Background: 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. Results: 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. Conclusions: 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 purpose of this study is to explore pre-service science teachers' (PST) argumentation in the context of inquiry-oriented laboratory work. Specifically, this study investigated the kinds of argumentation schemes PSTs use as they perform inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks, and how argumentation schemes generated by PSTs vary by tasks as well as by experimentation and critical discussion sessions. The participants in this study were 35 pre-service elementary teachers, who will teach middle school science from 6 th through 8 th grade students after graduation. In this study, participants were engaged in six inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks. The performance of laboratory tasks consisted of two stages. Through the experimentation stage, PSTs planned and developed their own hypotheses, carried out an experiment and collected data, and processed their data to verify their hypotheses. Through the critical discussion stage, one of the research groups presented their hypotheses, methods, and results orally to the v other research groups. Each presentation was followed by a class discussion of weak and strong aspects of the experimentation. The data of this study were collected through video-and audio-recording. The data were the transcribed from video-and audio-recordings of the PSTs' discourse during the performance of the laboratory tasks. For the analysis of PSTs' discourse predetermined argumentation schemes by Walton (1996) were employed. The results illustrated that PSTs applied varied premises rather than only observations or reliable sources, to ground their claims or to argue for a case or an action. The interpretation of the frequency data and the kind of the most frequent argumentation schemes can be seen as a positive indication that the inquiry-oriented laboratory tasks that were employed in this study are effective toward promoting presumptive reasoning discourse. Another result of this study, which is worthy of notice is the construction and evaluation of scientific knowledge claims that resulted in different number and kinds of arguments. Results of this study suggest the following implications for improving science education. First, designing inquiry-oriented laboratory environments, which are enriched with critical discussion, provides discourse opportunities that can support argumentation. Second, both the number of arguments and the use of various scientific argumentation schemes can be enhanced by specific task structures. Third, "argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning" is a promising analysis framework to reveal the argumentation patterns in scientific settings. Last, pre-service teachers can be encouraged to support and promote argumentation in their future science classrooms if they engage in argumentation integrated instructional strategies.
The main aim of this research is to analyse ten volumes of Journal of Baltic Science Education (JBSE) according to the authors’ nationality and research topics of the articles published in the journal between 2002 and 2011. The journal published ten volumes, 27 issue and 166 articles since 2002. The articles were submitted by 343 authors from 31 countries. Statistical analyses show that the authors from Turkey are ranking highest in terms of the number of published papers. Latvia and Lithuania follow Turkey as second and third countries. The study found out that the articles regarding learning-conception, teaching, learning-context and goals, policy and curriculum most frequently investigated by the researchers. However, in 2002-2011, there is no article related to informal learning. The researchers gave less attention to cultural, social and gender issues when compared other research topics in the scope of JBSE. Key words: content analysis, Journal of Baltic Science Education.
Researches carried out all around the world showed that students learn more effectively if they are able to make connections between subjects. This case reports based on an investigation of how mathematics concepts were connected to science concepts by a science teacher in an elementary science classroom, and on the science teacher's views about connectivity. The progress of the instruction of a unit on the structure and properties of matter was observed in a class of forty eight students in a public school in Ankara. The science teacher was interviewed and her views were compared to her practice. The researchers undertook eight hours of observation, and data was collected through field notes and video-recordings. The findings showed that the teacher made connections between the topic and the mathematical components, such as the symbolic representations, arithmetic, counting, equations, the least common multiplier, and the distributive property of multiplication over addition. Although she thought that physics is more available for more connection when it compared to mathematics, we observed that many connections are possible in other areas of science as well.
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