Improving Undergraduate Science Education Students’ Argumentation Skills through Debates on Socioscientific Issues

Abstract

This research aims to examine undergraduate students’ argumentation skills during and after the learning process in the classroom setting and their responses toward the implementation of socioscientific issues (SSI) through debate in the learning process. This research involved 32 undergraduate students and implemented design-based research with pretest and posttest in a natural classroom setting using three topics of SSI debate that widely discussed in Indonesia: Nuclear Powerplant (Topic 1), Food Preservation (Topic 2), and Genetically Modified Organism (Topic 3). Data was collected using observation sheets, tests, and questionnaires. Observation is to measure argumentation ability when applying the debate method in class settings, the test measures the improvement of argumentation skills, and questionnaires measure students’ responses to the application of the debate method. In this study, argumentation scores were obtained from six indicators and divided by a maximum score of 24 times 100. Normalized gain (N-gain) was calculated to determine the effectiveness of the intervention in the classroom. T-test was also conducted to test the significance of the differences in the pretest and posttest results on argumentation skills. The results obtained in this study are: the argumentation skills score during the learning process for six groups were 95, 80.6, 90.3, 95, 83.3, and 77.5; the mean score of pretest and posttest were 52.22 ± 6.62 and 85.78 ± 4.72. The consistency of opinions shows the change from “agree” to “disagree” for Topics 1 and 3. The undergraduate students agree and consistently agree toward Topic 2. The paired t-test result also shows that the intervention statistically has a significant difference between the two means, indicating that the undergraduate students’ argumentation skills are better than before the intervention. Otherwise, most of the undergraduate students respond positively toward the implementation of the debate related to SSI. Despite some limitations, the debate on SSI can improve argumentation skills in classroom settings, especially in science education majors.

The Effects of Socioscientific Issues Approach With Thinking Wheel Maps on Entrepreneurial Science Thinking Among Fifth Graders

“…Scientific and social knowledge built as a result of a debate among students that is shared among them will generate their ideas to identify the uniqueness or advantages found in the objects they observe (Walker & Zeidler, 2007). In the SSI-TM TL approach, students are given space to argue critically, provide justification and reasoning for each argument they argue (Martini et al, 2021) and record all their ideas in the second stage of the thinking wheel map systematically. The infusion of the socioscientific issue approach, together with the thinking wheel maps, allows students to easily record any of their ideas in a systematic approach (Bengston, 2016).…”

“…These issues also allow students to study and connect science, daily life, and society in the community (Driver et al, 2000;Sadler, 2004). In SSI-based learning, students are asked to argue and debate in a more conflictual discussion context to discuss current societal issues (Martini et al, 2021). This is in line with the objective of fostering entrepreneurial science thinking, where ISSN 1648-3898 /Print/ ISSN 2538-7138 /Online/ students who can connect science with society are able to produce invented products adapted to the needs of society and solve socioscientific issues that occur in society.…”

Pengembangan Bahan Ajar berbasis Socio-Scientific Issues untuk Meningkatkan Higher Order Thinking Skill

“…( 2017) juga menunjukkan bahwa kemampuan peserta didik dalam memecahkan masalah lingkungan masih rendah padahal kemampuan menalar dan memecahkan masalah penting untuk dikuasai peserta didik di abad ini. Demikian pula pada program studi pendidikan IPA, meskipun pembelajaran telah dirancang untuk memberikan kebebasan kepada peserta didik untuk mengemukakan pendapatnya, hanya sedikit peserta didik yang menggunakan kesempatan untuk bertanya tentang materi yang dipelajari, memperdebatkan hal-hal yang dibahas, setuju atau tidak setuju terhadap suatu pernyataan (Martini, 2021).…”

Eksplorasi Keterampilan Argumentasi Ilmiah Mahasiswa melalui Media Sosial: Topik Kasus Bioteknologi

“…Sebagian besar (36%) mereka berada dalam kategori terendah (level 2). Hal ini sejalan dengan penelitian yang dilakukan oleh Martini et al (2021) bahwa rata-rata ketrampilan argumentasi mahasiswa masih berada pada level 2. Level 1, yang hanya terdiri dari claim terdapat 34% mahasiswa.…”