Trajectories of change in written arguments: how students' scientific written arguments change throughout a school year
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El-Moslimany, Hebbah.
Trajectories of change in written arguments: how students' scientific written arguments change throughout a school year. Retrieved from
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TitleTrajectories of change in written arguments: how students' scientific written arguments change throughout a school year
Date Created2019
Other Date2019-10 (degree)
Extent1 online resource (xi, 224 pages) : illustrations
DescriptionScience education has moved toward engaging students in the practices of science, including modeling, argumentation, and explanation (Krajcik, McNeill, & Reiser, 2008). One way to engage students in these practices is through model-based inquiry learning environments in which they engage in scientific practices including argumentation using evidence (Lehrer, Schauble, & Lucas, 2008). Students develop verbal and written arguments through interpreting and identifying evidence and using them to support or develop a model that explains the evidence. But there are challenges for students: students may not understand certain aspects of argumentation, including argument construction, evaluating claims and evidence, and using evidence to justify a claim (Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Sandoval & Millwood, 2005), because this practice is different from the practices with which they are familiar (McNeill, 2011; Ryu & Sandoval, 2012).
To address the challenges of learning to argue with models and evidence, it is important to examine the trajectories of change in students’ argumentation along multiple dimensions of reasoning. By exploring students’ written arguments at different points of instruction and over an extended period of time, one can look to see when change in students’ arguments actually occurred and how this change occurs (Ryu & Sandoval, 2012). To determine the changes in students’ written arguments that can occur over multiple months of model-based inquiry instruction, I analyzed students’ written argumentation during a six-month implementation of a model-based inquiry curriculum. In my analyses, I focused on how components of students’ arguments changed and identified patterns of change in arguments across time for individual students as well as for higher-performing and lower-performing students.
The purpose of the study was to examine the trajectories of change in students’ written arguments, by focusing on how students’ reasoning emerges, identifying differences in the quality and structure of students’ arguments, and if certain competencies appear first before others develop. This study will help to advance our understanding of how student’s reasoning emerges and changes over the school year, and how it can be supported in a model-based inquiry classroom.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
LanguageEnglish
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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