Scientific argumentation skills are important for students for expressing their opinions, making decisions and solving problems in daily life. Previous studies have focused on students' scientific argumentation skills, but few studies have proposed an instructional model for specifically developing these skills by creating a supportive classroom atmosphere that considers factors that may influenced on students' ability to successfully enact argumentation practices. In this study, researchers have adapted the Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) model, which is a model that meets several important criteria for fostering argumentation in the classroom and we have revised the model to satisfy practical constraints faced by teachers and students in Thai classroom contexts. In this study, we describe our revised Argument-Driven Inquiry (rADI) model and provide examples of how this model was used to increase students' scientific argumentation skills when learning about socio-scientific issues. We additionally examine factors, such as gender, reasoning ability, prior experience with scientific argumentation, and content knowledge to determine what influence they may have on students' post-instruction scientific argumentation skills. Specifically, we examined the effect the rADI model had on students' abilities after controlling for covariates. We surveyed 155 Grade 10 students to assess their scientific argumentation skills using a set of situational open-ended questions. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and ANCOVA. Findings indicated that 1) most students could develop or improve scientific argumentation skills after the instruction in most components, although the supportive argument element tended to be weaker; 2) pretest scientific argumentation skills was correlated with posttest scientific argumentation skills, but gender, content knowledge, and reasoning ability were not correlated with posttest scientific argumentation skills; 3) and after controlling for pretest scientific argumentation skills, students in the experimental group produced higher posttest scores of scientific argumentation skills than those taught by the conventional approach (p < 0.05). Outcomes from our study using the rADI model may be beneficial to teachers who seek to improve students' scientific argumentation skills in science classrooms in the Thai context. Implications for local and international use of rADI are discussed.

No abstract

This study aimed to investigate senior high school students’ computational thinking skills after implementing the Bioinformatics Module on molecular genetics concepts. The instructional approach used in the module is Computational Inquiry-based Teaching (CIbT). This study used a quasi-experiment method with a pretest-posttest control group design. The subjects in this study consist of 24 students in the control group and 38 students in the experimental group from a senior high school in Indonesia. The instrument used in this study is six items of computational thinking test. This module had four themes; Genetics Disease, Cancer, Forensic Science, and Evolution, conducted in 8 sessions. Each session lasted 90 minutes. The Bioinformatics Module consists of programming and databases, including unplugged computational activities and unplugged activities including coding using Python, searching in Uniprot, and using BLAST in NCBI. The CIbT has five steps: orientation, conceptualization, investigation, conclusion, and discussion. The Mann-Whitney test results showed that the p-value from N-Gain data is < 0.01. So, Bioinformatics Module on molecular genetics concepts using CIbT can improve computational thinking skills of senior high school students. For further implementation, biology teachers must prepare to use the Bioinformatics Module, including biology teachers’ understanding of molecular genetics and bioinformatics practices to enrich the learning experience in the Bioinformatics Module.

I report an action research study that aimed at improving Thai pre-service teachers' understanding of the relationship between science and religion and at assisting them to respond to this issue in a science classroom. The participants were twelve postgrad students pursuing Master of Art in Teaching Science at Kasetsart University. They took a course, Philosophy of Science, taught by the researcher in Semester A, academic year 2007. Process drama is the teaching strategy employed. The students were fully engaged in the process drama; doing research, producing, distributing, and criticizing the drama. Focus group, student journal, and observation were used to gather the data and the data was analyzed using qualitative analysis techniques. The focus groups revealed that the drama could help students reflect on the complexity and sensitivity of the issue. They found there was no inherent conflict between science and religion since they answered different questions and used different methods to achieve their results. However, the conflicts occurred when people were not aware of the basic differences between the two so they justified one on the basis of purpose and method of one another. The pre-service teachers also found consistency between science and Buddhism. They thought that the teachers of science should respond to the conflicts in a respectful, compromising, and neutral manner.

<span lang="EN-US">Developing a high-quality test item requires substantial time and effort. A well-developed item bank is conducted using rigorous development and validation procedures. This study aimed to describe the development process of molecular genetics concept test (MGCT) for senior high school students using Rasch analysis under <a name="_Hlk107307570"></a>Berkeley evaluation and assessment research (BEAR) assessment system framework. The test consists of 50 multiple-choice items to assess conceptual understanding of molecular genetics concepts. The MGCT was developed based on curriculum analysis from the Indonesian ministry of education and culture and content-validated by three content experts comprising an expert in biology, an expert in bioinformatics, and an experienced Indonesian biology teacher in a senior high school. The MGCT was then piloted to 114 students who had taught the molecular genetics unit from a senior high school to conduct the empirical validation. The results from Rasch analysis showed that the MGCT is acceptable because all items have outfit and infit mean-square values in the acceptable range of 0.7 to 1.3 and the reliability is 0.43. So, the MGCT can be used to assess the understanding of the molecular genetics concept. However, several items were too difficult to discriminate the student ability. So, future studies need to develop more this MGCT to get a more appropriate instrument.</span>