Using Evidence Cards to Improve Explanations in Middle School Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) Statements

Abstract

One of the most difficult tasks for middle school science students is writing Claim Evidence Reasoning statements in response to scientific questions. The difficulty lies in the reasoning portion of these statements, in which students employ the science practices of Constructing Explanations and Arguing from Evidence to demonstrate how evidence supports their claim. Many young students fail to grasp that it is not enough to simply say that a claim is correct or that the evidence is strong. They must also communicate how the reliability, pertinence, and strength of the evidence make it adequate for the task of supporting the claim. I sought to address this problem by introducing evidence cards as a tool to be used prior to writing these Claim Evidence Reasoning statements. Each card features a piece of evidence gathered during classroom coursework. Alongside the evidence is one or more Critical Questions that prompt students to consider the meaning and value provided by the evidence. Students answer these questions with a partner and then sort the cards in order from weakest evidence to strongest. In a sample of 61 sixth grade students, scores on the reasoning portion of CER statements increased from a mean of 5.38 out of 12 in the pre-treatment to a mean of 7.42 in the post-treatment. The perceived ability and readiness of students to use evidence also saw gains when pre-treatment and post-treatment survey responses were compared. This was demonstrated by the portion of students assessing themselves in the highest two levels of mastery increasing by 23.7%. These results show that using evidence cards with critical questions resulted in a significant improvement in the reasoning section of these middle school students’ Claim Evidence Reasoning statements.