Tomokazu YAMAMOTO’s research while affiliated with Hyogo University of Teacher Education and other places

The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between scientific modeling and scientific explanation, using the 6th grade elementary school lesson on “water pathways of plants” as a case study. Regarding the process of creating scientific models, we focused on scientific modeling as structured by Zangori (2018). After classifying the scientific explanations described by the children, we were able to capture the reality of the reflection of evidence and claims of scientific explanations in their scientific models. The relationship between the content of self-assessment in scientific modeling and the transformation of the model was also examined. From the results of the case study analysis, the actual situation of reflecting the evidence and claims in the model for each type of scientific explanation structure was clarified. In addition, the content of the pupils’ self-assessments in scientific modeling were classified. Further analysis revealed that children who were able to analyze and assess the elements lacking in the developed model and to explain the phenomenon in the process of scientific modeling were also able to modify their models to reflect their claims.

This study introduced four simulators developed by Matsuyama et al. (2023) into sixth-grade science classes to educate students about bioaccumulation of pufferfish toxin. The simulators helped students understand how the concentration of pufferfish toxin increases as predators approach the top of the food chain. Results of a survey of “students’ usability” indicated that all 12 of the questions received a positive rating. In “students’ understanding,” the number of creatures that students thought would be affected by DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) bioaccumulation increased in part pre- and post-transfer test. Particularly, the answers of aquatic creatures showed a significant improvement, and it was found that the simulators helped students understand “the food chain and bioaccumulation in the water.”

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a new lesson design based on existing lesson designs from previous studies with a focus on “supporting epistemic understanding of evidence in argument” to further support the development of students’ argument construction skills and foster the use of more appropriate and sufficient evidence. The new lesson design consisted of the following two elements (1) A framework for “learning goals” regarding what kind of content should be supported in epistemic understanding for Japanese elementary school students to be able to use appropriate and sufficient evidence in their argument construction, and (2) Development of learning content to help elementary science classes achieve these learning goals. The lesson design was applied in the fourth-grade elementary school class on “Metals, Water, Air and Temperature” for a total of 17 hours of class time with 66 learners. Results demonstrated that the students’ use of appropriate and sufficient evidence in argument structure improved, respectively, but there remained a significant number of learners who did not reach a satisfactory level in the sufficiency of their evidence. These results indicate that the new lesson design is as effective as existing lesson designs. On the other hand, when we examined the relationship between the tasks related to argument construction and epistemic understanding of evidence, we found that “the relationship between claims and evidence in argument” had a significant positive correlation with the sufficiency of evidence in pupils’ argument structure. These results suggest that this lesson design, when improved upon as a design that more strongly supports epistemic understanding of the sufficiency of evidence, has the potential to further support the development of students’ argument construction skills more effectively than existing lesson designs.

In science education, the improvement in students’ ability to construct arguments at the primary school level has been reported. Although these studies have identified difficulties in arguments written by primary school students, they do not indicate areas that require improvement in teaching methods. This study aims to explore the possibility of improvement in early primary school students’ ability to construct arguments and identify the types of difficulties encountered. Sixty-seven Japanese third-grade students (9–10 years old) were taught to write arguments as specified by Zembal-Saul et al. (2012). The students were given two writing tasks before and after the lesson. To examine the students’ written arguments, each component of claim, evidence, and reasoning was scored based on a rubric. On comparing the scores of the pre-test and post-test writing tasks, it was found that 27 out of 67 students still had difficulty writing arguments during the post-test. An analysis of the students’ writing revealed four types of difficulties: ‘Incompleteness of components’, ‘Inappropriateness of components’, ‘Confusion between evidence and reasoning’, and ‘Confusion between claim and evidence’. This study offers insights pertaining to teaching implications and research recommendations. Keywords: difficulties in writing arguments, elementary/primary school, explanation construction, small-sample quantitative study