Using climate change scenarios to assess high school students’ argumentation skills

Abstract

Background: Many international science curriculum documents mandate that students should be able to participate in argument, debate and decision-making about contemporary science issues affecting society. Termed socioscientific issues, these topics provide students with opportunities to use their scientific knowledge to discuss, debate and defend their decisions and to evaluate the arguments of their peers. Purpose: This study describes the development and trialling of scenarios based on the socioscientific issue of climate change. The scenarios required students to make and justify a decision and were designed to assess students' argumentation skills. Sample: A sample of 162 Year 10 students from five schools in Perth, Western Australia participated in this study. Design and methods: Recent media articles were reviewed to identify relevant contexts for scenarios related to climate change that could be used to develop and assess students' argumentation skills. In the first phase, students trialled scenarios about wind farms and hydrogen fuel buses using writing frames with scaffolding questions to generate as many reasons as possible to justify their decision. The responses were categorised into themes which were used to prepare a scoring rubric. In the second phase, students generated written arguments about the scenarios to support their decision. The arguments were analysed using both the scoring rubric developed from the first phase and Toulmin's argumentation pattern of claim, data, backing, qualifier and rebuttal. Results: Students' responses to the scaffolded questions were categorised into themes of agriculture, economy, energy, environment, human impact and ethical factors. The themes of economy and the environment predominated with ethical justifications cited infrequently. An analysis of the arguments generated revealed a majority of students' responses consisted of a claim and data with backings, qualifiers and rebuttals rarely provided. Conclusions: Scenarios about climate change socioscientific issues can be used by teachers to both develop and assess students' argumentation skills in classroom settings.

Students’ Decision-Making in Education for Sustainability-Related Extracurricular Activities—A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies

“…Within this review we aim to explore the intersection displayed in ESD-related extended education offerings addressing students' decision-making. As such, the paper predominantly lines up with topical studies examining the importance of students' decision-making in broader educational contexts (e.g., [66]) as well as its role in particularly sustainability-related education contexts (e.g., [67]). Yet, in more general terms, it also contributes to the discussion in the field of educational research informed by value-driven and interdisciplinary approaches such as ESD.…”

“…The majority of studies was conducted in Europe (n = 13, Germany [80][81][82][83][84], United Kingdom [85,86] Cyprus [87,88], Israel [89], the Netherlands [90], Czech Republic [91], and Spain [92]), followed by studies from North America (n = 4, America [93][94][95] and Canada [96]). There was a scattering of studies from Asia (n = 1, Singapore [97]) and Oceania (n = 1, Australia [67]).…”

“…Most studies collected their data from students attending upper secondary education (n = 9 [67,[80][81][82]84,86,87,92,93]). These students are typically 15 to 18 years old and in grade 9 to 12.…”

“…Papers with this focus (n = 14 [67,[80][81][82][83][84][86][87][88]90,[92][93][94][95]) define decision-making as a competence required in the process of reasoning. Derived from this perception as a competence, decision-making appears to be investigable in its structure and development.…”

The Technology Pedagogy Knowledge (TPK) Teacher Using Worksheet 3D Pageflip Professional for Promoting Argumentation Skills High-Schools Students in Physics Learning

“…Arguments become a core part that should be applied in the classroom (Mao, Liu, Roohr, Belur, Mulholland, Lee, & Pallant 2018). Many international educational curricula that requires students to be able to participate in the argument, debate, and decision-making on science issues (Dawson & Carson 2017). Argumentation ability to be one of the main objectives of learning science (Probosari, Ramli, Harlita, Indrowati, & Sajidan 2016).…”