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Cognitive Foundations of Learning Argumentation

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Argumentation in Science Education

Part of the book series: Science & Technology Education Library ((CTISE,volume 35))

The goal of the present chapter is to provide a cognitive analysis of the competencies involved in argumentation: the psychological processes involved in argumentation, how these processes develop, and most importantly, given the scope of the present book, how this development relates to science learning. For the latter, we need to situate the role of argumentation in science learning, and this is the focus of the first section of the chapter, where the case of the importance of argumentation in the new approaches of science will be made. Argumentation, however, is a very broad, multidisciplinary, and polisemic term, and thus is used differently within and between disciplines. The second section is an attempt to clarify the term. We will devote the third section to concretizing which aspects of argumentation specifically relate to science education, in order to make a cognitive analysis of these aspects in the fourth and fifth sections. Finally, the last section addresses what the literature says about scaffolding argumentation. In other words, we will try to answer the questions science educators may pose in order to deal with argumentation in their science classes: What are the main difficulties students meet when they engage in argumentation? What should we expect from young children in an elementary class in terms of their competencies to argue? In what ways are these competencies different when we compare elementary with secondary school students? What are they built upon? What is the role of metacognition in their development? Our underlying main claim is that argumentation is a process involved in general knowledge acquisition, regardless of whether it is individual silent learning or collaborative learning, and following Siegel (1989) it is aimed at the rational resolution of questions, issues, and disputes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultat de Psicologia, Campus Mundet, Edifici Ponent, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, 171, 08035, Barcelona, SPAIN

    Merce Garcia-Mila

  2. Office of Research and Office of Outreach and Engagement, The Ohio State University, 400 Stillman Hall, 1947 College Road, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Christopher Andersen

Authors
  1. Merce Garcia-Mila
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  2. Christopher Andersen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol, UK

    Sibel Erduran

  2. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre

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Garcia-Mila, M., Andersen, C. (2007). Cognitive Foundations of Learning Argumentation. In: Erduran, S., Jiménez-Aleixandre, M.P. (eds) Argumentation in Science Education. Science & Technology Education Library, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6670-2_2

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