Enhancing the Quality of Argumentation in School Science

The research reported in this paper focussed on the design of learning environments that support the teaching and learning of argumentation in a scientific context. The research took place over two years between 1999 and 2001 in junior high schools in the greater London area. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first developmental phase, working with a group of 12 science teachers, the main emphasis was to develop sets of materials and strategies to support argumentation in the classroom and to assess teachers‘ development with teaching argumentation. Data were collected by videoing and audio recording the teachers attempts to implement these lessons at the beginning and end of the year. During this phase, analytical tools for evaluating the quality of argumentation were developed based on Toulmin‘s argument pattern. Analysis of the data shows that there was significant development in the majority of teachers use of argumentation across the year. Results indicate that the pattern of use of argumentation is teacher specific, as is the nature of the change. In the second phase of the project, teachers taught the experimental groups a minimum of nine lessons which involved socioscientific or scientific argumentation. In addition, these teachers taught similar lessons to a control group at the beginning and end of the year. Here the emphasis lay on assessing the progression in student capabilities with argumentation. Hence data were collected from several lessons of two groups of students engaging in argumentation. Using a framework for evaluating the nature of the discourse and its quality, the findings show that there was an improvement in the quality of students‘ argumentation. In addition, the research offers methodological developments for work in this field

Attitudes towards science: a review of the literature and its implications

This article offers a review of the major literature about attitudes to science and its implications over the past 20 years. It argues that the continuing decline in numbers choosing to study science at the point of choice requires a research focus on students? attitudes to science if the nature of the problem is to be understood and remediated. Starting from a consideration of what is meant by attitudes to science, it considers the problems inherent to their measurement and what is known about students' attitudes towards science and the many factors of influence such as gender, teachers, curricula, cultural and other variables. The literature itself points to the crucial importance of gender and the quality of teaching. Given the importance of the latter we argue that there is a greater need for research to identify those aspects of science teaching that make school science engaging for pupils. In particular, a growing body of research on motivation offers important pointers to the kind of classroom environment and activities that might raise pupils' interest in studying school science and a focus for future research

The Role of Monotonicity in the Epistemic Analysis of Strategic Games

It is well-known that in finite strategic games true common belief (or common knowledge) of rationality implies that the players will choose only strategies that survive the iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies. We establish a general theorem that deals with monotonic rationality notions and arbitrary strategic games and allows to strengthen the above result to arbitrary games, other rationality notions, and transfinite iterations of the elimination process. We also clarify what conclusions one can draw for the customary dominance notions that are not monotonic. The main tool is Tarski's Fixpoint Theorem.Comment: 20 page

Democratic Transition in the Development Context: The Case Study of Tonga

In 2010 the Kingdom of Tonga experienced a democratic transition that saw the balance of power shift from a hereditary monarchy to the people. Elections were held that for the first time would result in a majority of Tonga’s Parliament comprising of democratically-elected politicians. Parliament was given the responsibility of nominating a Prime Minister from amongst its own ranks, who would in turn became responsible for nominating the Cabinet. These powers were formerly held by Tonga’s hereditary monarchy, whose role was reduced to one more akin to that performed by the modern monarchs of Europe. Since the 1960s, Tonga has received an increasing amount of overseas aid, especially from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and, latterly, China. Historically, donors have not been overtly concerned with issues of democracy in developing countries, instead relying on the modernist notion that economic development would lead to democratic development. Since the 1980s, however, donors have become increasingly interested in the issue of democracy in developing countries, as a result of the good governance agenda and its successor paradigm, the aid effectiveness agenda. This thesis explores the impact of donors on Tonga’s 2010 democratic transition, concluding that the effect of donors manifested in a variety of direct and indirect ways. A retrospective analysis identifies aspects of Tonga’s 2010 democratic transition that could have been improved, and actions that donors should consider taking if faced with similar circumstances in the future. Finally, the thesis considers how donors can assist the consolidation of Tongan democracy, concluding that support should be targeted towards sustainable economic development, the rule of law, and the public service

Editorial: Research on learning in informal contexts: advancing the field?

Special Issue: Research on Learning Science in Informal Contexts (Editors: Justin Dillon & Jonathan Osborne). Contents: Editorial: Research on Learning in Informal Contexts: Advancing the Field? Jonathan Osborne & Justin Dillon. 1. Conversations about Science across Activities in Mexican-Descent Families - Deborah Siegel, Jennifer Esterly, Maureen A. Callanan, Ramser Wright. 2. The Value of 'Dialogue Events' as Sites of Learning: An Exploration of Research & Evaluation Frameworks - Jane L. Lehr, Ellen McCallie, Sarah Davies, Brandiff R. Caron, Benjamin Gammon, and Sally Duensing. 3. School Site to Museum Floor: How Informal Science Institutions Work with Schools - Michelle Phillips, Doreen Finkelstein, Saundra Wever-Frerichs. 4. Conceptualizing Learning from the Everyday Activities of Digital Kids - Sherry Hsi. 5. Participation at exhibits: Creating engagement with new technologies in science centres - Robin Meisner, Dirk vom Lehn, Christian Heath, Alex Burch, Ben Gammon, Molly Reisman. 6. The use of questions in exhibit labels to generate explanatory conversation among science museum visitors - Jill Hohenstein and Lynn Uyen Tran. 7. Talk, Tools, and Tensions: Observing Biological Talk Over Time - Doris Ash, Rhiannon Crain, Carol Brandt, Molly Loomis, Mele Wheaton, Christine Bennett

Interaction and interactives: collaboration and participation with computer-based exhibits

It is increasingly recognized that social interaction and collaboration are critical to our experience of museums and galleries. Curators, museum managers and designers are exploring ways of enhancing interaction and in particular using tools and technologies to create new forms of participation, with and around, exhibits. It is found, however, that these new tools and technologies, whilst enhancing “interactivity,” can do so at the cost of social interaction and collaboration, inadvertently impoverishing co-participation, and cooperation. In this paper we address some of the issues and difficulties that arise in designing for “interactivity” and in particular point to the complex and highly contingent forms of social interaction which arise with, and around, exhibits. The paper is based on a series of video-based field studies of conduct and interaction in various museums and galleries in London and elsewhere including the Science Museum and Explore@Bristol

Towards a more social pedagogy in science education: the role of argumentation

This presentation will argue that one of the major problems school science suffers from is a pedagogy which is dominated by the conduit metaphor of teaching. This is the idea that communication is a one way process where teachers conceive of themselves as didactic disseminators of knowledge. When teachers were the sole source of knowledge in a community, such a concept was difficult to challenge. However, in a contemporary context, where young people have access to a growing range of interactive technologies to engage in creative and autonomous self-expression, the predominance of such authoritative modes of interaction are open to question and are, in part, responsible for much of young people’s disaffection with school science. Moreover, the range of alternatives begins to expose the inherent functional ineffectiveness. This presentation will argue, rather, that it is dialogic modes of interaction which are an essential element of learning and teaching in the 21st Century. These offer students the opportunity to engage in deliberative interaction about the ideas of science and to construct a deeper and more meaningful understanding of what science offers. Drawing on the work that I and colleagues have conducted in argumentation, I will show how the four essential elements to any science education – the development of conceptual understanding; the improvement of cognitive reasoning; improving students’ understanding of the epistemic nature of science; and affording an affective experience which is both positive and engaging – can all be facilitated through a focus on argumentation