Abstract
Recent theoretical and empirical work in science education has led to greater consideration of the role of social constructivist discussions in science classrooms. This paper advances an intervention model for effective whole class discussions based on the Philosophy for Children program, and reports on a year long study of its application, focussing on the development of scientific reasoning. The evaluation employs two methods: a quantitative pretest/posttest measure of scientific reasoning using science reasoning tasks; and qualitative analysis of four transcripts at the utterance, epistemic episode and thematic levels. The former method indicates that the experimental class experienced significantly greater gains in scientific reasoning than a control group, and the latter offers empirical support to theoretical accounts of how this occurs. Implications for classroom teaching and further research are discussed.
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Sprod, T. “I can change your opinion on that”: Social constructivist whole class discussions and their effect on scientific reasoning. Research in Science Education 28, 463–480 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02461510
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02461510