دانلود رایگان مقاله افزایش مهارت در ساخت تبیین علمی با استدلال ساختاری در تحقیق علمی

Abstract

Constructing scientific explanations is necessary for students to engage in scientific inquiry. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of using a structured argumentation scaffold to enhance skill in constructing scientific explanations in the process of scientific inquiry. The proposed approach is designed to scaffold the following aspects of argumentation: the argumentation process, the explanation structuring, explanation construction, and explanation evaluation. A quasi-experiment was conducted to examine the effectiveness of the structured argumentation scaffold in developing skill in constructing scientific explanations and engaging in electronic dialogues. A web-based collaborative synchronous inquiry system, ASIS (Argumentative Scientific Inquiry System), was utilized to support students as they worked in groups to carry out inquiry tasks. Two intact sixth grade classes (n = 50) participated in the study. The data show that the ASIS with the structured argumentation scaffold helped students significantly improve their skills in constructing scientific explanations, make more dialogue moves for explanation and query, and use more of all four argument components. In addition, the use of warrants, one of the components of an argument, was found to be a critical variable in predicting students' competence with regard to constructing scientific explanations. The results provide references for further research and system development with regard to facilitating students' construction of scientific argumentation and explanations.

6. Conclusions

This study examines whether students' skills in constructing scientific explanations can improve over time through the use of ASIS with a structured argumentation interface to support scientific inquiry and argumentation. The results show that the argumentation group, which made use of the structured argumentation interface, was more effective than the discussion group in constructing scientific explanations. The results of comparing the electronic dialogues produced by both groups reveal that the argumentation group made more dialogue moves for explanations and queries than the discussion group, although the latter used more of the task-related dialogue moves. In addition, the argumentation group used more of all four argument components than the discussion group. This reveals that the use of ASIS with a structured argumentation interface positively impacted student performance on the learning task and in creating good arguments and explanations. Finally, the use of warrants was found to be a key predictor of skill in constructing scientific explanations. In conclusion, the results show that ASIS with the structured argumentation interface positively impacts skill in constructing scientific explanations and the argumentative dialogues that the students engaged in during the scientific inquiry process. Given that the use of warrants is a key predictor of skill in scientific argumentation, it is suggested for future research that the mechanism of the structured argumentation scaffold guiding students to use warrants be strengthened. The results of this study provide references for further research and system development with regard to argumentation and construction of explanations. Additionally, the structured argumentation scaffold and ASIS developed in this study can be applied to the formal and informal science curriculum. The structured argumentation scaffold can be used as a reference in designing scientific inquiry strategies for teachers to script the process of scientific argumentation and help students in constructing scientific explanations. The implementation and working of ASIS can provide students with opportunities to participate in online scientific inquiry courses on argumentation and construction of explanations anytime, anywhere.