Counter-Arguing During Curriculum-Supported Peer Interaction Facilitates Middle-School Students’ Science Content Knowledge

Abstract

Peer argumentation, especially the discussion of contrary points of view, has experimentally been found to be effective in promoting science content knowledge, but how this occurs is still unknown. The available explanations are insufficient because they do not account for the evidence showing that gains in content knowledge are unrelated to group outcomes and are still evident weeks after collaboration occurs. The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between peer-group argumentation and science content knowledge learning. A total of 187 students (aged 10 to 11 years) from 8 classrooms participated in the study, with the classrooms spread across 8 public schools, all located in Santiago, Chile. We conducted a quasi-experimental study randomized at school-class level. Four teachers delivered science lessons following a teaching program especially developed to foster dialogic and argumentative classroom talk (the intervention group), and four teachers delivered lessons in their usual way (the control group). Students were assessed individually using both immediate and delayed post-test measures of science content knowledge. The results showed no differences in pre- to post-immediate content knowledge between conditions. However, the intervention-group students increased their content knowledge significantly more than the control-group students between post-immediate and post-delayed tests. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that, after controlling for school-level variables, time working in groups, and scores in the pretest, the formulation of counter arguments, although occurring in both groups, significantly predicted delayed gains in the intervention group only. Moreover, the frequency of counterarguments heard by students during the group work did not make a difference. Focal analysis of one small-group work suggests that teachers’ instructional practice may have contributed to the consolidation of students’ knowledge at an individual level in a post-collaborative phase.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the generosity of the epiSTEMe team in giving their permission to use and adapt the project Forces materials: Kenneth Ruthven, Riikka Hofmann, Christine Howe, Stephanie Luthman, Neil Mercer, and Keith Taber. They are also grateful for the crucial participation of students in the study and of the following teachers: Marcia Quintana, Carolina Torres, Sofía Almonacid, Andrea Carrasco, Claudia Carmona, Ximena Rodriguez, Nicole Guerra and Marjorie irribarra; for the assistance of Maximiliano Silva, Ignacia Salvat, Vicente Gastellú, Constanza Villavicencio, and Camila Moran; and the statistical advice of Maria de los Ángeles Bilbao.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fondo de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico de Chile (FONDECYT), under Grants [1140995 and 1170431].