and the change from inquiry to practices is central. The new emphasis on practices reinforces the need for school science programs to actively involve students through investigations and, in the 21st century, digitally based programs and activities. This innovation for the new standards will likely be one of the most significant challenges for the successful implementation of science education standards. (Contains 8 figures.)
The research reported in this paper stemmed from our conviction that argument is a central dimension of both science and science education. Our specific intention was to determine whether secondary science teachers in England give pupils opportunities to develop and rehearse the skills of argumentation during their lessons. We found that classroom discourse was largely teacher dominated and tended not to foster the reflective discussion of scientific issues. Opportunities for the social construction of knowledge, that are afforded by the use of argument-based pedagogical techniques, were few and far between. After a discussion of teachers' responses to this finding, we highlighted two major explanations: firstly, limitations in teachers' pedagogical repertoires; secondly, external pressures imposed upon science teachers in England by the National Curriculum and its assessment system.
In recent years, research on students' scientific argumentation has progressed to a recognition of nascent resources: Students can and do argue when they experience the need and possibility of persuading others who may hold competing views. Our purpose in this article is to contribute to this progress by applying the perspective of framing to the question of when and how a class forms and maintains a sense of their activity as argumentative. In particular, we examine three snippets from a sixth-grade class with respect to how the students—and the teacher—experience, or frame, what is taking place. We argue that they show dynamics of framing for individuals and for the class as a whole that affect and are affected by students' engagement in argumentation. We close the article with implications of this perspective for research, teaching, and instructional design. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 68–94, 2012
Basing its arguments in current perspectives on the nature of the scientific enterprise, which see argument and argumentative practice as a core activity of scientists, this article develops the case for the inclusion and central role of argument in science education. Beginning with a review of the nature of argument, it discusses the function and purpose of dialogic argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge and the interpretation of empirical data. The case is then advanced that any education about science, rather than education in science, must give the role of argument a high priority if it is to give a fair account of the social practice of science, and develop a knowledge and understanding of the evaluative criteria used to establish scientific theories. Such knowledge is essential to enhance the public understanding of science and improve scientific literacy. The existing literature, and work that has attempted to use argument within science education, is reviewed to show that classroom practice does provide the opportunity to develop young people's ability to construct argument. Furthermore, the case is advanced that the lack of opportunities for the practice of argument within science classrooms, and lack of teacher's pedagogical skills in organizing argumentative discourse within the classroom are significant impediments to progress in the field. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed84:287–312, 2000.
The role of the teacher is essential for students' successful engagement in scientific inquiry practices. This study focuses on teachers' use of an 8-week chemistry curriculum that explicitly supports students in one particular inquiry practice, the construction of scientific arguments to explain phenomena in which students justify their claims using evidence and reasoning. Participants included 6 teachers and 568 students. Videotapes, teacher questionnaires, and student pre- and posttests were analyzed to develop case studies that characterized the support the teachers provided their students for scientific argumentation and subsequent student learning. Patterns from the case studies suggest that one particular instructional practice, the way teachers defined scientific argumentation, characterized teachers' support and influenced the other practices they used in their classrooms. In some cases, the teachers' definitions of scientific argumentation did not align with the intended learning goal in the curriculum materials. These teachers' greater simplification of this complex inquiry practice resulted in decreased learning gains in terms of students' ability to write scientific arguments to explain phenomena using appropriate evidence and reasoning. Educative curriculum materials can have a positive impact on teachers' classroom support for scientific argumentation, but how the teachers use these materials influences student learning. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed93: 233–268, 2009
Argumentation is a central goal of science education because it engages students in a complex scientific practice in which they construct and justify knowledge claims. Although there is a growing body of research around argumentation, there has been little focus on developing a learning progression for this practice. We describe a learning progression to understand both students' work in scientific argumentation and the ways in which the instructional environment can support students in that practice. This learning progression describes three dimensions: (1) instructional context, (2) argumentative product, and (3) argumentative process. In this paper, we compare four examples from elementary, middle, and high school science classrooms to explore the ways in which students' arguments vary in complexity across grade level and instructional contexts. Our comparisons suggest that simplifying the instructional context may facilitate students in engaging in other aspects of argumentation in more complex ways. The instructional context may also be used as a tool to support students in argumentation in new content areas and to increase the complexity of their written arguments, which may be weaker than their oral arguments. Furthermore, classroom norms play an important role in supporting students of all ages, including elementary students, in argumentation. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed94:765–793, 2010
Theoretical and empirical research on argument and argumentation in science education has intensified over the last two decades. The term “argument” in this review refers to the artifacts that a student or a group of students create when asked to articulate and justify claims or explanations whereas the term “argumentation” refers to the process of constructing these artifacts. The intent of this review is to provide an overview of several analytic frameworks that science educators use to assess and characterize the nature of or quality of scientific arguments in terms of three focal issues: structure, justification, and content. To highlight the foci, affordances, and constraints of these different analytic methods, the review of each framework includes an analysis of a sample argument. The review concludes with a synthesis of the three focal issues and outlines several recommendations for future work. Ultimately, this examination and synthesis of these frameworks in terms of how each conceptualizes argument structure, justification, and content is intended to provide a theoretical foundation for future research on argument in science education. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed92:447–472, 2008
We studied the outcome of a professional development opportunity that consisted of 2-week-long resident institutes for teams consisting of a secondary science teacher and two students. The science content of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded professional development institute was monarch butterfly ecology. The first institute took place in Minnesota during the summer, and the second in Texas during the fall. Staff scientists provided intense instruction in inquiry, with numerous opportunities for participants to conduct short inquiry-based research projects. Careful attention was paid to introducing each step of the full inquiry process, from asking questions to presenting research findings. All participants conducted independent team full inquiry projects between the two institutes. Project findings show that the number of teachers providing opportunities for their students to conduct full inquiry increased significantly after their participation. A mixed-methodology analysis that included qualitative and quantitative data from numerous sources, and case studies of 20 teachers, revealed that the characteristics of the program that helped teachers successfully translate inquiry to their classrooms were: deep science content and process knowledge with numerous opportunities for practice; the requirement that teachers demonstrate competence in a tangible and assessable way; and providers with high expectations for learning and the capability to facilitate multifaceted inquiry experiences. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Argumentation is a core practice of science and has recently been advocated as an essential goal of science education. Our research focuses on the discourse in urban high school science classrooms in which the teachers used the same global climate change curriculum. We analyzed transcripts from three teachers' classrooms examining both the argument structure as well the dialogic interactions between students. Between 19% and 35% of the discourse focused on scientific argumentation in that students were using evidence and reasoning to justify their claims. Yet in terms of dialogic interactions, only one teacher's classroom was characterized by student-to-student interactions and students explicitly supporting or refuting the ideas presented by their peers. This teacher's use of open questions appeared to encourage students to construct and justify their claims using both their scientific and everyday knowledge. Furthermore, her explicit connections to previous students' comments appeared to encourage students to consider multiple views, reflect on their thinking and reflect on the thinking of their classmates. This study suggests that a teacher's use of open-ended questions may play a key role in supporting students in argumentation in terms of both providing evidence and reasoning for students' claims and encouraging dialogic interactions between students. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed94:203–229, 2010
The process of collaborative construction of arguments about environmental management by 11th grade students working in small
groups is studied. The question explored is the evolution of the students’ positions and arguments along a sequence shaped
around an authentic — and real — problem: the impact of a drainpipe in a wetland of high ecological value; whether students
kept their initial positions or changed them and the corresponding reasons. The collaborative construction is explored in
terms of the dialogic voice (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). The participants were the 37 students in an 11th grade group and their teacher (the second author). The sessions were recorded in audio and video, and the data also include
the students’ portfolios and essays. In this paper the transcriptions are analysed and the arguments represented using Toulmin’s
(1958) layout. The analysis shows changes in the positions of 22 students, either radical, from positive to negative assessment,
or shifts to balanced views. The causes for the changes and the co-construction of arguments are also discussed.