scholarly journals Students’ use of Justifications in Socioscientific Argumentation

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-264
Author(s):  
Louise Rietz ◽  
Anders Jönsson ◽  
Mats Lundström
Keyword(s):  
Content Knowledge ◽  
Socioscientific Issues ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Secondary Chemistry ◽  
Chemistry Students ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
Argumentative Texts ◽  
Knowledge Value

Research focusing on students’ argumentation in socioscientific issues (SSI) shows that students tend to base their arguments on values rather than knowledge. This study explores Swedish upper secondary chemistry students’ written argumentation. The data consists of student texts written at the end of an intervention designed to develop skills related to high quality argumentation. The results show that after being taught about argumentation and the context of SSI, students mainly base their arguments on content knowledge. Value justifications are present in students’ texts, but constitute a smaller proportion. Beside content knowledge- and value justifications, we found a third category – “reasoning” – in which students draw conclusions, or make predictions of future events, to support or refute a claim. The justifications in the argumentative texts include a breadth of subject areas in which chemistry knowledge plays an important role. This study suggests that content knowledge constitutes an important part in student argumentation.

scholarly journals Upper Secondary Chemistry Students in a Pharmacochemistry Research Community

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1012-1036 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisette van Rens ◽  
Jacqueline van Muijlwijk ◽  
Jos Beishuizen ◽  
Joop van der Schee
Keyword(s):  
Research Community ◽  
Secondary Chemistry ◽  
Chemistry Students ◽  
Upper Secondary

scholarly journals Conceptual Demography in Upper Secondary Chemistry and Biology Textbooks’ Descriptions of Protein Synthesis: A Matter of Context?

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. ar51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara J. Wahlberg ◽  
Niklas M. Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Protein Synthesis ◽  
Biology Education ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Secondary Chemistry ◽  
Biology Textbooks ◽  
Biology Textbook ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Chemistry Textbooks ◽  
Upper Secondary ◽  
Technical Terms

This study investigates how the domain-specific language of molecular life science is mediated by the comparative contexts of chemistry and biology education. We study upper secondary chemistry and biology textbook sections on protein synthesis to reveal the conceptual demography of concepts central to the communication of this subject. The term “conceptual demography” refers to the frequency, distribution, and internal relationships between technical terms mediating a potential conceptual meaning of a phenomenon. Data were collected through a content analysis approach inspired by text summarization and text mining techniques. Chemistry textbooks were found to present protein synthesis using a mechanistic approach, whereas biology textbooks use a conceptual approach. The chemistry texts make no clear distinction between core terms and peripheral terms but use them equally frequently and give equal attention to all relationships, whereas biology textbooks focus on core terms and mention and relate them to each other more frequently than peripheral terms. Moreover, chemistry textbooks typically segment the text, focusing on a couple of technical terms at a time, whereas biology textbooks focus on overarching structures of the protein synthesis. We argue that it might be fruitful for students to learn protein synthesis from both contexts to build a meaningful understanding.

Multiliteracies in Secondary Chemistry

2010 ◽  
pp. 186-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Hilton ◽  
Kim Nichols ◽  
Christina Gitsaki
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Student Learning Outcomes ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Learning Tools ◽  
Secondary Chemistry ◽  
Multiple Modalities ◽  
Chemistry Students ◽  
Critical Literacies ◽  
Chemical Concepts

Digital technologies can play an important and significant role in improving students’ understanding and literacies (e.g., visual, digital, and critical literacies). To develop such multiliteracy skills, students need opportunities to process and communicate information or use specialised representations that characterise a subject area, often through multiple modalities. Digital technologies are important learning tools for helping students to interpret and communicate information multimodally. In chemistry, in particular, digital technologies are effective tools for supporting students’ understanding and representation of chemical concepts on macroscopic, molecular, and symbolic levels. Designing and scaffolding appropriate learning experiences in chemistry can be a challenge for teachers, particularly when integrating digital technologies with laboratory-based activities. The purpose of this chapter is to outline how a multiliteracies framework can be used to develop and deliver an investigative inquiry unit of work to chemistry students. It describes a scaffolding model developed and investigated through a study in which an introductory unit in senior chemistry was taught using a multiliteracies approach. It also describes student learning outcomes and perceptions of the usefulness of this scaffolding approach as these were identified through the study.

Pedagogical content knowledge of argumentation: Using classroom contexts to assess high-quality PCK rather than pseudoargumentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine L. McNeill ◽  
María González-Howard ◽  
Rebecca Katsh-Singer ◽  
Suzanna Loper
Keyword(s):  
Pedagogical Content Knowledge ◽  
Content Knowledge ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Pedagogical Content

Goal orientations of general chemistry studentsviathe achievement goal framework

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott E. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
General Chemistry ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Goal Orientations ◽  
Achievement Goal ◽  
Exam Performance ◽  
Task Orientation ◽  
Past Performance ◽  
Secondary Chemistry ◽  
Chemistry Students ◽  
Post Secondary

The Achievement Goal Framework describes students’ goal orientations as: task-based, focusing on the successful completion of the task; self-based, evaluating performance relative to one's own past performance; or other-based, evaluating performance relative to the performance of others. Goal orientations have been used to explain student success in a range of educational settings, but have not been used in post-secondary chemistry. This study describes the goal orientations of General Chemistry students and explores the relationship of goal orientations to success in the course. On average, students report higher task and self orientations than other orientation. Task orientation had a positive relationship with exam performance and self orientation had a negative relationship with exam performance. Clustering students showed that for the majority of students task and self orientations moved concurrently and students with low preference across the three orientations also performed lowest on exams. Finally, students in classes using Flipped-Peer Led Team Learning, a pedagogy designed to bring active learning to a large lecture class, showed higher task orientation than those in classes with lecture-based instruction.

Theme in discourse

2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Crompton
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Conclusive Evidence ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Argumentative Text ◽  
Thematic Progression ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Universal Feature ◽  
Argumentative Texts ◽  
Point Of Departure

Fries (1981) hypothesises that the textual phenomena of ‘thematic progression’ (TP) (Danesˇ 1974) and ‘method of development’ (MOD) provide discourse evidence for the function proposed by Halliday (1967) for Theme, in particular that ‘initial position in the sentence, or sentence-level Theme, means “point of departure of the sentence as message”‘. This paper discusses the theoretical basis for this hypothesis, in particular the relation between TP and MOD, and reviews previous empirical research. Further research conducted by the author is described, into global proportions of TP, TP patterning, and the relation between TP and rhematic progression (RP) in a small corpus of 80 short argumentative texts. It was found that only small proportions of either argumentative text, or high-quality argumentative text could be considered as having a MOD. It was also found that texts had comparable levels of TP and RP. It is concluded that MOD is not a universal feature of discourse organisation, and therefore not conclusive evidence for Fries’s original hypothesis.

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