What Can We Learn from a Study of Argumentation in the Students Answers and Group Discussion to Open Physics Problems?

Abstract

The chapter focuses on students’ arguments with a framework based on the Theory of Argumentation of Argumentation of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958). From this perspective, which joints dialectics and rhetoric, argumentation is understood as the set of discursive techniques that will convince the audience of the validity of the theses presented. The general aim is to find a new way to interpret students’ misconceptions and reasoning, with particular reference to the role of premises and argumentative schemes they use, which we consider part of common sense. The chapter is based on two studies. The first study was carried out with teacher trainees’ students in the university. Written answers to three qualitative kinematics problems were compiled. In the second study, held in a secondary school class, small group discussions answering a question about free fall were video recorded. The results provide new insights into students’ scientific misconceptions and into the reworking of knowledge that emerges in the students’ discussions in small groups. The implication for science education is that focusing explicitly on argumentation in science classes and using the same kind of arguments students use, and discussing them, is likely to improve not only students’ argumentative skills, but also their conceptual understanding of science itself