Introduction

Recently, scientific literacy has become a vital element of science education (Benjamin, et al., 2017; Carbonell, 2023; Liu & Roehrig 2019; Vieira, & Tenreiro-Vieira, 2016). Although, there are various definitions of scientific literacy, all definitions generally consist of knowing the processes, laws and concepts in physical and biological sciences, scientific inquiry and reasoning methods, using the applications of scientific knowledge in daily life, and knowing the social and environmental effects of scientific and technological development. One of the latest definitions of scientific literacy is offered by Fives et al. (2014), stating that the knowledge of the nature and processes of any field of science as being able to use science in a pragmatic and meaningful way in daily life.

Recently, the most basic way of using science pragmatically in daily life is in the form of citizens making decisions on issues that concern themselves and society. With the development of science and technology, individuals need to use their scientific knowledge and methods of science to make scientific decisions in daily life. Laugksch (2000) stated that the biggest factor in the development of science and technology in a country was the high level of scientific literacy of citizens. Climate change dispute in U.S. and other developed countries is a good example that scientific literacy has become more vital for citizens to have ideas and make decisions. With this necessity, the science education communities have given great importance and focus to scientific literacy such as the topic of NARST 2018 containing scientific literacy namely “Re-Centering on Scientific Literacy in an Era of Science Mistrust and Misunderstanding. As the importance given to scientific literacy in science education increases, more researchers address this issue from different perspectives such as argumentation. Dawson and Venville (2009) defined scientific literacy as engaging students to develop scientific arguments by using claims, evidence and reasoning and discuss their arguments with their peers to reach consensus. In this manner, arguments play a vital role for scientific literacy and students need to comprehend what counts as good arguments and learn how to use argument to discuss with their peers.

Moreover, Washburn and Cavagnetto (2013) presented that scientific literacy concept is “not solely an individual process, but one that is situated in various social contexts” (p. 128). That means developing scientifically literate students has both private and public views (Prain & Hand, 2016). In private view, students understand scientific knowledge and merging this new information into available knowledge. In the public view, students discuss and criticize their ideas with their peers to reach consensus (Yore & Treagust, 2006).

This view is closely related to the scientific practices such as argumentation. With the new definitions of scientific literacy, studies have presented that argumentation is a possible instruction method to develop scientifically literate students (Cigdemoglu et al., 2017; Cavagnetto, 2010; Handayani & Khairuna, 2022). Because argumentation includes developing students’ cognitive (private) process of setting tentative arguments regarding scientific phenomenon, students can decide the validity of a claim by developing a scientific argument that criticizes evidence and understand scientific theories to reach a conclusion (Chen et al., 2013). Besides, argumentation includes a social process (public) due to students’ discussing, criticizing, and defending their arguments with their peers (Osborne, 2010). When argumentation is used for scientific literacy with private and public processes, students are engaged in scientific talking and writing as literacy tools to understand and learn scientific information and improve their scientific literacy.

Lastly, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) presented that the argumentation is an important and a core practice for supporting scientific literacy. The Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) invited that developing scientifically literate elementary students with the capacity of “using reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s)” (p. 14). In this state, argumentation includes developing and criticizing scientific knowledge through the argument of question, claim, evidence, and reasoning that will result in improving students’ scientific literacy (Bjørkvold & Blikstad-Balas, 2018; Chen et al., 2018; Hand et al., 2010).

In this study, we tried to develop elementary level students’ scientific literacy by engaging them in scientific practices with the authentic instructional method namely Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI). This method has the potential to help teachers create an environment that can improve students’ scientific literacy, thanks to the scientific practices it contains. An overview of the ADI with its eight interrelated steps and the essential elements of ADI that link to principles of scientific literacy are presented.

The ADI approach and scientific literacy

The ADI instructional model is designed to give a more central place to argumentation and the role of argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge while promoting inquiry. The ADI includes authentic laboratory activities in which students are needed to be engaged in scientific practices that include inquiry, argumentation writing and peer-review. ADI instructional model encourages both students’ understanding of scientific discourse and their understanding of core scientific concepts under investigation. The ADI instructional model has eight interrelated steps whose extent and purpose are described in detail by Sampson, Grooms and Walker (2009). These steps and their purposes are presented in Table 1.

Table 1 The steps of ADI instructional model and purposes
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As stated in eight interrelated steps, the ADI instructional model gives the same focus to both the empirical aspects of scientific inquiry (such as asking questions and designing methods) and the representation of knowledge claims (such as argumentation and writing) in the development of students’ scientific knowledge and views on NOS (Çetin et al., 2018; Eymur, 2019).) As Prain and Hand (2016) stated, scientific literacy has both private and public sights, ADI instructional model also has two sights. It gives opportunity to students understanding scientific knowledge and integrate this knowledge with new one(private) and criticizing their ideas with their peers to reach consensus (public).

ADI instructional model gives great importance to the use of both speaking (argumentation session step) and writing (writing an investigation reports step) as literacy tools that help students engage in scientific literacy practices. Furthermore, Deng et al. (2019) stated that “scientific writing is not only a modality of presenting scientific knowledge, ideas, principles, and theories, but also a linguistic way of sharing, understanding, persuading, and presenting arguments to defend claims in a scientific community” (p.284) when writing is engaged with speaking (Chen et al., 2016). From this perspective, both talk (argumentation session) and writing (writing an investigation reports) which are fundamental components of scientific literacy are also important ingredients of ADI instructional model.

Also, the arguments are key tools for scientific literacy. As Dawson and Venville (2009) stated the definition of scientific literacy that keep students in developing scientific arguments by using claim, evidence and reasoning, this definition is also aligned with ADI instructional model including claim, evidence, reasoning when developing scientific arguments.

Harefa (2023) argued that the approaches which emphasizes student-centered learning and the process of inquiry can enhance scientific literacy among elementary students by developing scientific process skills, scientific attitudes, and the ability to communicate problems scientifically. Likewise, Fatimah and Anggrisia (2019) emphasized the significance of integrating the 7E learning model, which promotes the acquisition, learning, and application of knowledge based on experiences, into elementary education for the enhancement of scientific literacy skills. From this general perspective, scientific literacy and ADI instructional model have common key words such as arguments, talking, writing that cause great linkage between them.

Recently, there have been many studies related with ADI. At the community college level, chemistry laboratory sections designed with respect to ADI are found to develop students’ attitudes toward science, achievement in the laboratory, ability to write scientific laboratory reports, and performances on data analysis and arguments to construct demanding tasks (Walker et al., 2019). Similarly, Chen et al. (2016) applied modified ADI to support elementary school students’ engagement in learning science (ELS) and argumentation. The findings of the study showed that modified ADI is an effective model both in improving student ELS and argumentation and bridging the gender gap. Songsil et al. (2019) made a revision on ADI to make it applicable to the environment. With some modifications, they used ADI to grade 10 students and found that the students’ argumentation skills improved. In a recent study by Arslan et al. (2023), the efficacy of the ADI model on pre-service science teachers’ achievement, science process skills, and argumentation levels was examined. The findings revealed a positive impact of the ADI model on these aspects, and participants expressed a favorable attitude toward its implementation in their classes.

Although there is a significant body of published work that has established the benefits of using scientific practices inherent in ADI approach such as defining problems, engaging in evidence-based argumentation, and communicating information in developing scientific literacy (e.g. Erduran et al., 2005), there is no empirical study that finds out the impact of ADI approach on developing scientific literacy. We think that the ADI instructional model has potential to promote scientific literacy of students by using literacy tools. The following are the research questions of the study:

  1. 1.

    Is Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional method better than structured inquiry instruction to improve scientific literacy of eighth graders?

  2. 2.

    What are students’ reflections and attitudes regarding the laboratory activities and their experiences from the collaborative inquiry processes?

Methodology

The ADI present study, a mixed methods design was utilized to investigate the effect of ADI on students’ scientific literacy and explain students’ experiences related to ADI. Given the gains of the experimental group on scientific literacy, it is significant to gain a deep understanding of the experiences of students through the treatment of ADI instructional model. The main purpose of the qualitative data analysis was to explain students’ views to each instructional model. Particularly, students’ experiences related to ADI instructional model was investigated by qualitative data (Cresswell & Clark, 2007).

Therefore, this model consists of two consecutive phases. In the first phase non-equivalent control group design was used as a part of a quasi-experimental design (Gay and Airasian, 2003) to investigate the effect of ADI on students’ scientific literacy. One of the classes was randomly assigned as an experimental group, and the other as a comparison group. To assess the effectiveness of the ADI approach, we compared student learning across two treatments. Science class in which laboratory experiences were designed around ADI were the characteristic of experimental condition and comparison condition featured the same science lectures whereas laboratory experiences were more traditional and structured inquiries. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the students to examine the results of first phase.

Subject of the study

A total of 67 eighth grade students who were attending a public elementary school participated in the present study. The students were recruited from two intact classes that was taught by the same science instructor in the first semester of the 2019/ 2020 academic year. Although the actual number of students in each class was higher than the number of participants, only data of those who attended all the lessons and who completed the pre- and post- instruments were reported in the study. The experimental group consisted of 34 students (16 girls and 15 boys) and the comparison group consisted of 33 students (15 girls and 18 boys) with ages ranging from 13 to 14 years. This school was selected due to its convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher. There were seven eighth-grade classes in this school. Among them two were selected randomly. While the socio-economic status of the students was not known, they each shared the same native language. Regarding ethical considerations, briefing about the study was given to students. The purpose of the study, procedures and voluntary participation were explained. Moreover, it was announced that students would not be graded, and their performances would not be evaluated. Then, students were requested to sign voluntary consent form. Also, all permissions from Ministry of Education of Turkey were taken by researchers.

Context of the study

Although science education reform attempts highlight the importance of scientific inquiry, the classroom context selected for this study featured an approach to science which emphasizes the memorization of scientific knowledge and apply them to solve numerical questions. Laboratory applications were not a part of science curriculum through grade 5 to 8 in the school that we conducted the study. Students were not familiar with the scientific practices such as developing a method, collecting, analyzing data, and writing an investigation report. They conducted two or three laboratory experiments in a confirmatory way in a semester.

Treatment

Both groups were taught by the same instructor, who is the science teacher of the class. The science teacher was experienced and taught during four months about ADI instructional method before treatment. There were two 45-minute sessions per week for each group, and each treatment was conducted over ten weeks. In addition to laboratory, each class attended 2-hour theory session. Before intervention, the experimental group was told what an argument is, its basic components (such as claim, data, justification, supporting, and rebuttal), and the characteristics of a quality argument. During the intervention, the experimental and comparison groups covered the same subject matters and used the same textbook. Scientific Literacy Assessment (SLA) (Fives et all., 2014) was given to both groups prior to the intervention to verify whether the groups were equal with respect to their scientific literacy. Both groups completed the set of laboratory experiment in the same week – i.e., the experimental group did not have extra time to complete the experiments. SLA was also used as a posttest to assess effectives of ADI in developing students’ scientific literacy.

Experimental condition

Five ADI laboratory investigations were employed in the experimental condition through 10 weeks. The ADI activities are related to chemistry, biology and physics and are designed to explore the concept of density, light, germination, power of lamp, and shade. The investigation names and the associated guiding questions are described in Table 2.

Table 2 Description of activities
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Before the implementation, the teacher randomly formed groups consisting of three or four students. Ten groups attended 2-hour lab session each week and they engaged five ADI activities. At the beginning of the ADI laboratory activities, the teacher distributed a handout containing the guiding question of the week depicted in Table 2, relevant background information and a list of available materials that students could use to design their investigation. Students worked in their preassigned groups to design and investigate the research question. When they decided that they had collected enough data to answer the guiding question, they analyzed and interpreted the data to produce a tentative argument including a claim, evidence, and justification. Each group then presented arguments via a large whiteboard to other groups for argumentation session. During the argumentation session, students presented their scientific arguments to other groups and critiqued the scientific arguments presented by their colleagues. After argumentation session, the teacher directed the explicit and reflective discussion to share experiences and thoughts. This argumentation session gave students an opportunity to compare the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments. Moreover, during this discussion the teacher emphasized the seven aspects of nature of science with respect to nature of investigation. A detailed explanation of how the explicit nature of science instruction integrated to this discussion is comprehensively described by Eymur (2019). After the argumentation session, an investigation report, which involved a written scientific argument answering the guiding question, was desired from students individually. The individually written reports which are blinded were peer reviewed to provide opportunity to refine written scientific arguments. Peer review form included four criteria parts, namely, the goals, the investigation, the argument, and the writing and space to give feedback for writers. Students used these criteria to evaluate the quality of investigation reports. In the final step of the ADI instructional model, each student revised his or her individual investigation report based on the peer feedback.

Comparison condition

The comparison group students conducted the same five activities that the experimental group participated in, but these activities occurred in the context of structured inquiry instructional format. In the structured inquiry model, the research question to be investigated, and methods to collect data to answer the question are determined by the instructor (Banchi & Bell, 2008; Walker et al., 2016). Although students actively engage data collection process and drawing conclusions from these data, they do not exercise any scientific practices such as developing an argument including a claim proposed based on data and justification of it, negotiating or criticizing the ideas about the investigation.

Like experimental condition, the students were assigned to groups of four to five randomly by the instructor. Then the instructor distributed handouts that included background information about the task, the purpose of the experiment, the research question, the materials, and the procedure of the experiment. Then students worked with their groups to follow the procedure of the experiment and tried to answer the research question. After the students finished their investigation, they submitted their investigation report, which included the purpose of the experiment, the answer to the research question, and the results of the experiment. The teacher collected the investigation reports and summarized the results of the investigation questions. At the end of each investigation, there was a problem-solving session where the conceptual and algorithmic problems related the concepts were presented by the teacher. First the students individually studied the question set and then the teacher solved the questions on the board explaining the answers.

Instrument

Scientific Literacy Assessment (SLA) and semi structured interview protocol were used to gather data in this study. Students were given Scientific Literacy Assessment (SLA) to assess their scientific literacy before and after the treatment. The test developed by Fives et al. (2014) and translated into Turkish by Sahin and Ates (2018). To make valid inferences about middle school students’’ scientific literacy, Fives et al. (2014) developed an instrument including two sets of measures to be administered together. The first one (SLA-D), includes multiple choice items, assesses five components of demonstrated scientific literacy through assessing the understanding of the role of science, scientific thinking and doing, science and society, science media literacy, and mathematics in science. Fives et al. (2014) prepared the 26-item long type with two version and 19 item short type of the SLA-D. The authors recommended to use the shortest one for pragmatic concerns that the application of 19 items (2 min per item) in one 40-minute class session is more feasibly. In parallel with this concern Sahin and Ates (2018) translated and adapted the shortest version of the test. During the adaptation study the authors removed one item related to mathematics in science because it distorted the single factor structure of the instrument. For the reliability issue the KR-20 was reported as 0, 66 (Sahin & Ates, 2018). The second set is motivation and beliefs scale (SLA-MB). It includes 25 likert type items assessing students’ motivation and beliefs regarding value of science (six items), self-efficacy for scientific literacy (eight items), and personal epistemology of science (eleven items). The Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficient for the Turkish version was found 0,70 for value of science subscale, 0,70 for self-efficacy for scientific literacy subscale and 0,86 for personal epistemology of science subscale (Sahin & Ates, 2018).

To gather in-dept data to deeper our understanding related to quantitative results of the study interviews were conducted with randomly selected six experimental and six comparison group students. Each semi structured interview was carried out by one of the researchers one week after the implementation. Interview questions were mainly related to students’ experiences about scientific literacy and their evaluation of laboratory activities. A sample interview question was: Did the classes you attended affect your ideas about how science works? If yes how?

Each interview was audio recorded and transcribed. The interviews lasted approximately 30 min on average. To analyze transcribed data qualitative content analysis was used (Patton, 2002). First, transcripts were carefully read by the authors and segments of speaking where students made scientific literacy related comments about their experiences were identified. Then, issues were carefully handled to create categories such as “Scientific Thinking and Doing”, “Motivation” and “Laboratory Environment”. For example, Scientific Thinking and Doing category was coded as “Identifying study variables”, Identifying patterns in data”, “Developing method to investigate problems”, etc. while Motivation category was coded as “Enjoyable” and “Understanding science concepts”.

In the coding process, at first, two researchers chose 20% of all data obtained from the interviews randomly and coded the answers together by discussing to resolve the disagreement. Then each researcher coded independently %10 of the data which resulted in %82 agreement. To resolve differences in coding the researcher come together. Finally, the researchers coded all the interview data.

Results

Students’ performance on demonstrated scientific literacy (SLA-D)

To investigate the effect of ADI instructional model on students demonstrated scientific literacy, the students’ answers to the SLA-D were analyzed. The results indicated that the mean scores of the experimental and the comparison group students were not significantly different from those of the pre-SLA-D (t (65) = 0.71, p > .05). Moreover, the students in the experimental group scored significantly higher than the students in the comparison group in the post- SLA-D (t (65) = 3.20, p < .05). The statistics related to t-test analysis was given in Table 3.

Table 3 Independent sample t-test analysis related to SLA-D
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Moreover, the results of the pre- and post- SLA-D scores paired sample t-test analyses demonstrated that although the comparison group students, t(32) = 1.25, p > .05 did not develop a better understanding in understanding of the role of science, scientific thinking and doing, science and society, science media literacy, and mathematics in science, the experimental group students did at the end of the study, t(33) = 5.51, p < .05, d = 3.62 (Table 4). In Table 4, it was seen that the overall gain for experimental group was large.

Table 4 Paired sample t-test analysis related to SLA-D
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Students’ answers to each item in the SLA-D were examined to investigate the proportion of correct response for the experimental and comparison groups. It was seen that proportion of correct responses of the students in the experimental group was higher than those of comparison group. However, noticeable differences were observed on several items between two groups, in favor of the experimental group. For example, experimental group students outperformed in the items numbered 1, 5, 13 and 16 in the post SLA-D. The percent correct responses of experimental and comparison students are given in the Table 5.

Table 5 Percent correct responses of experimental and comparison students
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When we examine these questions, we noticed that they are related to determination of variables for a given research question. Similar difference was seen in the questions related to scientific inquiry. Experimental group students outperformed in the questions 4, 10, 14 and 15. For example an item related to identifying questions that can be answered through scientific investigations asked students to predict which research question related to ice creams cannot be investigated through scientific methods (Question 4). While 18% of the experimental and comparison group students correctly answered this question in the pre-test, the percent are 74 and 52 for experimental group and control group respectively. In Table 6, the percent correct answers for question 4, 10, 14 and 15 were given.

Table 6 Percent correct answers for question 4, 10, 14 and 15
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Students’ performance on motivation and beliefs scale (SLA-MB)

SLA-MB composed of three motivation and belief scales assessed through 25 likert type items. The following table shows experimental and control group students’ mean scores taken from pre and post SLA-MB (See Table 7).

Table 7 Experimental and control group students’ mean scores of SLA-MB
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To control students’ motivation and beliefs about science before the implementation, independent samples t-test analyses were performed to check whether there was a significant mean difference between the experimental and the comparison group in terms of motivation and beliefs measured by pre-SLA-MB. The results of independent sample t-test analyses show that there was not a significant mean difference between the scores of students in the experimental group and those in the comparison group before the treatment (t (65) = 0.31, p > .05).

Moreover, to see whether there was a significant mean difference between the SLA-MB scores of the two groups after the treatment another independent sample t test was performed. The results of independent sample t-test analyses show that there was not a significant mean difference between the SLA-MB scores of students in the experimental group and those in the comparison group after the treatment (t(65) = 1.35, p > .05) (Table 8).

Table 8 Independent sample t-test analysis related to SLA-MB
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When we conduct more depth analysis by considering the subscales of SLA-MB, it was seen that although experimental and control group students’ scores in value of science and self-efficacy for scientific literacy subscales did not differ significantly both in pre and posttest; there was a significant difference in the mean post test scores of experimental and control group students in personal epistemology of science subscales (t(65) = 3.05, p < .05) (Table 9).

Table 9 Independent sample t-test analysis related to subscales of SLA-MB
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Students’ interviews

To better understand the quantitative results a subset of participants from both groups were interviewed by one of the researchers. The study mainly focused on quantitative part of the study and qualitative data was used to interpret quantitative results. Thus, the following interview results provided evidence for the students’ development of scientific literacy in experimental group (Table 10).

Table 10 Interview results
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The first category related to students’ evaluation of their experiences in the laboratory was Scientific Thinking and Doing. There are no students from the comparison group in this category. All the six participants in the experimental group stated that the experiments that they have conducted helped them to identify the variables in the study. They mainly argued that before designing appropriate method to answer research question, they determined dependent and independent variables of the research. Four students in the experimental group made comments related to identifying pattern in data. They expressed that to construct a convincing argument related to research question they analyzed the data that they have collected to find a pattern. The following excerpt is representative for the students’ analysis of data:

After deciding the method, we collected the necessary data. Then we tried to show the data as a table or graph. Our purpose in doing this is to see whether there is a steady increase or decrease in data….

Five of the experimental group students stated that to investigate research problems they developed an appropriate method. Moreover, all the students expressed that developing a method is the most challenging and enjoyable part of the process. The following excerpt is an example for this code.

The laboratory sessions seemed different from the way I used to attend. So far, I have followed a given procedure and analyzed the results. But in these experiments, I and my friends had to decide the method we should use to collect data. In the beginning it was hard for me. but then I had a lot of fun since I knew scientists also worked like this.

Five students mentioned peer review process in their comments. Although three of them mentioned their concern that peer review is not fair since the peers may evaluate the reports subjectively, two students explained that the peer review is very useful to improve the reports. Moreover, two students said that their experiences in the laboratory made them come the conclusion that different conclusion can be arrived at the same research question. In the following excerpt the participant mentioned about his experiences:

Before participating this course, I was sure that there is only one correct answer to each research question that can be obtained by a single research method. However, during germination experiment I observed that some of the groups follow different procedure to come to conclusion and some of the groups reached different conclusions. I remember being surprised at this situation.

The second category was related to motivation. In general students’ responses in this category showed similar trends. Four students in the comparison group and all five students in the experimental group expressed that they enjoy laboratory activities. Six students (2 from comparison and 4 from experimental group) said that they did not realize how time passed in the laboratory, four students (1 from comparison and 3 from experimental group) stated that they looked forward to entering the laboratory and ten students (5 from comparison and 5 from experimental group) said that they found the laboratory experiments that they have conducted fun. Furthermore, 3 students from comparison group and 4 students from experimental group mentioned that they liked science more as they learned the scientific concepts better in the laboratory. In the following excerpt, a student from comparison group expresses that understanding the concepts increases her science motivation.

In our regular class hour, I sometimes had difficulty following the teacher. So, I was having difficulty learning some subjects. In this case sometimes I did not want to listen to the lesson more and study science after class. However, I easily understood the concepts in the laboratory. It worked for me to see everything concrete. As I grasped the concept, I enjoyed the laboratory activities more and I motivated to learn more.

The last category related to students’ evaluation of their experiences in the laboratory was Laboratory Environment. Four students in the comparison group and four students in the experimental group mentioned group work in their comments. One student in the control group and two students in the experimental group stated that they are pleased with the group work. They commented that group work makes things easier and faster. However, three students in comparison group and two students in experimental group explained that they had difficulty working in groups. A main reason of this difficulty was shown as group dynamics. Four students in the experimental group thought that laboratory activities helped them to see different points of view. They explained that both group work and argumentation sessions facilitate hearing from others. Moreover, three students in the experimental group said that during argumentation session they had a chance to see different types of data representation. In the following excerpt, the student comments on argumentation session:

Until we got to the argumentation session, we did not know what the other groups did. When we are presenting our results and hearing from others, we encountered different points of view. Moreover, even though we collected similar data, we found that different groups visualized the data in different ways. So, I must think about things I never thought during the experiment or poster presentation.

Two students in the comparison group and one student from experimental group complained that the laboratory activities were time consuming. All of them stated that they preferred to cover topics in the classroom since most of the time was wasted on unrelated works in the laboratory. Similarly, three students in comparison group and two students in the experimental group said that they found the laboratory environment too noisy. Finally, three students in the experimental group explained dissatisfaction with writing report. They thought that writing report was tedious. The following excerpt is an example:

It is not for me to write what I know. I got bored when I was writing reports and editing them.

I did not understand why I had to write while I could express it verbally.

Discussion

The present study focused on the effectiveness of ADI instructional model to support students’ scientific literacy with a mixed method design. To see whether this model is suitable for addressing to call for increasing scientific literacy, the researchers investigated the implementation of this model in eighth grade students.

Our findings suggested that ADI instructional model was more effective in increasing scientific literacy of students than structured inquiry instruction model that is more traditional laboratory instruction. To understand findings of study, it is important to notice that students in ADI instructional model engaged various scientific practices such as designing and conducting investigations, developing arguments based on claim and evidence, supporting their arguments with their peers, writing investigation reports. These scientific practices are part of ADI instructional model that the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) suggested of engaging as core practices for support scientific literacy. Conversely, students in structured inquiry instruction model used only collecting data and drawing conclusions as scientific practices.

Furthermore, the results of instrument used in the study indicated that the experimental group has higher scores especially two dimensions of scientific literacy such as understanding the role of science which measure students’ understanding of using science in daily life situations and scientific thinking and doing. This finding was aligned with previous research of Fives et al. (2014) that presented scientific literacy instrument uses daily life situations to measure elementary students’ scientific literacy by investigating conceptions of the role of science, scientific thinking and doing, science and society, science media literacy and mathematics in science. Also, this finding corroborated previous research that showed ADI instructional model gives students an opportunity to understand nature of scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry by doing science (Authors, 2018; Sampson & Walker, 2012). In parallel, this finding was supported by qualitative data of the study. Students’ views showed that ADI instructional model helped them engage practices of science such as identifying study variables, identifying patterns in data, developing a method to investigate problems and peer review.

Scientific writing is considered an essential component of science literacy (Wallace et al., 2004). Sampson and Walker (2012) argued that as students engaged in scientific writing, they had a chance to analyze, reflect and challenge their thoughts more easily. In ADI instructional model, students write an investigation report in the fifth step. Students are asked to write an investigation report because engaging students in scientific writing can support students to understand and learn ‘the disciplinary knowledge, norms, and practices’ that differentiating science from ways of knowing (Kelly et al., 2008, p. 139). As Kelly (2002) presented that most students have a challenge to ‘serious writing practices” (Kelly et al., 2002, p. 3). For this reason, we use a different format to help students learn how to write in science by having them respond three basic questions. These questions are: What were you trying to do and why? What did you do and why? What is your argument? Students are encouraged to write their responses in two pages investigation report having tables and graphs. This format is designed to support students understand the importance of argument in science, critiquing knowledge through the argument of question, claim and evidence which are also elements of scientific literacy (Bjorkvold &Blikstad-Balas, 2018; Chen et al., 2018).

Moreover, there was an increasing recognition in science education community that in developing scientific literacy, argumentative practices have great potential (Cigdemoglu et al. 2017; Cavagnetto, 2010). Argumentative discourse in science education can be characterized as the learning environments allow students to construct, evaluate and support a scientific claim with valid data (Jimenez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007). ADI instructional model offers students an efficient argumentative discourse environment. Experimental group students’ involvement of argumentative discourse may also be the reason for the increase in their scientific literacy.

Furthermore, the results of this study also showed that experimental group students overall score in SLA-MB scale did not differ significantly from those of comparison group students. SLA- MB scale measures students’ self-efficacy, subjective task value and personal epistemology of science. While two subscales such as subjective task value and self-efficacy for scientific literacy were not different between experimental and comparison groups, personal epistemology subscale was significantly different between them. Personal epistemology is one’s “beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the processes of knowing” (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997, p. 117). SLA-MB scale includes questions about “truth of scientific knowledge”, “certainty of scientific knowledge” and “trusting what scientists say” related to personal epistemology. Increase in this category could be due to argumentation sessions of ADI. Students’ engagement in argumentative activities can have a potential to develop their personal epistemology (Kuhn et al., 2008; Nussbaum & Bendixen, 2003; Tytler & Peterson, 2003). In the literature there are number of research showing the close relationship between argumentation and personal epistemology (Chan et al., 2011; Khishfe, 2012; Liu & Roehrig, 2019). For example, Liu and Roehrig (2019) explored how teachers’ arguments about climate issues may relate to their personal epistemology. The results of case study showed that teachers’ personal epistemology about global climate change can be a critical factor that contributes to their argumentation on climate issues. Similarly, Khishfe (2012) investigated the relationship of high school students’ understandings about nature of science and their argumentation skills. 219 grade 11 students were given two scenarios that addressed the controversial socio-scientific issues about genetically modified food and water fluoridation and asked questions about argumentation and nature of science. The results showed that there were some correlations between the NOS aspects and the argumentation components. Moreover, counterargument had the highest correlation, compared to argument and rebuttal, with the emphasized NOS aspects in both scenarios.

In depth analysis showed that, although the performances of the students were similar in the other two categories, the scores of the experimental and control groups differed in the personal epistemology category. Findings from the qualitative part of the study supported this result. Two students from experimental group mentioned that their experiences in the laboratory made them to come the conclusion that different conclusion can be arrived at the same research question. Moreover, total seven students in experimental group students said that they had an opportunity to see different points of view and types of data representation. It is important to note that none of the comparison group students mentioned these issues.

Overall, the present study showed that ADI instructional method supported students’ scientific literacy compared to structured inquiry method. Engaging students in scientific practices such as, developing argument-using claim, evidence, and justification of evidence - talk (argumentation session) and scientific writing (writing an investigation reports) in ADI instructional method may reasons of students’ development of scientific literacy. We believe that scientific practices like ADI method should be used where students learn doing science rather than only conceptual understanding to develop students’ scientific literacy. In this way, scientific practices may play important role for scientifically literate students.

Limitations

Although the present study made important contribution to science education literature, there are also some inevitable limitations. The study was conducted with limited number of students and contexts. So, further studies are needed to provide generalizability and validity with different grades and contexts. Also, the implementation time may not enough to provide important changes in scientific literacy of students. Lastly, the study was conducted by researcher who is experienced in ADI instructional model, so the effectiveness of ADI instructional model should be in mind by inexperienced teachers.