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Analysis of High School Students’ Argumentative Dialogues in Different Modelling Situations

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Abstract

Few empirical studies in Science Education have investigated the contributions of integrating scientific practices such as argumentation and modelling. In this article, I examine the characteristics of high school students’ argumentative dialogues in different modelling situations. From this, I discuss the influences of modelling and the nature of each situation analysed on the characteristics of the students’ argumentative dialogues. One didactic unit consisting of sets of modelling activities in everyday, scientific and socio-scientific situations was applied in a regular class. The tool that describes argumentative dialogues in science teaching contexts across the varied and interrelated dimensions was applied to high school students’ argumentative dialogues that took place during modelling situations. Data collection (involving audio and video recording plus observations made by the researcher) revealed that students engaged in different argumentative dialogues, which were made up of different types of dialogic and meta-dialogic moves. Most of these moves were relevant and also contributed to the construction of knowledge in all modelling situations. The results also show that the nature of the situation can influence specific aspects of students’ argumentation, but such influence does not interfere with the quality of their argumentative dialogues; the argumentative dialogues are connected to persuasion, information sharing and sharing the same idea in all modelling stages; and the modelling influences the students to engage in quality argumentative dialogues that ultimately contributes to the construction of knowledge of different natures. Implications for future research and classroom practice are presented and discussed.

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Notes

  1. According to Martins and Macagno (2022), the meta-dialogical move are always relevant, given they express or verify whether the subjects share the same knowledge, meaning of an idea or purpose of other moves, avoiding incoherence of topic and meaning or with the main objective of dialogue.

  2. The models are understood as epistemic artefacts, which means they are thought tools used in the process for formation of knowledge (Gilbert & Justi, 2016b).

  3. A proto-model corresponds to the model made in the person’s mind. Being an internal representation, it is inaccessible to other people (Gilbert & Justi, 2016b).

  4. Mental tests are experiments conducted through thought, with the main aim of getting a result and assessing the applicability of the power of explanation of the express model (Reiner & Gilbert, 2000).

  5. Gilbert and Justi (2016b) named as Model of Modeling v2 since an original version was presented more than a decade ago.

  6. For more details on the application of the tool, see Martins and Macagno (2022).

  7. Pseudonyms were used for this student and all the others, to preserve their identities.

  8. Arabic numbers were used in lines that had more than one type of dialogical and/or meta-dialogical move.

  9. According to Martins and Macagno (2022), inferences are established when necessary in Aspect 5 analysis of tool.

  10. This code {} indicates contextual information relevant to the understanding of interactions between interlocutors.

  11. The R code is used to refer to the researcher.

  12. A subject can express the Dialogical persuasive Move (DperM) or Dialogical persuasive dispute Move (DpdiM) to attack the colleague’s conclusion (or part thereof), the reasons (one or all), or the relationship between reasons and conclusion and, at the same time, provide direct or indirect support to their idea. For this, the sum of the frequencies of structural aspects of argumentation (Figs. 5 and 6) is greater than the sum of frequencies of persuasive and dispute persuasive Dialogic Moves for each of the modelling situations (Figs. 3 and 4).

  13. A word in upper case indicates an emphasis on the speech expressed by the interlocutor.

  14. The calculation was done as follows: all movements expressed by G3 were added, considering all modelling situations. After that, all the moves that contributed to the construction of knowledge expressed by G3 were added, considering all modelling situations. Then, the second sum was divided by the first sum. Finally, 100 multiplied the result of the division. These same steps were done for G6.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank God, the reviewers and editor for their valuable contributions for improving this paper, as also the two colleagues for improving the language of the article: Carlos Barreto and Lucas Barboza Zattar Paganin. Finally, the author would like to thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brazil (CAPES) for the financial support.

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Financial support was received from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brazil (CAPES).

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    Marina Martins

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Martins, M. Analysis of High School Students’ Argumentative Dialogues in Different Modelling Situations. Sci & Educ 33, 175–212 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-022-00372-w

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