Understanding and practice of argumentation: A pilot study with Mainland Chinese pre-service teachers in secondary science classrooms

This is a pilot study on pre-service science teachers’ preparation for argumentation. The focus of this study is to identify pre-service teachers’ understandings and skills of composing argumentation. The instructional practice with regard to argumentation in science lessons without intervention at the beginning of their teaching practice was also examined in this study. Three research questions guide this study:

How do the pre-service teachers understand argumentation in science education?
What argumentation skills do they have?
How do pre-service science teachers organize discussions in the classroom?

This study was conducted in Zhejiang province in China. Three 4th year pre-service science teachers participated voluntarily without consideration of their background, gender, or academic performance. They had completed their theoretical curriculum learning, including courses such as Scientific Curriculum and Teaching Theory, Science Instructional Design, the History of Science, and Scientific Research Methodology. After finishing all the theoretical courses, they were preparing to undertake teaching practice in local secondary schools. The participants’ profiles are listed in Table 1. Pseudonyms have been adopted to represent all the participants or others mentioned during the interviews.

Data collection

A qualitative research method was employed in this study. Firstly, a semi-structured group interview was used to probe the participants’ understandings of argumentation. The interview questions consisted of two parts. The first set of questions was designed to explore their understanding of argumentation in terms of three dimensions: 1) their understanding of argumentation; 2) their understanding of the role of argumentation in scientific practice; and 3) their understanding of the role of argumentation in science education. The second set of questions was designed to capture their ability of composing argumentation. As scientific argumentation differs from argumentation in daily life, questions regarding these two different dimensions were included in the interview: some were related to the participants’ personal daily life which would include every-day argumentation, while the others were related to the fundamental tenets of contemporary science, and invited them to compose scientific argumentation. In addition, three lessons for Grade 8 students conducted by each pre-service teacher at the beginning of their teaching practice were video recorded to capture their teaching activities of organizing discussion in class. Both the interview and the science lessons were conducted in Chinese.

Table 1. The background and lesson topics of the three pre-service teachers
Name	Gender	Age	Student age	Lessons
Alice	Female	21	13-14	Dispersion of material in water
Tina	Female	20	13-14	Substances dissolve in water
Jane	Female	21	13-14	Substances dissolve in water

Data analysis

The interview was transcribed and translated into English by the researchers. The pre-service teachers’ responses in the interview were divided into two categories: understanding of argumentation and performance of argumentation. Three sub categories, a) understanding of argumentation, b) understanding of the role of argumentation in scientific practice, and c) understanding of science education objectives in terms of argumentation, were developed to capture the pre-service teachers’ understandings of argumentation. Their performance of argumentation was also analyzed according to two sub categories: a) skills of composing daily argumentation, and b) skills of composing scientific argumentation.

Osborne et al.’s model (2004) was used to evaluate these two types of argumentation. This model (Table 2) is popular in argumentation studies and has been employed in many past studies to evaluate the quality of argumentation (e.g., Chin & Osborne, 2010; Clark & Sampson, 2007; Dawson & Venville, 2010; von Aufschnaiter, Erduran, Osborne, & Simon, 2008). It was developed from Toulmin’s (1958) argumentation pattern. According to this model, the participants’ verbal expressions were coded into different levels representing different abilities of argumentation.

Table 2 Osborne et al.’s (2004) Analytical Framework
Level 1: Level 2: Level 3: Level 4: Level 5:	Level 1 argumentation consists of arguments that are a simple claim versus a counter-claim or a claim versus a claim. Level 2 argumentation has arguments consisting of claims with data, warrants, or backings but does not contain any rebuttals. Level 3 argumentation has arguments with a series of claims or counter-claims with data, warrants, or backings with the occasional weak rebuttal. Level 4 argumentation shows arguments with a claim with a clearly identifiable rebuttal. Such an argument may have several claims and counter-claims. Level 5 argumentation displays an extended argument with more than one rebuttal.

The science lessons conducted by the three pre-service teachers were transcribed verbatim. As the questions posed by science teachers are viewed as being significant in determining discussion in the classroom (McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; Osborne et al., 2004), all of the questions asked by the teachers in their lessons were tallied and divided into four types: open questions, closed questions, rhetorical questions, and managerial questions (Blosser, 1973; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010). The assumption was that more open questions would trigger more argumentation in the lessons. The coding scales are listed in the table below:

Table 3 Coding Scheme of the Questions Asked by the Teachers
Question type	Description	Example
Closed	Questions with limited answers	“Which one is the saturated solution?”
Open	Questions with many possible answers	“Why do fish live in the water?”
Management	Questions related to classroom management	“Who can answer the question?”
Rhetorical	Questions which don’t need a reply but are employed for continuity	“Do you understand?” “Okay?”