The consistency of the students’ arguments in the socioscientific issue about cloning on extinct animals, animal for sacrifice (Qurban) purposes and human

Abstract

Argumentation plays an important role in the development of science which is not just finding and presenting facts, but building arguments and considering them, and debating various explanations about phenomena. The research aimed to capture the consistency of students’ argumentation on issues of cloning. Students were chosen purposively with the subject of 170 high school students from three high schools in Bandung City, West Java, Indonesia. This research uses a case study approach with a descriptive analysis to analyze student test results of argumentation. The consistency of argument consists of claims and reasons itself. The result shows the pattern of agreeing and disagree about cloning in 3 topics; 1) extinct animals, 2) animal for Qurban purposes, 3) humans. The higher consistency showed disagree in topics 2&3 about 56.47% and consistency of reason for each topic are 1) science 83.5%, 2) religion 57.6% and 3) religion 40%. Then, the consistency of agreeing for all topics is 2.35% and disagree is 14.71%. This provides that, consistency of students argumentation on cloning issue is greatly influenced by science, religion, and social norms. It needs to be investigated further to uncover the relationship of arguments consistency with socio-cultural of students in schools.