Epistemic operations performed by high school students in an argumentation and decision-making context: Setrocia’s alimentary emergency

Figures & data

Figure 1. Different stages of the role-play.

Figure 2. Information generated by the students’ decision to activate the pharmaceutical industry and deactivate fishing.

Table 1. Definition and examples of the different epistemic operations identified in students’ talk during the task.

	EPISTEMIC OPERATION	DESCRIPTION	EXAMPLE (Students perform this operation when …)
PK	Inferring the scope of a decision	Students imagine a scenario that might occur once a decision has been made	… stating that the resource ‘pharmaceutical industry’ has the necessary equipment to analyse samples from those affected by the disease, which would result in more information
	Inferring a plausible cause	Students propose a certain cause for the outbreak or determine that it is impossible for a certain resource to be the cause	… proposing that the disease is generated by the incorrect operation of the resource ‘water treatment plant’
	Proposing explanation	Students provide an account of the implications that a certain circumstance may entail	… guessing that the progressive spread of the disease may be related to the fact that the districts share resources with each other
	Making sense of data	Students interpret or try to interpret the data that they possess	… examining the different categories in the chart showing the food consumed by those affected by the disease in the days prior to the outbreak
EK	Appealing to consistency with previous knowledge	Students use past experiences in their interventions or demand arguments that are consistent with the proven data	… stating that the following proposals have to be adapted to the fact that the disease is caused by food, therefore meaning that airborne transmission can be ignored
	Contrasting claims with available evidence	Students use the data provided to justify their claims	… saying that the fact that the disease originates in district 2 means that it is unlikely that the resource ‘agriculture’ was the cause, given that district 2 is the only district in which no vegetables are grown, therefore meaning that the disease would have appeared earlier in another district
	Acknowledging the absence of data	Students report a lack of sufficient data to be able to make a decision	… giving priority to obtaining the necessary information before making a precipitous decision
CK	Persuading other members	Students try to engage other members in their decision	… exerting pressure on the rest of the students to take action by emphasising the disease's high mortality rate
LK	Building consensus	Students try to reach consensus ir order to be able to make a decision	… trying to reach a common point when there is a disagreement between deactivating the resources ‘fishing’ and ‘water treatment plant’
	Recognising thevalue of other positions	Students recognise the usefulness of other interventions in arriving at a decision	… the district 2 students state that district 3's intervention is the most appropriate decision to resolve the emergency

Legend: PK: Proposing knowledge, EK: evaluating knowledge; CK: communicating knowledge; LK: legitimising knowledge.

Table 2. Epistemic operations performed by 11th grade students during discussions in small groups.

	Epistemic Operation	D1	D2	D3	Total
PK	Inferring the scope of a decision	13	6	9	28
	Inferring a plausible cause	13	20	20	53
	Proposing explanation	10	14	24	48
	Making sense of data	10	8	6	24
	N	46	48	59	153
EK	Appealing to consistency with previous knowledge	4	2	6	12
	Contrasting claims with available evidence	4	2	5	11
	Acknowledging the absence of data	1	-	1	2
	N	9	4	12	25
CK	Persuading other members	1	-	1	2
	N	1	0	1	2
LK	Building consensus	1	1	-	2
	N	1	1	0	2
NT		57	53	72	182

Legend: PK: Proposing knowledge, EK: evaluating knowledge; CK: communicating knowledge; LK: legitimising knowledge; D1, D2, and D3: District 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

Table

Round 2, District 1. Extract 1: epistemic operations associated with the practice of proposing knowledge
Turn	Transcript	Epistemic operation
74	Rafael: No, we promote this [railway transport] because we have to carry medicines.	Inferring the scope of a decision
75	Ismael: But …
76	Carla: But then we would also have to remove this [vegetables], because in this [railway transport] you are transporting them as well.	Inferring a plausible cause Proposing explanation
77	Ismael: No, that’s not like that …
78	Carla: Yes, but …
79	Ismael: The thing that most coincides in all of them [people affected by the outbreak] is vegetables, so …	Making sense of data
80	Carla: Yes, we should remove vegetables and …
81	Ismael: Promote railway transport.

Table

Round 2, District 3. Extract 2: epistemic operations associated with the practice of evaluating knowledge (other epistemic operations are omitted)
Turn	Transcript	Epistemic operation
110	Sara: I mean, before you paralyse something, you must analyse it.	Acknowledging the absence of data
111	Abel: We need to analyse it.
117	[…] Sara: Well, I think it’s the water, but …
118	Aníbal: It is.
119	Sara: It doesn’t say anything about the water [in the chart].
121	[…] Nerea: I don’t think it’s the water though, because if … I mean, if it is supposed to be infected, everyone was drinking water from the same … there, that is, from the same area.
122	Aníbal: But they [district 2] own the water treatment plant.
123	Nerea: But they [district 2] don’t have agriculture. By the same token they were using the other day, that they were infected by fish because they were the ones … that had fishing, then if it is by agriculture, districts one and three would have to be infected, and not district two.	Appealing to consistency with previous knowledge

Table

Round 2, District 3. Extract 3: epistemic operations associated with the practice of communicating knowledge (other epistemic operations are omitted)
Turn	Transcript	Epistemic operation
196	Aníbal: You can, you can. And paralyse, what do we paralyse?
197	Sara: We don’t paralyse anything.
198	Aníbal: What do you mean, no? Esther, something has to be done.
199	Esther: People are dying …	Persuading other members
200	Aníbal: We suggest for the second time …
201	Abel: That people don’t eat.
202	Aníbal: … to paralyse the drinking water plant

Figure 3. Evolution of the epistemic operations involved in deciding which resource to deactivate in round 1. Legend:

: operations performed by district 1,

: operations performed by district 2,

: operations performed by district 3,

: proposing knowledge,

: evaluating knowledge.

Figure 4. Evolution of the epistemic operations involved in deciding which resources to activate in round 2. Legend:

operations performed by district 1,

: operations performed by district 2,

: operations performed by district 3,

: proposing knowledge,

: evaluating knowledge, ..... : legitimising knowledge.

Figure 5. Evolution of the epistemic operations involved in the final decision (round 3). Legend:

operations performed by district 1,

: operations performed by district 2,

: operations performed by district 3,

: proposing knowledge,

: evaluating knowledge.