New Perspectives in Science Education

Educational research in science teaching is essential to develop, among other aspects, strategies that allow the promotion of argumentation skills as a scientific practice because it implies the ability to assess scientific statements based on evidence. It also means to recognise conclusions and statements which must be justified based on evidence (Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2010). In that sense, the capacity of argumentation by pre-service teachers (PSTs) is essential to help new generations of students to develop argumentation capacity. A total of 56 Pre-service Early Childhood Teachers (PSECT) and 77 Pre-service Elementary Teachers (PSET) from the University of Málaga (Málaga, Spain) carried out an argumentation activity about how the dissolving process takes place. This activity is part of an initial study to analyse the prior level of argumentation of PSTs, and its design took into account the different levels of complexity of a learning progression concerning the capacity of the argumentation in science (identify evidence, constructing a warrant, providing a counter-critique, constructing a one-sided comparative argument and constructing a two-sided comparative argument). The analysis of the PSTs’ responses was carried out through a system of categorisation that has been related to the Osborne et al.’s argumentation levels (2016). The results presented show how the PSTs’ percentages, for the most adequate response level, of both degrees are gradually decreasing in the different sections of the activity, which are related to an increasing difficulty in the capacity to argue. U Mann-Whitney test did not show any significant differences between groups at high levels of difficulty in the argumentation (constructing a warrant, providing a counter-critique, constructing a one or two-sided comparative argument). In contrast, in the identification of evidence showed significant differences in favour of PSET. Finally, results show the difficulty of PSTs to expose arguments that support their opinions as well as their low ability to criticise specific arguments contrary to their thoughts and the need to improve them in that sense. Therefore, the results of this activity will be used to develop an argumentation training programme whose main objective is the development and promotion of the capacity of argumentation and critical thinking of PSTs.

Keywords: Pre-service teachers, learning progressions, science processes.

References:
[1] Jiménez-Aleixandre, M.P. (2010). 10 ideas clave. Competencias en argumentación y uso de pruebas. Barcelona: Graó.
[2] Osborne, J., Henderson, J. B., MacPherson, A., Szu, E., Wild, A., & Yao, S. (2016). The development and validation of a learning progression for argumentation in science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(6), 821–846.