Learning science through argumentative synthesis writing and deliberative dialogues: a comprehensive and effective methodology in secondary education

Scientific literacy can be promoted through oral and written argumentative practice. Collaborative discourse has proven effective in fostering conceptual understanding, especially when discussions are developed under deliberative goals. Likewise, writing tasks as argumentative syntheses stand out for its epistemic value and its contribution to constructive learning processes. However, there are no known educational interventions that have combined these two didactic activities to teach science. The objective of this research was to compare the impact of four intervention programs, based on deliberative dialogues and argumentative synthesis writing activities, on the learning of socio-scientific content. The four programs resulted from the combination of two instructional components (Explicit Instruction; Guide), while deliberative dialogues and argumentative syntheses were constant elements. We conducted a pre-post quasi-experimental study in which participated 151 Spanish third grade secondary school students. Socio-scientific learning was evaluated through a content test made up of open questions. The results showed all students progressed in their socio-scientific knowledge. Instructional practices did not have a direct effect on content learning. However, we observed an indirect effect of explicit instruction on learning socio-scientific content, through learning of argumentative synthesis writing. Besides, we found a positive relation between progression in synthesis writing and knowledge acquisitionOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. The present study was supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional (Spain) under Grant for the Formación de Personal Investigador (FPU16/01454), and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innnovación State program oriented to the challenges of society (I + D + I) (PID2019-105250RB-I00

Collaborative writing of argumentative syntheses by low-performing undergraduate writers: explicit instruction and practice

In writing argumentative syntheses from multiple and contradictory sources, students must contrast and integrate different perspectives on a topic or issue. This complex task of source-based argumentation has been shown to be effective for learning, but it has also been shown to be quite challenging. Because of the challenges, educational interventions have been developed to facilitate performance through such means as explicit instruction of strategies and students’ engagement in collaborative writing. Whereas these interventions have been beneficial for many writers, some students continue to perform poorly. The present study builds on prior research into collaborative writing of source-based argumentative syntheses by focusing on these students who experience difficulty with this academic task. Undergraduate psychology students who had previously underperformed on the argumentative task were organized into 56 pairs to participate in one of four versions of an intervention program, which differed in terms of the extent of support provided. The most complete program included collaboration as well as explicit instruction in argumentative synthesis writing and in the collaboration process. Statistical analyses were carried out with two ANOVAs with planned comparisons as well as two mediation models. Results showed that the pairs of students who received this most complete program significantly improved the quality of their synthesis in two dimensions, argument identification and argument analysis. The quality of their performance exceeded the performance of students in the three other intervention programs. The combination of explicit instruction and practice in pairs had positive effects on argument identification; but, for argument integration, effectiveness could be attributed solely to the explicit instruction component of the intervention. The study contributes to prior research by showing how the components of an intervention can make differential contributions to its effectiveness for a particular group of studentsThe present study was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación State program oriented to the challenges of society (I + D + i) (PID2019-105250RB-I00

How to improve argumentative syntheses written by undergraduates using guides and instructional rubrics

Undergraduates often struggle writing argumentative syntheses from conflicting sources. Written guides can help in the different phases of the process involved in these tasks and are more effective when accompanied by explicit instruction. Nevertheless, there are few studies on instructional rubrics as an aid to argumentative writing and none are focused on synthesis tasks. Our objectives were to compare (1) the effectiveness of a guide and a rubric as aids to the processes of selection and integration in writing an argumentative synthesis; (2) whether explicit instruction in synthesis writing strategies enhances the effects of both aids and (3) the effectiveness of the aids offered during the practice sessions performed with the support of aids and after removing those aids. The study was conducted with 120 undergraduate psychology students. An experimental inter/intra-subject factorial design 2 (Instruction) x 2 (Type of aid) x 4 (Time) was employed. We used mixed linear models to assess the intervention effects. The guide facilitated the selection of arguments. Both guide and rubric promoted integration. When students also received explicit instruction, the learning rate of integration strategies was accelerated, and the impact of guide and rubric was greaterOpen access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Firenze within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. Project funded by The Ministry of Science and Innovation, State R+D+I Program Oriented to the Challenges of Society (PID2019-105250RB-I00

Assessing aids for the elaboration of argumentative synthesis in the University: Guide or Rubric?

Although most of the interventions to foster the integration of multiple pieces of information has focused on teaching “how” to integrate (Barzilai et al., 2018) providing different kinds of instruction on the processes implied, instruction focusing on the criteria to evaluate integration are scarce and mainly centered on integrating complementary, but not contradictory, sources. In this work we designed and contrasted the effectiveness of two aids to improve the quality of the syntheses written by undergraduates from texts that defended opposing views on a topic: a Guide to the process of preparing a synthesis vs a Rubric with the evaluation criteria of written products. The number of arguments and the degree of integration were examined. Also, the students' perception was assessed regarding the usefulness of the aids to plan, to write and to review their synthesis. Seen that we found that offering a guide accompanied by explicit instruction is more effective than providing it without explicit instruction Mateos et al. (2018), the two aids were offered here under two conditions: Explicit Instruction vs. Traditional Instruction. Thus, we carried out an experimental study with 122 Psychology students, distributed randomly into four intervention programs. In the first and fourth session they performed a synthesis task without support. In the second session, after receiving the instruction (explicit vs. traditional), each student made a new synthesis using the specific aid provided (practice 1, with Guide/Rubric). In the third session the participants carried out another synthesis under analogous conditions (practice 2, with aids). Our results pointed out that, regardless the instruction, both aids (Guide and Rubric) improved the degree of integration of the students’ syntheses. However, the guide contributed better to improve the selection of arguments. Students who received Explicit Instruction found both aids to be equally useful for planning and writing their syntheses. In contrast, after Traditional Instruction the Guide was perceived as more useful for planning and writing syntheses. The Guide was more useful for reviewing their texts. We will discuss the implications of these findings for synthesis writing training and conclude with recommendations and suggestions for future studies.2021-2

COVID-19 outbreaks in a transmission control scenario: challenges posed by social and leisure activities, and for workers in vulnerable conditions, Spain, early summer 2020

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 community-wide transmission declined in Spain by early May 2020, being replaced by outbreaks and sporadic cases. From mid-June to 2 August, excluding single household outbreaks, 673 outbreaks were notified nationally, 551 active (>6,200 cases) at the time. More than half of these outbreaks and cases coincided with: (i) social (family/friends’ gatherings or leisure venues) and (ii) occupational (mainly involving workers in vulnerable conditions) settings. Control measures were accordingly applied

Nutrición en Salud Pública

Este libro es fruto de una revisión y actualización ampliadas de los manuales docentes de «Nutrición en Salud Pública» y «La alimentación y el consumidor», editados en 2007 y 2013 respectivamente por la Escuela Nacional de Sanidad del Instituto de Salud Carlos III.La salud pública es el arte y la ciencia de prevenir la enfermedad, prolongar la vida y promover la salud a través de los esfuerzos organizados de la sociedad. La nutrición es la ciencia que estudia la forma en que el organismo utiliza la energía de los alimentos para mantenerse y crecer, mediante el análisis de los procesos por los cuales ingiere, digiere, absorbe, transporta, utiliza y extrae los nutrientes esenciales para la vida, y su interacción con la salud y la enfermedad. Por tanto, la nutrición en salud pública (public health nutrition) es la ciencia que estudia la relación entre dieta y salud y sienta las bases para el diseño, ejecución y evaluación de intervenciones nutricionales a nivel comunitario y poblacional con el objeto de mejorar el estado de salud de las poblaciones. La pandemia de obesidad, una enfermedad estrechamente relacionada con la nutrición, es uno de ejemplos paradigmáticos del carácter multidisciplinar e intersectorial de la salud pública. Hace décadas, la obesidad era considerada una enfermedad endocrina, de tipo glandular, dentro del dominio biomédico del especialista en endocrinología. Después se pasó a considerar algunos factores personales de riesgo, como los hábitos alimentarios y de actividad física, entrando en el dominio de la medicina preventiva, que centra sus esfuerzos en los factores biomédicos individuales, como la ingesta de calorías o el sedentarismo, y del entorno familiar. La salud pública va más allá, considerando factores ambientales, sociales y culturales que afectan a las preferencias alimentarias y los hábitos de vida, como los sistemas de producción de alimentos y fijación del precio de los mismos, el uso de subsidios y tasas, la publicidad alimentaria, el nivel socioeconómico de las familias, el diseño urbanístico (cantidad de espacios verdes, parques, carriles bici) o los sistemas de transporte urbano, entre otros muchos. El abordaje de elementos tan variados requiere del concurso de especialistas en múltiples disciplinas: profesionales sanitarios, abogados, economistas, periodistas, urbanistas, sociólogos, etc. Aunque ningún individuo puede ser experto en todas las especialidades relacionadas con la salud pública, el profesional bien formado debe conocer el rol de cada una de esas disciplinas en la formulación de una intervención de salud pública, estar familiarizado con el lenguaje y los postulados básicos de dichas disciplinas, y haber practicado la implementación de intervenciones a cargo de equipos multidisciplinarios

Guía para el desarrollo de diálogos deliberativos dirigidos a escribir síntesis argumentativas

Registro Propiedad Intelectual (Nº Asiento Registral 16/2024/384)Pasos del proceso recogidos en la guía: Identificación y exploración de las diferentes posiciones sobre el tema controvertido, contraste de las posiciones, elaboración de conclusiones, escritura conjunta de un texto que recoja las conclusiones alcanzadas y revisión del textoGuía desarrollada y empleada en dos proyectos de investigación financiados por el Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional (España) bajo Beca para la Formación de Personal Investigador (FPU16/01454), y por el Programa estatal de Innovación, Orientado a los retos de la sociedad (l+D+I) (Ref. PID2019-105250RB-I00

Programa de enseñanza explícita de estrategias de elaboración de síntesis argumentativas con el apoyo de una guía, dirigido a estudiantado de bachillerato y universidad

Registro Propiedad Intelectual ( Nº Asiento Registral 16/2024/381)El objetivo es enseñaros estrategias para mejorar la elaboración de síntesis argumentativas a partir de la lectura de dos textos que presentan visiones controvertidas en relación con una temática del ámbito de la EducaciónPrograma desarrollado, implementado, evaluado en un proyecto de investigación financiado por el Programa estatal de Innovación, Orientado a los retos de la sociedad (l+D+I) (Ref.PID2019-105250RB-I00

Rúbrica formativa para la elaboración y evaluación de síntesis argumentativas a partir de textos que plantean visiones contrapuestas sobre un tema, dirigida a estudiantado de Bachillerato y Universidad

Esta Rúbrica pretende ayudar a elaborar una síntesis argumentativa integradora, después de que haber leído dos textos en los que se presentan posturas enfrentadas sobre un tema controvertido. Una síntesis argumentativa integradora es un tipo de texto argumentativo en el que se busca reconciliar dos posicionamientos, a priori opuestos. Es un escrito en el que se plantean soluciones a una controversia, después de haber examinado y valorado los argumentos de distintas posturas. Se trata de un escrito en el que se plantean soluciones y condiciones, buscando integrar los dos posicionamientos presentados en los textos que se han leído.Gobierno de España. PID2019-105250RB-I002023-2

Rúbrica formativa para la elaboración y evaluación de síntesis argumentativas a partir de textos que plantean visiones contrapuestas sobre un tema, dirigida a estudiantado de bachillerato y universidad

Registro de Propiedad Intelectual (Nº de Asiento Registral 16/2024/378)Esta Rúbrica pretende ayudar a elaborar una síntesis argumentativa integradora, después de que haber leído dos textos en los que se presentan posturas enfrentadas sobre un tema controvertido. Una síntesis argumentativa integradora es un tipo de texto argumentativo en el que se busca reconciliar dos posicionamientos, a priori opuestos. Es un escrito en el que se plantean soluciones a una controversia, después de haber examinado y valorado los argumentos de distintas posturas. Se trata de un escrito en el que se plantean soluciones y condiciones, buscando integrar los dos posicionamientos presentados en los textos que se han leídoRúbrica desarrollada en un proyecto de investigación financiado por el Programa estatal de Innovación, Orientado a los retos de la sociedad (l+D+l) (Ref. PID2019-105250RB-I00