Engaging students in argumentation and explanation formation in introductory college STEM courses provides them opportunities to develop their reasoning skills. These two practices of engaging in argumentation from evidence and constructing explanations are a part of the eight scientific practices developed by the National Research Council and are important skills for students to have prior to and upon graduation into their next professional role in the STEM community. In a typical college STEM classroom/lecture hall, information is conveyed to students, examples are provided, and homework is assigned and returned with little feedback. Students are then tested on their proficiency of recalling and reasoning through that information. In this process, little guidance is given to students on how to form arguments and explanations, so it is not surprising then that we see students failing to reason through problems in a manner consistent with desired scientific practices. This occurrence can clearly be observed in student exam open responses. To begin understanding how to improve student reasoning on exams, we must know the extent to which students are currently forming arguments and explanations. To do this, Toulmin’s model of argumentation and the mechanistic reasoning framework were implemented, and initial results collected. Upon further analysis, our research aims to examine the type of exam questions that promote reasoning.

Examining the nature of reasoning introductory chemistry students use on exams

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.