The Impact of Argumentation on High School Chemistry Students’ Conceptual Understanding, Attitude towards Chemistry and Argumentativeness

Ayşe Yalçın Çelik; Ziya Kılıç

doi:10.51724/ijpce.v6i1.55

Authors

Ayşe Yalçın Çelik Gazi University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0724-1355
Ziya Kılıç Gazi University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51724/ijpce.v6i1.55

Keywords:

Argumentation, Argumentativeness, Attitude, Conceptual Understanding, High School Chemistry Students

Abstract

Argumentation activities, which have become prominent in the education literature, are an important process to improve conceptual understanding. According to researchers there is a relationship between the argumentation and conceptual change, and thus argumentation enhances conceptual understanding since an argument deals with disagreement, which is the first step of conceptual change. The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of classroom-based argumentation on high school students’ conceptual understanding of chemistry concepts, their attitude towards chemistry, and argumentativeness when compared to traditional teaching approach. A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control group design was used. The study was conducted with 53 students in Grade 9 and with the same students in the Grade 10. Implementations lasted 13 weeks in the first year and 8 weeks in the second year. The concept tests, attitude scale towards the chemistry, and argumentativeness scale were applied on both groups. Interviews to reveal the level of student understandings not defined by the concept tests were conducted at the end of each year with 6 students from each group. According to multivariate analysis of variance results, it was found that the experimental group students’ conceptual understanding, attitude toward chemistry, and argumentativeness were significantly higher than those of the control group students.

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