Promoting Argumentative Practice in Socio-Scientific Issues through a Science Inquiry Activity
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Younkyeong Nam 1 * , Ying-Chih Chen 2
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1 Pusan National University, Republic of Korea
2 Arizona State University
* Corresponding Author

Abstract

Background:
This study examines how the use of a science inquiry activity in an environmental socio-scientific issue (SSI) impacts pre-service teachers’ argumentative practice in two ways: social negotiation and epistemic understanding of arguments.

Material and methods:
Twenty pre-service science teachers participated in this study as a part of their science methods class. Small group discussions, while participating in an SSI debate, before and after engaging in a science inquiry activity, were collected as a main data source. The data were analyzed by an analytic framework adapted from both Toulmin’s (1958) model of argument structure and Walton’s (1996) reasoning scheme.

Results:
The results indicate that the use of a science inquiry activity during SSI debate not only affects the teachers’ social negotiation patterns, but also enhances their epistemic understanding.

Conclusions:
This study suggests that incorporating a science inquiry practice into an SSI debate has the potential to improve students’ disciplinary engagement and the quality of their argumentative practice.

Keywords

License

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00737a

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2017 - Volume 13 Issue 7, pp. 3431-3461

Publication date: 15 Jun 2017

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