This study is aimed at examining science teachers' views of argument in scientific inquiry and argument-based science instruction. Questionnaires were collected from 53 middle and high school science teachers in the metropolitan area of the Republic of Korea. More than half of these respondents seemed to have a clear understanding of argument in…

We have developed a process-oriented chemistry laboratory curriculum for non-science majors. The purpose of this study is both to explore university students' understanding of chemistry processes and to evaluate the quality of evidence students use to support their claims regarding chemistry processes in a process-oriented chemistry laboratory…

A critical component of teacher effectiveness is how teachers notice students' misconceptions and adjust the instructional approach accordingly. Taking a stance that the teachers' instructional quality is crucial to students' learning, a qualitative international comparison study was performed to examine science teachers' perceptions of and their…

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is central to teachers' professional knowledge impacting student learning and thus is considered a key attribute of teacher quality. Teacher quality is often indirectly examined by proxy measures such as degrees, certification, and teaching experience. To date, little is known how those proxy measures are…

This study aimed to examine the written arguments developed by college freshman students using the Science Writing Heuristic approach in inquiry-based general chemistry laboratory classrooms and its relationships with students' achievement in chemistry courses. Fourteen freshman students participated in the first year of the study while 19…

This study aimed to investigate the successes and difficulties that teachers perceived as they enacted an argument-based inquiry approach; and instructional strategies that teachers used within an argument-based inquiry approach. Nineteen elementary teachers from 14 Midwestern elementary schools were enrolled in an intensive 2-week professional…

This study examined the extent to which fifth-grade students participate in online argumentation and the argument patterns they produced about the inquiry-based investigations completed using the Science Writing Heuristic approach in their science classes. One hundred twenty-nine students from five classes of two teachers in a Midwestern public…

A critical component of science is the role of inquiry and argument in moving scientific knowledge forward. However, while students are expected to engage in inquiry activities in science classrooms, there is not always a similar emphasis on the role of argument within the inquiry activities. Building from previous studies on the Science Writing…

This study was designed to examine students' use of multiple modal representations within their written arguments as a consequence of completing a series of investigations of an organic chemistry laboratory course. One hundred and eleven students from a major Midwestern university were involved in using the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach…

Current initiatives in science education in Korea have emphasized science literacy as the most important purpose of science education; that is, science education needs to focus on helping each student to become a scientifically literate person who is able to make reasoned decisions. In attempting to address this focus concern about science…