Prospects and Challenges of using the Argumentation Instructional Method to Indigenise School Science Teaching

Abstract

Identifying an instructional tool for merging scientific and indigenous knowledge (IK) is problematic as there is no clear guidance on how this can be achieved. Argumentation is recommended as a possible integrative instructional theoretical methodology as it imbues notions of dialogue and persuasion, while at the same time embracing the scientific ideas of inference, logic and procedural rules. It offers a means for protecting individual beliefs within a rational dialogic frame of reference. To identify the benefits and challenges associated with indigenising science teaching in South African schools, 16 grade 10 learners were exposed to an instructional intervention programme where, through argumentation, their knowledge and beliefs about the nature of lightning were explored. The intervention programmme included a questionnaire soliciting learner beliefs on lightning, as well as classroom discussion sessions on stories related to lightning. Using Toulmin's Argumentation Pattern and the Contiguity Argumentation Theory as analytical tools, statements from the learners were analysed in terms of the learners' levels of argumentation and their understandings about science and/or indigenous knowledge worldviews. Initially, all learners explained the causes of lightning in terms of science only. After the intervention, learners accepted that science explanations of lightning were inadequate, and that other explanations, such as those based on indigenous knowledge, were needed to compliment the scientific explanations. The study results show that the use of dialogical argumentation instruction to integrate scientific and IK explanations can lead to a deeper understanding of natural phenomena. It offers a possible instructional tool for indigenising science teaching in South African schools. However, integrating science and IK is not easy.