Facilitating argumentation in undergraduate chemistry laboratories: Evidence for the lack of claim change Scientists construct explanations, develop models, and argue from evidence as they attempt to develop new scientific knowledge. These activities are important epistemic practices of the scientific community, and the ability to participate in such practices is an essential aspect of science that students should learn. In a chemistry laboratory, inquiry-based instruction models this scientific approach by prompting students to design experiments to answer broad, open-ended questions. Argumentation is a natural outcome of an inquiry-based lab; as students engage in sense-making with peers they will employ the key elements of scientific argumentation – claim, evidence, reasoning, and rebuttal. These elements of scientific argumentation as defined by education researchers state that an argument entails generating a claim supported by evidence, using scientific principles as reasoning. The last element of argumentation, rebuttal, is especially challenging for students particularly when the argumentation sequence indicates the need for a claim change. This study analyzes the lack of claim change demonstrated in an undergraduate chemistry laboratory program that uses the Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional model in the two-semester general chemistry laboratory sequence. This study reports on analysis of video recordings of argumentation sessions that took place over the course of one school year in the general chemistry I and II laboratories. The argumentation sessions were scored using the Assessment of Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom (ASAC) observation protocol. Thirteen videos were recorded and scored from four different experiments, two from the general chemistry I laboratory in the fall and two from the general chemistry laboratory II in the spring. In an examining the ASAC scores, the item regarding claim change consistently yielded the lowest average score out of eighteen items scored. This evidence indicates that students frequently fail to change their claim for the experiment even when the process indicates the need and the opportunity to do so. Recognizing this lack of claim change in argument-based chemistry laboratories yields valuable information to instructors and researchers intent on facilitating argumentation.

Facilitating productive argumentation in the laboratory

255th National Meeting (2018)

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