Promoting and Scaffolding Elementary School Students' Attitudes Toward Science and Argumentation Through a Science and Society Intervention

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of a science and society intervention on elementary school students’ argumentation skills and their attitudes toward science. One hundred and eleven fifth grade students volunteered as an experimental group to join a 12-week intervention; another 107 sixth grade students volunteered to be the comparison group. All participants completed the Student Questionnaire at the beginning and end of this study. Observation and interview results were used to triangulate and consolidate the quantitative findings. The data showed that after the intervention, the quality of the experimental group students’ arguments and their attitudes toward science were significantly higher than their comparison group counterparts. In addition, the experimental group boys made significantly greater progress in the quality of their argumentation from the pretest to posttest than the girls; and low achievers made the most significant progress in their attitudes toward science and quality of argumentation. Interviews and observations indicated that their understandings of explanation and argumentation changed over the intervention. This indicated that a science and society intervention can enhance both the ability of students to develop strong arguments and their attitudes toward science.

Keywords:

• Attitudes toward science
• Argumentation
• Scaffolding
• Elementary school student
• Science and society intervention

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan NSC 99-2511-S-110-003-MY3. Many thanks go to the editor's and anonymous reviewers' constructive comments. The authors are grateful to Professor Frances Lawrenz of the University of Minnesota for her thoughtful suggestions on this manuscript.