Conxita Márquez

Which Perspectives Are Referred in Students’ Arguments About a Socio-scientific Issue? The Case of Bears’ Reintroduction in the Pyrenees

The use of Socio-scientific Issues in Science classes is proposed to define the curriculum’s organization and design activities with the aim of encouraging students to develop scientific literacy. In this research, an activity of bears’ reintroduction in the Pyrenees has been designed and developed in order to analyze from which perspectives do 125 students from two secondary schools (aged 13–14) placed in Barcelona make their arguments to base their decisions about the reintroduction. Data were collected with an open-ended questionnaire included in the activity designed, and the results show that students justify their opinions with different kinds of arguments from different perspectives as social-oriented, ecological-oriented, and moral-oriented. However, they used to use only one argument in their justifications so they show difficulties to consider the different perspectives that are related to a socio-scientific issue when they have to make a decision.

Desarrollo de la mirada profesional sobre la argumentación científica en el aula de secundaria

This study attempts to show a teacher professional noticing on scientific argumentation in the high school classroomof a future teachers program in the Colombian context. Argumentation in high school requires a relationship among three aspects (conceptual, didactic and structural). The characterization of this professional competence involves the development of three main skills in pre-service teachers: Identifying the main elements in the argumentation process in science class; interpreting the said elements; and making decisions based on practice to better argumentation process in the science class. Data gathered consisted of student-teachers’ productions in relation to the activities proposed by the researchers. Activities were all based in video material previously recorded with class episodes. Results show the complexity to develop this competence within a training course. Also, some significant changes in the skills of identification and interpretation of argumentation practices were evidenced. In contrast, difficulties in decision making through reflective teaching in the practice were also identified.