Abstract
The present study aimed to investigate the effect of argumentation-based instruction on academic achievements, scientific process skills of primary school 4th grade students and their attitudes towards the science course. The study was designed as a quasi-experimental research, and the study group included 47 4th grade students during the 2016-2017 academic year. Academic achievement test, scientific process skills test and attitudes towards science course scale were used as pre-tests and post-tests in the study to collect data. Independent groups t-test, paired groups t-test, Mann Whitney U test and arithmetic mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage analysis were employed to analyze the study data, and .05 confidence interval was accepted as significant. The study findings demonstrated that argumentation-based instruction had a positive impact on academic achievements and scientific process skills of 4th grade primary school students; and the instruction led to a significant difference that favored the experimental group in attitudes towards the science course.
Highlights
Knowledge production today is very rapid and simultaneous developments and changes in many scientific and technological fields occur due to the advances in the 21st century (Küçükyılmaz, 2014)
The present study aimed to investigate the impact of argumentation-based instruction on academic achievement, scientific process skills and attitudes towards the science of primary school 4th grade students based on the scope of ‘Let's Learn about Matter’ unit
Cangöz (2020) reported that argument-based virtual laboratory applications positively affected the academic achievement of the students, Erdogan (2010) found that the academic success of the experimental group students when argumentation-based instruction was conducted in the primary school 5th grade ‘Earth, Sun and Moon unit’ was higher when compared to the control group that was instructed with the conventional method
Summary
Knowledge production today is very rapid and simultaneous developments and changes in many scientific and technological fields occur due to the advances in the 21st century (Küçükyılmaz, 2014). The adoption of the constructivist approach in science programs aimed to develop learning environments centered on the student where the teacher acts as a counselor (problem-based learning, collaborative learning, project-based learning, argumentation, etc.) (The Ministiry of National Education, 2013; 2018) These objectives and learning environments aimed to train science literate individuals who could employ scientific thinking methods, make conscious decisions in scientific discussion environments and support their prepositions with reasons, and analyze the arguments with a critical approach (Köseoğlu, Tümay, & Budak, 2008). The argumentation-based learning (ABL), a learning approach where argumentation-based activities are conducted, was based on the constructivist learning, several learning and instructional theories, scientific literacy, comprehension of the nature of science and adequate writing activities that could be discussed (Driver, Newton and Osborne, 2000). In ABL, writing activities conducted by the students are important to construct knowledge, and for comprehension and discussion (Burke, 2005)
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