Claim, evidence and reasoning in the science classroom

Abstract

This Capstone Project's purpose was to examine the effects of an educational approach called Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) on student abilities to create, identify, and understand different aspects of scientific argumentation. The research followed two middle school classes through the process of treatment, and inquiry labs where they engaged in argumentation in response to a guiding question. Students in grades six and seven investigated the differences among claim, evidence and reasoning in scientific argumentation. The research indicted low gains in identifying examples of argumentation components and creating written argumentation for both classes.