Investigating students’ argumentation skills and reasoning patterns in a knowledge generation environment
Creators: name: Sahin, Ercin
Publisher: name: University of Iowa
Year: 2024
Subjects: argumentation
reasoning
public abstract

description: The purpose of this study is to describe how students in a knowledge generation environment (KGE) engage in dialogic interactions and to explore how they construct core argument components and utilize reasoning as resources to develop scientific knowledge. This study also examines teachers’ talk actions as pedagogical resources to support students’ engagement of knowledge generation to gain insights into argumentative discourses which occur in whole-classroom discussions. Most studies on argumentation in science have investigated the final product, where arguments stem from the summative activities which happen after the experiments or observations (post-laboratories); thus, there has been minimal emphasis on pre-laboratory work session where students are generating their own test questions and research designs. This study aimed to investigate students’ argumentation both before and after the experiment or observation. The current study was designed around two phases. Phase 1 data includes an experienced, high skilled teacher’s fifth-grade classroom. This continuous data consists of two whole-class discussions of two units: Force and Motion (pre-lab) and Ecosystem (post-lab). Discourse analysis strategies were utilized to explore how students construct core argument components and utilize reasoning as resources to develop scientific knowledge and to describe teacher talk actions that support student talk. A priori codebooks utilized for deductive coding of student and teacher discourse. Phase 2 of this study focusses on examining the utility of the outcomes of phase 1. Phase 2 of this study investigates whether there is a relationship between teachers’ orientation and implementation levels and students’ constructed argument components and corresponded reasoning types. Phase 2 data includes 12 separate whole-class discussions (6 of them is pre-laboratory work and 6 of them is post-laboratory work) from 12 different teachers who have different levels of epistemic orientation and implementation. These same data analysis methods were applied to phase 2 data.
description: Three main findings from this study are: (1) Pre-laboratory sessions are just as important as post-laboratory sessions in promoting students’ argumentative discourse because students utilized predominantly abduction and induction when they connected their prior knowledge to new information and created their test questions and designs respectively; (2) In whole classroom discussions teachers need to be engaged in different talk actions such as talking to (TT) students to guide students’ discourse and facilitate discussions, talking with (TW) students to help students explain their thoughts about a particular idea, and thinking through (TH) students to probe student thinking and elaborate student ideas; (3) Regardless of the level of teachers’ epistemic orientation and the level of the SWH approach implementation, students are provided with an environment to construct different components of argument and different types of reasoning in their talk.
description: This study provides several implications for the practice of classroom-based scientific argumentation. First of all, students need to be given ample opportunities for pre-laboratory work where they create their own test questions and designs. Another implication is that responsive teaching practice is referred to as ‘TW type teacher talk moves’ and ‘TH type teacher talk moves’ are those which encourage teachers to have a role as a member of the group in dialogic interactions. A final implication is that further investigation is needed to evaluate argument cycles so that weak and strong arguments in student talk are clearly identified. This differentiation between the robustness of various types of student arguments should be pursued to develop better insights into the role of science argumentation in generative science learning.