Argumentation skills and conceptual knowledge of undergraduate students in a physics by inquiry class

Teaching argumentation skills has been the focus of science education research which views argumentation instruction as a way to improve scientific reasoning skills in science classrooms. Argumentation research has mostly focused on examining the quality of classroom discourse in science classes, scaffolding student argumentation process, and in-service science teacher development of pedagogical skills related to argumentation. Yet, there is paucity of studies exist in the literature which has examined prospective science teacher development of argumentation skills. This study aims to reduce this gap in the argumentation literature.;This study investigated prospective science teacher development of argumentation skills and conceptual knowledge, relationship between argumentation skills and conceptual knowledge, and the relation of argumentation and conceptual knowledge gains to prospective science teacher initial conceptual knowledge level in an undergraduate course where argumentation skills were incorporated to the science curriculum. Initially, data were collected from 125 students who were involved in an inquiry-based physics course at a midwestern university. Argumentation skills for the concepts of balancing and sinking and floating were assessed by the use of argumentation tests which were constructed for this study and administered four times during the course. In addition to written argumentation tests, argumentation discourse of one small group of students was audio-taped two times during the course. Physics conceptual knowledge was administered at the beginning and at the end of the instruction by a conceptual test which was constructed for this study. A total of 36 students who responded to all the data collection activities comprised the analysis sample.;It was found that the prospective science teacher argumentation skills regarding balancing and sinking and floating concepts improved during the course. More specifically, their counter-argument and rebuttal evidence and justification scores developed during the course. It was also found that improvement of counter-argument and rebuttal evidence scores was content independent whereas improvement of counter-argument and rebuttal justification scores was content dependent.;The results showed that prospective science teacher conceptual physics knowledge was improved from the beginning to the end of the instruction. More specifically, their declarative and situational knowledge scores increased from the pretest to the posttest. The results also showed that prospective science teacher argumentation scores can be related to physics conceptual knowledge pretest and posttest scores. In addition, it was found that argumentation gain scores were not related to prospective science teacher initial conceptual knowledge level. According to these findings, implications regarding prospective science teacher education and explicit teaching about argumentation were discussed.