The Use of Representations and Argumentative and Explanatory Situations

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of non-verbal representations in a modelling-based science teaching context, in which argumentative and explanatory situations occur. More specifically, we analyse how the students and teacher use representations in their discourse in modelling activities, and we discuss the relationships between the functions of these representations and the demands of the explanatory and argumentative situations that exist in that classroom. The data were collected by video recording all the classes in which a teaching sequence about intermolecular interactions was used—a topic which the students had not previously studied. In the activities, the students had to create, express, test, and discuss models in order to understand the difference between intermolecular and interatomic interactions, as well as their influences on the properties of substances. Initially, we selected excerpts of the recorded classes in which a non-verbal representation was used. Then, we used criteria to identify the argumentative and explanatory situations (previously defined), and we created categories for the functions of the representations that were used in order to analyse all the identified situations. The analysis supports conclusions indicating the relevance of the use of non-verbal representations in the construction, use, and defence of explanations. As the defence of explanations was the main context in which argumentative situations occurred in this study, our conclusions also indicate the contribution that representations make towards changing the status of the students' explanations.

Keywords:

• Modelling
• Explanation
• Argumentation

Acknowledgements

The second author thanks ‘Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq, Brazil’ for her personal research grant.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The evening classes mainly serve students who stopped studying for a time and/or work during the day. Consequently, the age range for these students differs from the typical age of students who attend that grade in the daytime (which is 14–15 years old).

2. Simplifications of scientific models that compose the school curricula (Gilbert et al., 2000).

3. For more details about classification of the elements of an argument, and their relationship with scientific knowledge, see Mendonça and Justi (2013b).