1 Examining Elementary Students Development of Oral

Sci & Educ (2016) 25:277–320
DOI 10.1007/s11191-016-9811-0
ARTICLE
Examining Elementary Students’ Development of Oral

and Written Argumentation Practices Through
Argument-Based Inquiry
Ying-Chih Chen1 • Brian Hand2 • Soonhye Park3
Published online: 10 March 2016

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract Argumentation, and the production of scientific arguments are critical elements
of inquiry that are necessary for helping students become scientifically literate through
engaging them in constructing and critiquing ideas. This case study employed a mixed
methods research design to examine the development in 5th grade students’ practices of
oral and written argumentation from one unit to another over 16 weeks utilizing the
science writing heuristic approach. Data sources included five rounds of whole-class dis-
cussion focused on group presentations of arguments that occurred over eleven class
periods; students’ group writings; interviews with six target students and the teacher; and
the researcher’s field notes. The results revealed five salient trends in students’ develop-
ment of oral and written argumentative practices over time: (1) Students came to use more
critique components as they participated in more rounds of whole-class discussion focused
on group presentations of arguments; (2) by challenging each other’s arguments, students
came to focus on the coherence of the argument and the quality of evidence; (3) students
came to use evidence to defend, support, and reject arguments; (4) the quality of students’
writing continuously improved over time; and (5) students connected oral argument skills
to written argument skills as they had opportunities to revise their writing after debating
and developed awareness of the usefulness of critique from peers. Given the development
& Ying-Chih Chen

ychen495@asu.edu
Brian Hand
brian-hand@uiowa.edu
Soonhye Park
spark26@ncsu.edu
1
Division of Teacher Preparation, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ 85287-5411, USA
2
Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
52242-7700, USA
3
STEM Education Department, College of Education, North Carolina State University, 326 K Poe
Hall, Campus Box 7801, Raleigh, NC 27695-7801, USA
123
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
278 Y.-C. Chen et al.
in oral argumentative practices and the quality of written arguments over time, this study
indicates that students’ development of oral and written argumentative practices is posi-
tively related to each other. This study suggests that argumentative practices should be
framed through both a social and epistemic understanding of argument-utilizing talk and
writing as vehicles to create norms of these complex practices.
1 Introduction
Engaging students in argumentation has been advocated as a critical practice for fostering
students’ understanding of disciplinary core concepts and epistemic practices (Forman
et al. 1998; Duschl 2008; Bricker and Bell 2008; Kuhn 2010; Manz 2014; Walshaw and
Anthony 2008; Yackel and Cobb 1996). Many studies on argumentation in the areas of
science (Jimenez-Aleixandre et al. 2000; Kelly and Chen 1999; Kuhn et al. 2013; McNeill
et al. 2006; Nam et al. 2011; Nussbaum and Edwards 2011; Osborne et al. 2004; Sampson
et al. 2011) and mathematics (Arzarello and Sabena 2011; Bieda 2010; Carpenter et al.
2003; Ryve 2011) have shown that engaging students in productive argumentation is
difficult because students often struggle with tasks that require them to craft cogent
arguments, evaluate them publicly to seek weaknesses, and revise them accordingly.
From a sociocultural development perspective, Fraivillig et al. (1999) and Ryu and
Sandoval (2012) suggested that promoting students’ practices, skills, and understanding of
argumentation needs time to develop and that this development appears only after sus-
tained engagement. However, Kuhn et al. (2013) pointed out that time itself does not
guarantee students’ development of argumentative practices. Rather, this development
requires their understanding of the multifaceted aspects of argumentation. This view is
echoed by both Duschl (2008) and Jiménez-Aleixandre (2008, 2014), who contend that
argumentation for school science should emphasize two convergent aspects: social nego-
tiation (e.g., how to critique, debate, and evaluate an argument) and epistemic under-
standing of argument (e.g., what counts as data, evidence, and claim, and the relationships
between these components). That is, students must be able to epistemologically understand
an argument and use it as a vehicle to engage in social negotiation. In this regard,
understanding the patterns of such development in both social and epistemic aspects over
time must be a crucial resource for designing interventions and curriculum materials that
effectively engage students in the core practices of science as advocated in contemporary
reform documents (e.g., National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices
and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) 2010; National Research Council
(NRC), 2012).
From a linguistic perspective, argumentation is seen as a series of language practices in
which scientists construct and critique each other’s arguments through negotiating the
meaning of text, drawings, diagrams, tables, and other representations (Klein 2006). In
translating those practices to science classrooms, talk and writing are considered as two
important tools for argumentative practices (Chen et al. 2016; Nussbaum and Edwards
2011; Yore and Treagust 2006). Rivard and Straw (2000) asserted that both talk and
writing are intertwined because ‘‘talk is important for sharing, clarifying, and distributing
scientific ideas,’’ whereas ‘‘writing is important for refining and consolidating these new
ideas’’ (p. 588). Thus, one potential avenue for examining students’ development of
argumentative practices within the classroom from both social and epistemic aspects is to
focus on these two language forms.
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Examining Elementary Students’ Development of Oral and… 279
It has been suggested that opportunities for elementary students to engage in scientific
argumentation are typically ‘‘epistemologically impoverished’’ (Metz 2011, p. 51). This
restricted argumentation experience is rooted in the idea that younger students are assumed
to have limited reasoning ability, communication skills, and content knowledge necessary
for argumentation (Lee and Kinzie 2012). However, recent research has demonstrated that
elementary students are also capable of engaging in core scientific practices with appro-
priate support and sufficient time to develop those practices (e.g., Choi et al. 2014; Lehrer
et al. 2008; McNeill 2011; Reznitskaya et al. 2007; Sandoval et al. 2014; Zangori et al.
2013). For example, McNeill (2011) explored 5th grade students’ views of explanation,
argument, and evidence when they engaged in argument-based inquiry over a school year.
They found that students developed a stronger understanding of scientific argument and
abilities to construct evidence-based explanation over time with appropriate support
through a variety of instructional strategies. Ryu and Sandoval (2012) found that ele-
mentary students’ capacities for engaging in argumentation and understanding of epistemic
criteria for scientific arguments were improved through sustained instructional support.
Those studies suggest that elementary science classes should move away from activity-
driven inquiry toward argument-based inquiry that helps students grasp core scientific
practices as well as build understanding of disciplinary big ideas by posing questions,
gathering data, and generating claims in light of evidence.
Yet, how elementary students develop their epistemic understanding and how they
apply it to social negotiation through argumentation need to be further articulated. More
nuanced studies of elementary students’ development on oral and written argumentation
and of how the two forms of practices are related to each other need to be undertaken.
Answering these questions is critical to developmental psychologists as they discuss the
issue of cognitive development in the context of argumentation. Addressing these ques-
tions is also important to science educators in providing valuable insight into how epis-
temic resources can be used to enhance students’ learning in science. Sandoval et al. (2014)
argued that: ‘‘A great deal more such work seems necessary to show what students learn
from their engagement in new practice-oriented science education reforms’’ (p. 150). In
this regard, this study aimed to explore in what ways students develop their practices of
oral and written argumentation through engaging in the science writing heuristic (SWH)
approach (Norton-Meier et al. 2008), especially in terms of epistemic understanding and
social negotiation, over 16 weeks while learning two science units (ecosystems and the
human body system). The research questions that guided this study were:
1. How do 5th grade students’ practices of oral and written argumentation change over
time and across contexts in terms of epistemic understanding and social negotiation
when using the SWH approach?
2. Do 5th grade students connect their oral argument skills to written argument skills? If
so, what makes them to do so?
2 Theoretical Framework
2.1 Argumentation in School Science from a Convergence Position: Social

Negotiation and Epistemic Understanding of Argument
Argumentation is defined as an iterative process of social negotiation within a specific

community through constructing and critiquing ideas in order to reach a consensus by
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posing questions, collecting data, and generating claims supported by evidence (Driver
et al. 2000; Ford 2008). With this definition, we conceptualize that argumentation in
science classrooms requires two convergent aspects: social negotiation and epistemic
understanding of argument (Duschl 2008; Jiménez-Aleixandre 2008, 2014).
Argumentation is a social negotiation activity involving knowledge construction and
critique. We adopt the term ‘‘negotiation’’ rather than ‘‘interaction’’ or ‘‘exchange’’ in order
to emphasize that the ultimate goal of argumentation in school science is not only to
interact with ideas and persuade others, but also to reach a consensus when students work
together to identify deficiencies in their arguments through solving disagreement and
cognitive conflict (Ardasheva et al. 2015; Nussbaum and Edwards 2011). Students can
engage in social interaction or exchange without reaching consensus. However, negotiation
is ‘‘a form of interaction in which a group of agents, with conflicting interests and a desire
to cooperate, try to come to a mutually acceptable agreement on the division of scarce
resources’’ (Rahwan et al. 2003, p. 344). To reach a consensus through social negotiation,
as Ford (2008, 2012) argued, dialectic interplay between construction and critique of
arguments is critical. Scientists construct arguments and share them for public critique to
identify deficiencies in them and to further strengthen them (Halpern 1998). Critique thus
motivates authentic knowledge construction that is uniquely and critically reflective of
scientific practices. A Framework for K-12 Science Standards (NRC 2012) amplifies the
role of critique in learning science, stating that ‘‘Critique is an essential element both for
building new knowledge in general and for the learning of science in particular’’ (p. 44).
Engaging students in knowledge construction through critique is not easy (Henderson
et al. 2015). Research has indicated that students often struggle with this kind of scientific
practice. For example, Jimenez-Aleixandre et al. (2000) assessed high school students’
arguments in a unit on genetics and found that they primarily focused on making claims
without necessarily justifying them. Sadler (2004) reviewed 13 articles to identify the
difficulties students encounter in the course of argumentation. Three key conclusions were
drawn from his study: (1) Students do not commonly use scientific evidence to support
their personal justifications, (2) students are not competent at analyzing and critiquing
arguments, and (3) students often make unjustified claims and struggle to recognize
opposing arguments. Duschl (2008) and Sandoval and Çam (2011) attributed such diffi-
culties to lack of epistemic understanding of what counts as data, evidence, claims, and
coherent argument. That is, students should develop a sophisticated understanding about
‘‘what counts’’ as a high-quality argument in science when they engage in argumentation
(Berland and Crucet 2016; Mason and Scirica 2006). Students also need to use that
understanding to critique each other’s ideas (Sandoval and Millwood 2005). Importantly,
students need to be equipped to use the epistemic understanding of ‘‘what counts’’ as a
vehicle to generate questions, collect data, interpret data as evidence supporting a claim,
and debate those claims publicly.
To advance students’ epistemic understanding of argument, a growing number of
scholars in science education have diligently worked to conceptualize the structure of
argument based on their beliefs, empirical experience, and research agendas (e.g., Böttcher
and Meisert 2011; Jimenez-Aleixandre et al. 2000; Konstantinidou and Macagno 2013;
McNeill et al. 2006; Nussbaum and Edwards 2011; Osborne et al. 2004; Sampson et al.
2011). Considering argumentation as a unique form of inquiry (Walton 1998), argument is
considered in this study not only as a final product of inquiry, but also as the basis of an
inquiry process in which students are required to generate questions, conduct experiments,
analyze data, and construct and critique claims based upon evidence (Klein 2006). In these
terms, argument becomes a vehicle to drive students in the whole process of inquiry and to
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lead them to gain a ‘‘grasp of scientific practice’’ (Ford 2008, p. 404). Thus, we concep-
tualize that argument includes claim and evidence. Claim is a statement about the solution,
conclusion, or position to the question. Evidence is an explanation of the solution, con-
clusion, or position to the question (Chen et al. 2013; Chen and Steenhoek 2014; Sampson
and Walker 2012). Importance is placed on ensuring that students understand that data plus
reasoning lead to evidence; in other words, data are not the same as evidence.
Although the quality of claim and evidence is important for establishing a convincing
argument (McNeill et al. 2006; Sampson et al. 2011), coordinating and constructing
coherent relationships among claim and evidence as well as how well claim and evidence
address a question are crucial for crafting a high-quality argument and promoting student
learning in science (Sandoval and Millwood 2005). Stated differently, a claim must answer
the question and be supported by the evidence. Choi (2008) found that the critical deter-
minant of the quality of an argument is not only the quality of its individual components
but also the relationship between the three components. Chen et al. (2013) further pointed
out that the degree of coherence between question, claim, and evidence is a predictor of
student success in understanding scientific concepts. In the current study, the three com-
ponents served as a conceptual tool for analyzing and interpreting the development of
students’ understanding of argument as it emerged in the process of social negotiation.
2.2 Interventions of Argumentation in Science Classrooms
Various scholars have called for attention to integrating the two aspects of argumenta-
tion—social negotiation and epistemic understanding of argument—in science classrooms
(e.g., Berland and Reiser 2011; Osborne et al. 2004; Sampson et al. 2011). One promising
intervention is called the immersion approach (Cavagnetto 2010) in which argument is
viewed as a critical vehicle to engage students in the entire process of inquiry through
generating questions, collecting data from investigations, marshaling evidence to sub-
stantiate claims, and debating them to advance knowledge. This approach emphasizes
Walton’s (1998) concept of ‘‘argumentation as a species of inquiry’’ (p. 80) summarized as
follows:
…argumentation used in scientific research characteristically goes through several stages of devel-
opment. At an early stage of devising an experiment or posing a problem, rough conjectures are
advanced in the form of hypotheses suitable for future testing and exploration…but then at a much
later stage, when the results of an investigation are published, the argumentation is much more
orderly and structured by an organized development of reasoning based on evidential priority and
cumulative argumentation, using the language of ‘‘proof’’ and ‘‘verification.’’ We might contrast
these two stages by characterizing the sequence of argumentation in them as, respectively, the order
of discovery and the order of presentation. (pp. 80–81)
Nussbaum and Edwards (2011) argued that this kind of intervention involved better
practice of science but less cognitive load because students are not required to recognize
specific definitions of argument. This immersive approach gradually fosters students in
developing more sophisticated practices of social negotiation and epistemic understanding
of argument. The immersive intervention appears to be aligned with Engle and Conant’s
(2002) idea of ‘‘productive disciplinary engagement’’ that heavily emphasizes the oppor-
tunity of manipulating fundamental science elements (e.g., questions, variables, data,
claims, and evidence), the nature of scientists’ work (Ryu and Sandoval 2012), and gaining
understanding of the aspects of social negotiation.
Considering that the purpose of argumentation in this study is to help students to obtain
‘‘grasp of scientific practice’’ (Ford 2008, p. 404) through inquiry, we adopted the
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immersive approach to integrate the two aspects of argumentation, social negotiation and
epistemic understanding of argument in science classrooms. However, current research on
the immersive approach suggests that students face a great deal of difficulty participating in
argumentation. For the aspect of social negotiation, scholars such as Berland and Reiser
(2011) and Cavagnetto et al. (2010) reported that students were more engaged in what
Walton (1998) called an ‘‘information-seeking’’ dialogue in which students ‘‘make sense of
one another’s arguments while rarely determining whether they were persuaded by them’’
(p. 211), not even negotiating ideas to reach a consensus. In terms of understanding of
argument, Chinn and Malhotra (2002) pointed out that most students lack the ability to
distinguish raw data from evidence and to draw evidence from data to appropriately
support claims for answering a question.
Cavagnetto (2010) and Sandoval et al. (2014) argued that time is an important mediator
for students to develop successful argumentation practices—social negotiation and epis-
temic understanding of argument—through immersion intervention because this devel-
opment requires a change in classroom environments. To respond to this call, this study
was conducted during a 16-week period to examine students’ development of under-
standing of argument as it emerged in the process of social negotiation over time.
2.3 Argumentation as Talk and Writing Practices
A number of science educators have been employing immersive approaches as a way to

integrate social negotiation and epistemic understanding of argument, especially focusing
on whole-class (e.g., Scott et al. 2006) and small-group discussions (e.g., Jadallah et al.
2011; Kuhn 2010). However, Lemke (1998) pointed out that scientists do not solely
construct and critique arguments verbally; they also require ‘‘a print record to document
ownership of these claims, to reveal patterns of events and arguments, and to connect and
position claims within canonical science’’ (Yore and Treagust 2006, p. 296) in order to
comprehend the arguments being made. Ford and Forman (2006) further highlighted that
‘‘any account of science is incomplete without its material [written] aspect’’ (p. 13)
because ‘‘the production of a written scientific research paper is needed as a record in case
of dispute’’ (Chaopricha 1997, p. 12). Thus, a written argument is a critical component for
scientists to fully articulate and debate ideas. Varelas et al. (2008) showed that the use of
written argument within small-group and whole-class discussions has the potential to
promote primary grade students’ engagement with science and to foster classroom oral
discourse.
In the book Shaping Written Knowledge, Bazerman (1988) suggested that conversation
among scientists shapes and reshapes the final products of science, which are typically
represented in written text and critiqued through ‘‘a lengthy process of whole-class dis-
cussion, transformation, and growth of the central formulations and related arguments’’ (p.
309). In order for the final products to be ‘‘successful [they] must then either disarm
potential opposition or lay the groundwork for proper public defeat’’ (p. 135). Thus, social
negotiation ‘‘offers a way to externalize internal thinking strategies embedded in argu-
mentation’’ (Jiménez-Aleixandre and Erduran 2008, p. 12,). Kelly and Chen (1999) argued
that the final written products ‘‘can only be achieved through a variety of discourses’’ (p.
885), drawn from a series of negotiation among scientists using questions, claims, and
evidence. In this regard, oral and written arguments are positively connected critical ele-
ments for knowledge construction and critique in a scientific community.
Translating the notion of the interconnected nature of oral and written arguments to
classrooms, Yore and Treagust (2006) suggested that given the centrality of talk and
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writing in learning science, engaging students in a series of dialogical interactions and

writing-to-learn experiences is one way to improve their argumentative practices. That is,
students tentatively construct a written argument that makes their understanding visible
and sharable with the public. The social negotiation then helps them recognize the
weaknesses of their argument, which enables them to strengthen the argument and ulti-
mately advance their conceptual understanding of a given topic.
Despite the interconnected nature of talk and writing in argumentation, research has
shown that students struggle with connecting the practices of verbal and written arguments
to advance their knowledge construction and critique (Berland and McNeill 2010) and
continuously develop those practices across different units and topics (Reznitskaya et al.
2007). For example, a study conducted by Berland and McNeill (2010) explored the
learning progression for oral and written arguments and found that the quality of students’
written arguments typically lags behind their ability to communicate orally. They sug-
gested that, ‘‘students may have little reason to develop rich, convincing arguments in
writing while a dialogic interaction provides students with that reason in the form of an
audience to convince’’ (p. 25). In addition, Reznitskaya et al. (2007, 2012) witnessed that
students have difficulty continuously developing their practices of oral and written argu-
mentative skills from one context to a new context. They argued that, ‘‘knowledge of
argumentative discourse may not readily transfer because it may depend on feedback from
conversational partners’’ (p. 455). The studies discussed above have pushed the field of
argumentation to explore and develop a more nuanced understanding of students’ practices
of oral and written argumentation and in what way these two practices are connected and
developed across different contexts.
2.4 Objectives of the Current Study
Given the important role of argumentation through practices of talk and writing in science
classrooms, an immersion approach called the science writing heuristic (SWH) (Norton-
Meier et al. 2008) was implemented in a 5th grade classroom over 16 weeks while learning
two science units—Ecosystems and Human Body Systems. This study aimed to examine
the development of 5th grade students’ practices of oral and written argumentation from
both social and epistemic aspects, as well as whether the students continuously developed
their oral and written argumentative skills from one unit to another unit. We also inves-
tigated in what ways students connect their verbal argument skills to written argument
skills, and what makes students connect their oral argument skills to written argument
skills over time. This is important because as Alexander (2015) states: ‘‘still we make
teacher talk, and especially teachers’ questions, the center of observational and analytical
gravity, providing many more categories of teacher talk than students talk and therefore
allowing ourselves a far less nuanced study of the latter’’ (p. 433). Hence, the focus of this
study was on students’ talk rather than teacher’s talk.
However, when describing the results of students’ talk, the way the teacher provoked it
was included. We believe this is critical because the results of this study can provide
teachers with a refined lens to investigate students’ development and provide instructional
options to scaffold student learning when they struggle with engaging in argumentation
practices. Another significance of this study from a sociolinguist perspective is to provide
teachers with insight into how to naturally combine the oral and written argumentation in
science learning and epistemological understanding of science with appropriate teacher
support.
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3 Methods
3.1 Research Design
This study employed a mixed methods research design (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2009).
While qualitative analysis methods were used to explore the patterns in students’ devel-
opment of oral and written argumentative practices from both social and epistemic aspects,
quantitative measures such as frequencies and statistical analysis were used to explicitly
capture the thematic trends of the development of argumentative practices.
3.2 Research Context
This study took place in a 5th grade science classroom taught by a 32-year-old White male
teacher in an intermediate school containing grades 4 through 6. This school serves around
500 students in the Midwestern USA. Most students were of European descent. Approx-
imately 21 % of the students attending the school were eligible for free or reduced lunch,
and 15 % of the students were eligible for Individual Education Programs (IEPs). This
school required 5th and 6th grade students to take a science class every day; each science
class lasted approximately 50 min.
3.3 The Immersive Approach: The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH)

Approach as an Argument-Based Inquiry
Several immersive approaches have been designed to engage students in argumentative

practices through inquiry, such as model-based inquiry (Windschitl et al. 2008) and
argument-driven inquiry (Sampson et al. 2011). This study employed the SWH approach,
which is an immersive approach to argument-based inquiry with the goal of developing
students’ understanding of both argument and disciplinary big ideas through social
negotiation (Cavagnetto 2010). The SWH was aligned with the following definition of
argument-based inquiry:
Argument-based Inquiry is inquiry that is intended to build students’ grasp of scientific practices
while simultaneously generating an understanding of disciplinary big ideas. Construction and critique
of knowledge, both publically and privately, are centrally located through an emphasis on the
epistemological frame of argument by engaging them in posing questions, gathering data, and
generating claims supported by evidence. (Hand et al. 2013, p. 1)
The SWH approach involves students in using embedded and explicit language tasks in
order to construct scientific knowledge, using talk and writing as epistemological tools
while engaging in inquiry activities. The approach recognizes that the development of
arguments requires students to negotiate meaning across various elements of argument as
well as to ensure coherency among the elements.
To guide teachers’ implementation of the SWH approach, two SWH templates are
provided: a teacher template and a student template (see Table 1). The teacher template
consists of eight stages that scaffold teachers as they implement an argument-based inquiry
approach in their science classroom. Given the focus of this study, i.e., students’ devel-
opment of oral and written arguments through social negotiation, we centered on Nego-
tiation Phases I and II. Negotiation Phase I involves students in the negotiation of meaning
for investigation and observation in small groups. Students are encouraged to make claims
and present evidence to support their interpretation of their data in small groups. After the
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Table 1 Science writing heuristic (SWH) template for both teacher and students
Teacher template
1. Exploration of pre-instruction understanding through individual or group concept mapping
2. Pre-laboratory activities, including informal writing, making observations, brainstorming, and posing
questions
3. Participation in laboratory activity
4. Negotiation Phase I—writing data interpretations for laboratory activity in small groups (for example,
making a group chart, argument)
5. Negotiation Phase II—sharing group arguments with peers (for example, discussing group arguments
in a whole-class setting)
6. Negotiation Phase III—comparing science ideas to textbooks or other printed resources (for example,
writing group notes in response to focus questions)
7. Negotiation Phase IV—individual reflection and writing (for example, writing a report or textbook
explanation)
8. Exploration of post-instruction understanding through concept mapping
Student template
1. Beginning Ideas—What are my questions?
2. Test—What did I do?
3. Observation—What did I see?
4. Claim—What can I claim?
5. Evidence—How do I know? Why am I making these claims?
6. Reading—How do my ideas compare with other ideas?
7. Reflection—How have my ideas changed?
opportunity to negotiate the meaning of the data in groups, students move to Negotiation
Phase II, in which they publicly share their groups’ arguments and receive critique from
peers in order to identify the weaknesses in their arguments. Students are then provided
with an opportunity to strengthen and revise their arguments in their small groups and to
present them to peers again until they reach a consensus. Therefore, Negotiation Phases I
and II are iterative processes that develop students’ disciplinary big ideas through a series
of negotiated activities utilizing both talk and writing.
3.4 The Teacher
The participating teacher, Mr. Martin (pseudonym), had 10 years of teaching experience at
the time of the study. Prior to participating in this study, he was involved in a three-year
professional development project centered on using an argument-based inquiry approach—
the SWH approach. During the two academic years before the current study, his classroom
was consistently rated as ‘‘highly reformed’’ and ‘‘argument-based’’ by independent raters
using a modified version of the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) (Martin
and Hand 2009). The analysis of how the teacher scaffolded students’ engagement in
argumentation is reported in detail in Benus (2011), who suggests that the teacher pos-
sessed sufficient dialogical and pedagogical skills to foster students’ conceptual under-
standing of a given topic through the use of talk and writing as learning tools. Given that he
had incorporated the SWH approach in his classroom at a high level of implementation,
this teacher was selected using a purposeful sampling technique.
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3.5 Participants
The participants in this study, which started from the beginning of a school year, were 22
5th grade students in Mr. Martin’s class (10 females and 12 males; 1 Asian American, 21
Whites; 2 IEP students). These students had been taught by another teacher at 4th grade,
who had focused on lecture-based science instruction. Thus, they were not familiar with
terms associated with the structure of argument such as question, data, claims, and evi-
dence, and they had little experience with debating ideas with peers at the beginning of the
school year. Therefore, this context provided us with an opportunity to explore their
development in oral and written argumentative practices over time.
To understand the development in individual students’ perceptions of, reasons for, and
thinking about their actions in the classroom in depth, 6 students were selected in a way
that best represented the class, especially in terms of three important mediating variables
for learning science suggested by current literature: gender, past science achievement level,
and level of verbal participation in whole-class discussion. Table 2 provides information
on students’ background. To determine the level of verbal participation in class discus-
sions, two different class periods that included whole-class discussions were randomly
selected from the observations videotaped during the first 3 weeks of the semester, and
then the frequency of individual students’ utterances was counted. The average frequency
of the utterances for each student in the two selected classes was 5 times in an hour. If the
frequency of a student’s utterances was higher than the average, the student was catego-
rized into the talkative group. In contrast, if the frequency was lower than the average, the
student was categorized into the quiet group.
3.6 Instruction of Two Units: Ecosystems and The Human Body System
This study focused on two eight-week science units: Ecosystems and the Human Body
System. The purpose of selecting two different units was not to compare how students used
arguments between the two units, but to examine whether in the second unit students could
build on the argumentative skills developed during the first unit. Each unit contains one big
idea generated by Mr. Martin based on the State Core Curriculum for Science and Next
Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013). The big idea is one simplified
statement provided by Mr. Martin at the beginning of the unit that captures all of the
essential learning from the unit to help students engage in scientific investigations and
Table 2 Information about target students

Student Gender Science achievement level Verbal participation level
Female Male High Medium Talkative Quiet
Olivia 4 4 12
Bella 4 4 3
Chris 4 4 8
Nate 4 4 6
Mike 4 4 2
Ryan 4 4 0
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argumentation and reach a deep understanding of the concepts presented. The big idea of
the first unit was ‘‘Living things and their environment affect each other’’; the big idea of
the second unit was ‘‘Human body systems work together.’’ The big idea of each unit was
used to guide students’ questions, investigations, and whole-class discussion.
Mr. Martin began each unit by introducing the big idea to the students. Then, he
engaged the students in developing individual or group concept maps that represented their
prior understanding of the given topic. The development and discussion of these concept
maps helped students clarify their own understanding of the topic and generate investi-
gation questions. Once students had done this, Mr. Martin invited the class to critique each
group’s questions in terms of whether they were testable and researchable, why they were
essential to learning about the big idea, and how they were to be investigated within the
science classroom. For example, in the unit on the Human Body System with a focus on the
respiratory system, some students generated questions such as: ‘‘What happens when one
system shuts down?’’ and ‘‘How does air get into our bodies?’’ These research questions
were critiqued and discussed by students and Mr. Martin regarding their relatedness to the
big idea. Through that discussion, the students came up with an investigation question
upon which they could all agree: ‘‘How does the respiratory system work with other
systems?’’
Once a consensus had been reached, Mr. Martin asked students to design and conduct an
investigation to answer the question. For example, in order to answer the investigation
question for Human Body System with a focus on the respiratory system, students decided
to build a model to simulate the function of the respiratory system using plastic bottles,
straws, rubber bands, and balloons. Each group built a model to optimally represent how
they believed the respiratory system works; collected data from which evidence could be
derived to answer the investigation question; made claims based on the evidence; and
presented their ideas for whole-class discussion. To help students construct their written
group presentations, which were displayed on posters, Mr. Martin provided a worksheet
containing guiding prompts focused on the three components of argument: question, claim,
and evidence (shown in Table 3). Emphasis was placed on ensuring that each group had a
written product as the context for the critique component of the argument-based inquiry
approach; that is, the talking and writing components of the SWH approach were not
viewed as separate elements but as essential simultaneous components of argument.
During the group work, Mr. Martin stayed with each group, listening to students’ ideas and
Table 3 A format for written group presentations

Question: How does the respiratory system work with other systems?
Claim: (What inferences can I make?)

Make sure your claim relates to the core idea and answers the question
Just state one sentence that can lead to your evidence
Evidence: (How do I know? Justify your claim by providing data and reasoning for it)
Don’t forget to always make connections to the core idea, class experiences, investigations, and outside
resources
You are trying to convince your readers. Focus on explanations about why and how! Don’t just state what
you observe during experiments
You can use pictures, math, and graphs to explain your ideas. These help readers understand ideas
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providing comments. For example, he asked, ‘‘Could you explain how your model
works?’’; ‘‘What evidence did you use from your model to explain the relationship between
the lungs and chest?’’; and ‘‘Why do you think your evidence supports the claim?’’
While each group presented its posters to the class, Mr. Martin encouraged other stu-
dents to critique them. After the presentations, each group decided how it would revise its
arguments to respond to peers’ critiques and/or whether it should conduct another inves-
tigation to strengthen those arguments. At the end of the unit, students were expected to
understand the big idea in relation to the core concepts of the unit. Figure 1 shows the
timeline of the two units, focusing on the five rounds of whole-class discussion and eight
group writing activities carried out immediately before and after each whole-class dis-
cussion. Descriptions of the investigation questions, big ideas, associated core concepts,
and learning activities of the two units are summarized in Table 4.
3.7 Data Collection
Data were collected during the two units at different points over the sixteen-week period
from multiple sources including observations, students’ group writings, semi-structured
interviews, and the researcher’s field notes. The aim of data collection at various times was
to capture subtle yet gradual development in students’ argumentative practices beyond
identifying the difference between the beginning and end of the semester.
3.7.1 Classroom Observations
Eleven videotaped classroom observations, including five complete rounds of whole-class

discussion focusing on group presentations of arguments, were collected. Six of the
selected classes were from the Ecosystems unit, and the remaining five were from the
Human Body Systems unit. The first round of whole-class discussion took place over three
consecutive class periods, while the other rounds covered, on average, two class periods.
3.7.2 Students’ Group Writings
Students’ group writings were collected before and after each round of whole-class dis-
cussion at eight different points over the course of the two units, as shown in Fig. 4. The
group writing activities consisted of five written group presentations and three summary
writings. Students were divided into seven groups, meaning that over the course of the two
units 35 written group presentations and 21 summary writings were collected. Students
remained in the same groups for each unit. In addition to written group presentations
Fig. 1 Five rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments across 16 weeks
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Table 4 Curriculum embedded in the SWH approach for Unit 1 and Unit 2
Unit/Time Unit 1: Ecosystems/8 weeks Unit 2: Human Body Systems/8 weeks
Big idea Living things and their environment affect Human body systems work together
each other
Learning Plant investigation/6 weeks Digestive system/4 weeks
activity Investigation question: What does a seed need Investigation question: How does the digestive
1 to germinate? system work with other human body
Core concepts: A seed needs air, water, and systems?
correct temperature to germinate Core concepts: The digestive system consists
Tasks: 1. Students determine the factors of a long muscular tube and several
needed by a seed to germinate and accessory organs. The digestive system is
investigate one factor in one group; the responsible for digestion and absorption of
factors students determine through digestion products and the elimination of
brainstorming include water, temperature, undigested materials
fertilizer, food, air, soil, sunlight, and Tasks: 1. Students crumble chips, put them in
darkness. Students select one factor by saliva and vinegar, and shake them by rotator
themselves to investigate as a group to simulate how the digestive system is made
2. Students share the results and discuss what up of the digestive tract and other organs that
factors are necessary for a seed to germinate help the body break down and absorb food
and why 2. Students observe the results in groups and
discuss the process and function of the
digestive system
Learning Environmental balance/2 weeks Respiratory system/4 weeks
activity Core concepts: All organisms cause changes Core concepts: The primary function of the
2 in the environment in which they live. Some respiratory system is the exchange of gases
of these changes are detrimental to the in the body. When the diaphragm goes
organism or other organisms, whereas others down, the ribcage gives the lungs more
are beneficial space, which creates a larger space or area of
Investigation question: How would living lower air pressure inside the body than
things affect the environment? outside
Tasks: 1. Students make an ecological system Investigation question: How does the
map and discuss where human beings get respiratory system work with other systems?
energy Tasks: 1. Students build a model using plastic
2. Students investigate the food chain and the bottles (chest cavity), straws (trachea and
ecological balance of nature during a deer bronchus), rubber bands, and balloons (lungs
activity and diaphragm) to simulate and explain how
the lungs work with the diaphragm and the
chest during inspiration and expiration
2. Students share their explanations and
discuss the process and function of the
respiratory system
following the guiding prompts shown in Fig. 1, each group created three summary writ-
ings: (1) at the end of the first unit (i.e., Ecosystems), (2) at the end of the first topic of the
second unit (i.e., digestive system), and (3) at the end of the second topic of the second unit
(i.e., respiratory system). In the summary writing activity, the students were asked to
summarize and reflect on what they had learned through whole-class discussion focused on
group presentations of arguments.
3.7.3 Interviews
The authors also conducted three types of semi-structured interviews with six selected
students. The first type of interview was conducted immediately before each unit to elicit
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students’ perceptions of science learning, prior knowledge of the unit, and current views of
data, claim, evidence, and whole-class discussion. The second type of interview was
conducted in combination with each whole-class discussion experience. This interview
focused on what concepts the students had learned in class, how they believed they learned
those concepts, and the reasons for their actions during whole-class discussion. The third
type of interview was conducted at the end of each unit and focused on the students’
reflection on the entire process of knowledge construction and the nature of whole-class
discussion. The total number of interviews conducted during the two units was 66. Each
interview lasted 15 min on average.
In addition, the teacher was interviewed before and after each unit. These interviews
focused on his perspective of students’ practices of both oral and written argument and the
development of their argumentative skills during whole-class discussion. Each interview
lasted around 30 min. All of the student and teacher interviews were videotaped and
transcribed.
3.7.4 Field Notes
To describe the context of the classroom and establish the credibility of the observation
data, the first author recorded field notes on a laptop computer during and immediately
after each classroom observation. After returning from the research site, an extended
reflection journal was compiled for preliminary analysis of the observations and interviews
by the first author.
3.8 Data Analysis
To capture the development of students’ oral and written argumentative practices over the
two units, classroom observations and students’ written group presentations were analyzed
through the following procedures.
3.8.1 Analysis of Classroom Observations
To examine the development of students’ oral argumentative practices in whole-class

discussions, 11 classroom observations were analyzed focusing on students’ critique of
each other’s ideas from both social and epistemic aspects. The analysis of the classroom
observations involved two complementary analytical approaches: (1) the constant com-
parative method (Strauss and Corbin 1990) and (2) the enumerative approach (LeCompte
and Preissle 1993). First, all 11 classroom observations were transcribed and each tran-
script was broken into individual utterances. An utterance was defined as a student’s idea
or contribution to the discussion. An individual’s verbal contribution could consist of more
than one utterance depending on how many ideas were included. It was assumed that each
utterance, the unit of analysis in this study, represented a certain form of student thinking,
reasoning, or idea.
Once all utterances were identified, each utterance was coded using two different coding
schemes to capture both social and epistemic aspects. First, a coding scheme was devel-
oped by open coding (Strauss and Corbin 1990) based on the aspect of social negotiation
associated with critique and construction of ideas. Emerging open codes were then cate-
gorized according to their similarities and differences. As a result, six categories emerged:
(1) Information seeking, (2) Elaborating, (3) Challenging, (4) Defending, (5) Supporting,
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and (6) Rejecting. Second, the same utterances were coded based on the structure of
argument: question, claim, and evidence. The second coding scheme provided us with a
way to explore what aspects of argument the students were negotiating, such as test
procedure, data source, accuracy of a claim, quality of evidence focusing on sufficiency,
quality of evidence focusing on reasoning, the relationship between a question and a claim,
and the relationship between a claim and evidence (see Table 5 for a detailed codebook).
The Information seeking category includes any verbal reaction that was intended to ask
for additional information about an idea. Under this category are two sub-categories that
represent aspects for which students sought more information: test procedure and data
source. The Elaborating category includes utterances that were intended to ask for more
explanation and articulation of an idea including accuracy of a claim, quality of evidence
focusing on sufficiency, and quality of evidence focusing on reasoning. The Challenging
category includes utterances that were intended to evaluate a proposed idea. Within this
category, six sub-categories emerged in terms of what aspects of the idea the students were
challenging: (1) test procedure, (2) accuracy of a claim, (3) quality of evidence focusing on
sufficiency, (4) quality of evidence focusing on reasoning, (5) the relationship between a
question and a claim, and (6) the relationship between a claim and evidence.
The Defending category represents utterances in which a student attempted to persuade
the speaker. Within this category, two sub-categories were developed in terms of whether
the defending was based on evidence or not: (1) simple defending and (2) evidence-based
defending. The Supporting category represents utterances where a student voiced agree-
ment with the speaker, accepted the proposal, or incorporated the idea into the group’s
argument. Within this category, two sub-categories emerged based upon whether the
supporting was grounded in evidence or not: (1) simple supporting and (2) evidence-based
supporting. The Rejecting category represents utterances where an individual voiced dis-
agreement with the speaker or made a claim that the presented idea was incorrect or
unhelpful for the group’s argument. Within this category, two sub-categories emerged
based upon whether the rejection was based on evidence or not: (1) simple rejection and (2)
evidence-based rejection.
All emerging categories and sub-categories were then chronologically compared and
contrasted to identify patterns in students’ development of oral argumentative practices
over time. To establish the reliability of the coding, two researchers independently coded
each classroom observation and discussed any disagreements until they reached consensus
through weekly meetings. Overall initial inter-rater reliability calculated by Cohen’s kappa
was 0.78 for social negotiation and 0.80 for epistemic understanding of argument. All
incongruities between the two were discussed, which often resulted in modifications to
coding schemes.
Meanwhile, all coded utterances were also quantitatively analyzed to explicitly capture
patterns in student development of oral argumentative practices emerging from the
observation data. First, the enumerative approach was employed to count the frequency of
each code (LeCompte and Preissle 1993). In addition, Chi-square goodness-of-fit analysis
was conducted with the quantified data to assess statistical difference in the patterns of oral
arguments over five rounds of whole-class discussion. Effect size was reported to identify
the magnitude of change across the six categories over five rounds of whole-class dis-
cussion using relative risk (RR) (Howell 2013). An RR of 1.0 indicates no difference
between two rounds, whereas an RR above 1.0 indicates a positive change; namely, the
proportion of utterance in the current round is RR times of that in the previous round (vice
versa if below 1.0).
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Table 5 Codebook for student critique and construction of ideas for classroom observations
Categories Sub- Description Example
categories
Information Any response used by an individual to

seeking gather more information from others.
Test Construct a question that is focused on –Did you put a different type of soil in?
procedure understanding investigation process or
test design.
Data source Construct a question that is focused on –How did you measure the heights of the
understanding how/what data are plants?
collected.
Elaborating Any response used by an individual to –What I’m trying to say, you can’t just like fill
clarify or expand his/her own ideas or the cup to like the brim with water and
argument about a concept or task. expect it to grow.
Challenging Any response used by an individual to
evaluate others’ ideas or arguments
Test Construct a question that is focused on –But that’s changing another variable.
procedure evaluating investigation process or test
design
Relationship Question-Claim: Construct a question that –Do you think your claim answers the
is focused on evaluating the question?
question/claim relationship
Claim-Evidence: Construct a question that –I don’t think your evidence supported your
is focused on evaluating the claim/ claim. Because the focus of their claim is
evidence relationship food’s broken down and energy is absorbed.
Are you showing how you know that food
has energy and it’s absorbed into the body?
Quality Claim: Construct a question that is focused –I don’t get your claim. Do seeds need correct
on evaluating claim accuracy temperature or warmth?
Evidence: Construct a question that is –Sufficiency: I think you need to provide more
focused on evaluating evidence for: (1) evidence to support the claim
sufficiency, (2) reasoning. –Reasoning: Your evidence doesn’t help us. It
just says the diaphragm helps to get air in
and out of your body. That doesn’t tell us
how
Defending Any response used by an individual to
persuade others about his/her ideas.
Simple Any response used by an individual is –It’s not just for the next step; it’s for
answer simple without further elaboration. everything.
Evidence- Any response used by an individual is –First the teeth chew up the food, the tongue
based supported by evidence pushes the food up to the teeth, the saliva
breaks down the food even more…and then
the food goes into the small intestine
Supporting Any response used by an individual to
accept or agree with someone else’s
ideas
Simple Any response used by an individual to –I agree with Jaden.
supporting accept or agree with someone else’s
ideas without further elaboration
Evidence- Any response used by an individual to –Yeah, when a seed is under the soil, it doesn’t
based accept or agree with someone else’s get any sunlight; depending on how far deep
ideas with evidence supported you put it, it can’t get to the sunlight but it
can get to the heat the sunlight’s producing
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Table 5 continued
Categories Sub- Description Example
categories
Rejecting Any response used by an individual to

disagree with all or part of the speaker’s
ideas
Simple Any response used by an individual to –No, it doesn’t!
rejecting disagree without further elaboration
Evidence- Any response used by an individual to –I disagree with sunlight because I think the
based disagree with evidence supported seed gets its nutrients in the seed, and when
it gets water, it like, cracks open and then it
gets oxygen
3.8.2 Analysis of Students’ Group Writings
For the analysis of students’ group writings, we focused on development only in the
epistemic understanding of argument over the two units. Students’ group written argu-
ments and summary writings were first analyzed using a rubric to assess the quality of the
written arguments (see Table 6 for the rubric). The rubric was created based upon the
conceptualization of arguments in this study and previous studies that identified critical
components of the epistemic understanding which determines the quality of students’
written arguments in any science content (Chen et al. 2013; Choi 2008; Sampson et al.
2011). The rubric focused on five aspects of written arguments: (1) Accuracy of a claim,
(2) Quality of evidence focusing on sufficiency, (3) Quality of evidence focusing on rea-
soning, (4) Relationship between a claim and a question, and (5) Relationship between a
claim and evidence.
To evaluate the quality of students’ written arguments, each was rated by the rubric
using a five-point scale from 0 = ‘‘Lacking’’ to 4 = ‘‘Proficient’’ for each component,
with a possible full score of 20. All written arguments were scored by two independent
raters, with inter-rater reliability for total written argument scores calculated using Cohen’s
kappa (0.85). Group writing in each of the five components is provided in Table 7.
Once all group writings were scored, to identify aspect(s) significantly developed after
students’ participation in social negotiation, a nonparametric statistical analysis called
Wilcoxon signed-rank test (for non-normally distributed data) was conducted due to the
small sample size and unknown population distribution (Siegel 1957). The statistical
significance was determined at an alpha level of 0.05 for all tests. Nonsignificant results
were not reported. Cohen’s d effect size was reported to recognize the magnitude of
intervention of students’ group writings (Sheskin 2004). The criteria for recognizing the
magnitude of an effect size are as follows: (1) A trivial effect size is smaller than 0.2
standard deviation units; (2) a small effect size is between 0.2 and 0.5 standard deviation
units; (3) a medium effect size is between 0.5 and 0.8 standard deviation units; and (4) a
large effect size is 0.8 or more standard deviation units.
3.8.3 Analysis of Interviews and Field Notes
The interview data and researcher’s field notes were analyzed using the constant com-
parative method to identify patterns or regularities emerging in the data. For triangulation,
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Table 6 Argument-based writing scoring rubric

Component Level of performance
Lacking (0) Limited (1) Basic (2) Proficient (3) Exemplary (4)
Accuracy of Does not make Makes a Makes a Makes a Makes a

a claim a claim scientifically scientifically scientifically scientifically
incorrect correct claim, correct claim, correct claim
claim but does not and partially and completely
catch the catches the catches the
essence of essence of the essence of the
the investigation investigation
investigation
Quality of Does not Provides one Provides two Provides three Provides more
evidence provide piece of pieces of pieces of than three
focusing evidence evidence evidence evidence, pieces of
on including evidence, and
sufficiency rebuttal makes a
rebuttal
Quality of Does not Provides Provides Provides Provides
evidence provide inappropriate appropriate appropriate and appropriate and
focusing explanation, and but adequate adequate
on or just inadequate inadequate explanation explanation
reasoning rephrases the explanation, explanation partially based completely
claim or just reports on based on
data as interpretation of interpretation
evidence investigation of investigation
data data
Relationship Does not make Makes weak Makes Makes strong Makes strong and
between a connection connection moderate connection sophisticated
claim and between between connection between claim connection
a question claim and claim and between and question between claim
question question claim and and question
question
Relationship Does not make Makes weak Makes Makes strong Makes strong and
between a connection connection moderate connection sophisticated
claim and between between connection between claim connection
evidence claim and claim and between and evidence between claim
evidence evidence claim and and evidence
evidence
emerging patterns and themes were compared and contrasted with those from observation
data and student written arguments.
4 Results
This study examined the development in students’ practices of oral and written argu-
mentation through five rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of
arguments, while participating in a SWH classroom over a 16-week period. Data analysis
indicated five salient features in the development of argumentative practices over time: (1)
Students came to use more critique components as they participated in more rounds of
whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments; (2) by challenging
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Table 7 Examples of students’ written arguments and scoring
Question: What do a seed need to germinate?

In order for a plant to live, it needs water, soil, and air
We know this because we ran tests. In the water test we found out that in the cup we gave it, it needed about
30 mL of water. At max, the cup held about 250 mL of water. In the air test, we found out that the plants need
air like we do, but they don’t take in carbon dioxide. In the soil test, we found out that without soil, the plant
would die faster. It doesn’t need soil, but eventually after it has germinated and a plant starts growing, it will
die faster, because it doesn’t have anything to start its roots in
Scores: (1) Accuracy of a Claim (2/4); (2) Sufficiency of Evidence (3/4); (3) Quality of Evidence Focusing on
Reasoning (2/4); (4) Relationship between a Claim and Question (2/4); (5) Relationship between a Claim and
Evidence (2/4)
Air gets in your body by going through a process by using parts of the muscular system
Air goes through a process to get in and out of everyone’s body. That process is in your mouth, through the
windpipe, and into your lungs. The lungs stretch out when air enters them. The diaphragm is a muscle that helps
the lungs work. It helps by putting pressure on the lungs so it can inhale and exhale
When you inhale, there is more pressure on the inside of the lungs than on the outside, so the lungs would expand.
When you exhale, there is more pressure on the outside pushing in from the muscles than there is on the inside
pushing back. The diaphragm also kind of squishes the bottom half so the lungs can expand. The lungs can
expand when the air enters the lungs. The system that works together with the lung system and the muscle
system. We know that the diaphragm squishes the bottom half of the body, because if it didn’t, the lungs
wouldn’t be able to expand or move so we could move. And air couldn’t get out of the lungs if no pressure was
added
Evidence (3/4)
Human body systems work together to get air in and out of the body
We use the straw to represent the windpipe and the balloons to represent the lungs. The bottle can be our rib cage.
The muscles help get air in and out of the body. The muscles surrounding the lungs tense when you breathe in
and spread out so the lungs have space to expand, when you exhale the muscles surrounding the lungs relax and
the parts that were pushed away so the lungs can expand are not getting pushed to the side so the lungs can
expand. Another muscle that helps is the diaphragm, the diaphragm helps in the same way that the muscles
surrounding the lungs do. It pushes the lower part of the body down so the lungs have room to expand
downward. The diaphragm also does this: when the diaphragm goes down, there isn’t so much pressure on the
lungs so the lungs can get full of air but when the diaphragm goes up, there is so much pressure that it pushes the
air out of the lungs
Pressure makes air go in and out of your body because the air pressure goes in and it presses out and a ton of
pressure. The air pressure is pushing on the outside of you but you can’t feel it because it has equal forces on the
inside and the outside of your body we’re also used to it. When the air goes out it is the same thing but the
pressure on the inside is larger because you are breathing out and some of it wants to get out quicker than the
others so it pushes a ton but the equal forces on the outside makes it so you can’t feel it. The amount of pressure
helps air get in and out of your body. If the amount of pressure is greater on the outside of your body air goes in
and the pressure in the inside is smaller. If the amount of pressure is greater on the inside air goes out and the
pressure in the outside is smaller
Evidence (4/4)
123
each other’s arguments, students came to focus on the coherence of the argument and the
quality of evidence; (3) students came to use evidence to defend, support, and reject
arguments; (4) the quality of students’ writing continuously improved over time; and (5)
students connected oral argument skills to written argument skills as they had opportunities
to revise their writing after debating and developed awareness of the usefulness of critique
from peers. What follows is a detailed discussion of each feature in relation to the research
questions of the study.
4.1 Assertion 1: Students Came to Use More Critique Components as they

Participated in More Rounds of Whole-Class Discussion Focused
on Group Presentations of Arguments
The result of an enumerative analysis showed that the total frequency of critique utterances
increased from the first unit to the second unit: First whole-class discussion (88); second
whole-class discussion (152); third whole-class discussion (276); fourth whole-class dis-
cussion (310); and fifth whole-class discussion (335). This result suggests that students’
participation in critique was encouraged and elicited and that students became more
engaged in the various elements of critique across time as they had more practice with
whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments.
As shown in Fig. 2, during the first whole-class discussion 31 % (29/88) of total
utterances were information seeking and 41 % (36/88) were related to elaboration. These
features were consistent with the first author’s field note that: ‘‘Students spent a majority of
their time asking questions and clarifying their understanding of the investigation, test
procedures, and the variables’’ (Field note summary, September 30, 2010). Only a small
proportion of the utterances were coded as challenging (6 %, 5/88), rejecting (2 %, 2/88),
supporting (9 %, 8/88), and defending (9 %, 8/88), which are critical components of
argumentative practices (Sampson et al. 2011).
During the beginning of the semester, discourse during these whole-class discussions
was often limited to a pattern in which one student asked a question and another student
answered. Questions used in this type of dialogue rarely required the students to debate or
Fig. 2 Frequency of argumentative utterances contributed by students in discussing claim and evidence in a
whole-class setting across 16 weeks
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Table 8 Relative risk effect size on each category over five rounds
Category Effect size
Second Third round/ Fourth round/ Fifth Fifth

round/first round second round third round round/fourth round/first
round round
Information 0.18 0.92 1.01 1.03 0.17

seeking
Elaborating 0.53 1.13 0.79 1.08 0.51
Challenging 4.28 1.07 1.34 1.23 7.51
Rejecting 4.34 0.95 0.68 1.02 2.89
Supporting 1.52 1.60 0.60 0.86 1.25
Defending 2.68 0.51 1.68 0.61 1.38
justify the underlying reasons for a particular claim or evidence. They appeared to focus on
what and how data were gathered from tests (e.g., ‘‘How many grew?’’ or ‘‘What were the
heights of the plants?’’), rather than on interpreting data to draw evidence in support of a
claim (e.g., ‘‘Why does a seed need sunlight to germinate?’’). A potential explanation for
the lack of critique components at the beginning of the semester is that students did not
understand what argumentation means, because they lacked experience engaging in whole-
class discussion that was focused on group presentations of arguments. This is evident in
the following interview excerpts.
We [students] didn’t even know what the word [argumentation] meant for science class. (Chris,
interview)
I didn’t really know how to do it [argumentation], like I thought that just meant like talking. (Nate,
interview)
However, as students became more involved in the argumentation practices of critique,

they were more likely to challenge others’ ideas, use evidence to back up their claims, and
evaluate explanatory claims in terms of evidence. As shown in Fig. 2, the proportion of
student utterances coded as challenging, rejecting, supporting, and defending responses in
the fifth whole-class discussion increased to 43 % (143/335), 7 % (22/335), 11 % (38/335),
and 13 % (42/335), respectively. The Chi-square goodness-of-fit test confirmed the
observed differences were statistically significant between each round of whole-class
discussion.1 The effect size results of these six categories over five rounds are shown in
Table 8. The greater proportion and change of using practices of critique over five rounds
indicates that ‘‘students were more engaged and more willing to articulate their claims and
evidence, challenge others’ arguments, and provide suggestions for other groups’’ (Field
notes).
The increase in students’ use of critique over time is clearly illustrated in the following
example, where students presented their claims and evidence in the fourth round of whole-
class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments about the digestive system
(see Table 9).
1
The results of Chi-square goodness-of-fit test are as follows: v2 (5) = 223.52, p \ 0.01, from first round to
second round; v2 (5) = 30.24, p \ 0.01, from second round to third round; v2 (5) = 47.47, p \ 0.01, from
third round to fourth round; v2 (5) = 18.71, p \ 0.01, from fourth round to fifth round; v2 (5) = 904.64,
p \ 0.01, from first round to fifth round.
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Table 9 Excerpt from the fourth round of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of
arguments
Classroom discussion Categories Sub-categories
Nate Our claim is each part of the digestive system works together (Presenting)
by breaking down the food for the next part of the system
Chris Our evidence is that the digestive system is a process in your (Presenting)
body that breaks down food. The digestive system works by
breaking down food. It does that by smashing it with the
teeth so it’s ready to go down the esophagus and into the
stomach. When in the stomach, the stomach acid is added
to dissolve it so it breaks down in very small pieces. Then it
goes through the intestine and stays there so it can compact,
and then exit your body as waste
Jeff Is the digestive system only for the next step? Challenging Accuracy of a
Claim
Nate It’s not just for the next step, it’s for everything Defending Simple
Chris Well, the teeth break food down into smaller pieces so it’s Defending Evidence-based
ready for the next step of going down into the stomach.
When you swallow…
Aaron Why is it broken down into smaller pieces? Challenging Quality of
What’s the purpose of that? Evidence
(Reasoning)
Chris To make it into smaller pieces, if it went down to the Defending Evidence-based
esophagus, it would be easier for the stomach to break it
down so it could go into the intestines
Mr. You didn’t really say how the human body systems work
Martin together, you just said what they do and how they work
Jeff Yeah…So the reason why we eat food is to put food through Challenging Relationship
our body so we can have an end result? (Claim-
evidence)
Grey Oh…The reason we have a digestive system is so we can get Elaborating Quality of
energy… Evidence
(Reasoning)
Mr. What, Grey?
Martin
Grey We said living things need energy in order to live. In our plant Elaborating Quality of
tests, we said living things need energy in order to live, so Evidence
we need energy in order to live (Reasoning)
Mr. So I’m intrigued. Grey did something really interesting. She’s
Martin pulling in what she already knew…Something as simple as
the seed test a long time ago in the ecosystem unit … So we
don’t just eat food to make it into small pieces to go
through your body so you can end up moving a couple
hours later
Bella No! The reason we have a digestive system is because we Supporting Evidence-based
need to get energy…
Table 9 shows that the students and Mr. Martin were challenging, defending, rejecting,
and supporting one another’s ideas and claims. The challenging questions from Jeff and
Aaron led to more in-depth discussion and insights into the core issue, the purpose of the
digestive system, involved in the presentation. Although Chris and Nate gave the pre-
sentation, Grey and Megan helped them respond to the challenging questions from Mr.
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Martin and Jeff to further elaborate their claims and evidence. As a result, students con-
cluded that a purpose of the digestive system is to get energy by breaking food down step
by step. They cooperatively constructed more scientifically acceptable knowledge by using
more expanded critique practices during the discussion. In other words, they moved from
simple clarification and construction practices in the first round of whole-class discussion
toward much more complex and demanding practices of challenging, rebutting, and
elaborating. Importantly, dialogical interactions came to include the whole class beyond
the presenters and the few students asking questions. This improvement was made evident
during the students’ interviews. At the end of the fourth round of whole-class discussion
Nate stated that, ‘‘[argumentation is] where you talk back and forth. It just can’t be one
person—it’s like a conversation but you argue, hopefully come to agreement’’ (Nate,
interview). This improvement was also recognized by Mr. Martin who noted, ‘‘I see the
improvement of their listening [during whole-class discussion] and working together as a
group to move forward’’ (Teacher, interview).
4.2 Assertion 2: By Challenging Each Other’s Arguments, Students Came

to Focus on the Coherence of the Argument and the Quality of Evidence
Data analysis revealed not only that the frequency of students’ challenges substantially
increased over time, but also that the focus in challenging one another’s ideas shifted over
the five rounds of whole-class discussion. In particular, students increasingly challenged
the ideas of the others in terms of the following aspects: (1) the test procedure and the
accuracy of a claim, (2) the coherence of the argument—that is, the relationship between a
question and a claim as well as the relationship between a claim and evidence, and (3) the
quality of evidence focusing on sufficiency and reasoning. Figure 3 shows the frequency
and proportion of those aspects over time. The Chi-square goodness-of-fit test confirmed
that the differences in the aspects were statistically significant over five rounds of whole-
class discussion, except between the third round and the fourth round.2 The effect size
results of five sub-category Challenging over five rounds are shown in Table 10. Table 10
shows that students were more focused on challenging the test procedure and the accuracy
of a claim in the first two rounds. However, they gradually shifted to challenging the
relationship between a question, a claim, and evidence as well as the quality of evidence
during the rest of the study.
4.2.1 The Test Procedure and the Accuracy of a Claim
As shown in Fig. 3, at the beginning of the semester, students challenged ideas in terms of
the test procedure or the accuracy of a claim. This pattern is clearly reflected in the
following discussion (see Table 11).
In this conversation, the students—Janice, Jean, and Aaron—were paying attention to
evaluating the variables and the way they had conducted the investigation. Although these
students were engaged in critiquing and challenging Helen and Galen’s presentation, their
dialogic interactions were neither constructive nor productive. Until Mr. Martin intervened
in their conversation, saying, ‘‘Ok, I think we have 2 parties at fault here,’’ no meaningful
2
The results of Chi-square goodness-of-fit test are as follows: v2 (4) = 8072.44, p \ 0.01, from first round
to second round; v2 (4) = 95.03, p \ 0.01, from second round to third round; not significant at the 0.01 level
from third round to fourth round; v2 (4) = 21.82, p \ 0.01, from fourth round to fifth round; v2
(4) = 63112.95, p \ 0.01, from first round to fifth round.
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Fig. 3 Frequency and types of challenging responses contributed by students over five rounds of whole-
class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments
Table 10 Relative risk effect size on each sub-category of challenging over five rounds

round/first second round third round round/fourth round/first
round round round
Test procedure 0.19 0.22 0.22 0 0

Accuracy of a claim ? 0.34 0.8 0.57 ?
Relationship between a ? 0.72 1.14 0.38 ?
claim and a question
Relationship between a ? 1.85 0.7 1.75 ?
claim and evidence
Quality of evidence ? 3.49 1.25 1 ?
focusing on reasoning
? indicates that denominator of a fraction is zero; namely, the category is not identified in the previous
round
consensus was reached. Students appeared to be attempting to acquire surface declarative

knowledge, rather than to understand how and why a group had arrived at that claim. These
students, coming from lecture-based classes in which they had few opportunities to gen-
erate and evaluate the reasoning embedded within evidence, tended to look for the simple
result of experiments, rather than to interpret data as evidence. Olivia described her science
class in the past year as follows: ‘‘Last year, we did our experiments—like where we’re
going to put it and stuff like that, but we didn’t do anything else, really. We looked in a
book and we just followed those rules. We didn’t talk’’ (Olivia, interview).
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Table 11 Excerpt from the first round of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of
arguments
Classroom discussion Categories Sub-
categories
Helen We tested to see if they can grow in different kinds of soil, and if they (Presenting)
can grow with different amounts of water. Sometimes plants can
grow without soil… Sometimes they can go without dying
Janice Aren’t you changing more variables, like soil and water? Challenging Test
procedure
Helen Well no, the same amount of water, but just like, different amounts of Defending Evidence-
cups and things based
Jean Then you’re changing the size of the cup Challenging Test
procedure
Janice Did you put a different type of soil in? Information Test
Seeking procedure
Galen No Elaborating
Helen One day I came in and I put a little bit of sand. We just put a little bit Elaborating
Aaron But that’s changing another variable Challenging Test
procedure
Adam Their test was a big phony Rejecting Simple
4.2.2 The Coherence of the Argument
As the midpoint of the semester approached, the students’ focus on challenging shifted
away from the accuracy of a claim toward the relationships between claim and question
and between claim and evidence. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the proportion of challenging
focused on the relationship between claim and question in the fourth whole-class discus-
sion increased to 11 % (12/108), while the proportion of the relationship between claim
and evidence increased to 12 % (13/108). Instead of challenging the validity of the test
procedure or whether a claim was correct, students were paying more attention to whether
the claim answered the given question and whether evidence supported the claim. The
following excerpt represents this trend (see Table 12).
In this conversation, Mr. Martin suggested to students that before they engaged in
critique they should listen for and focus on how the evidence produced by Jaden’s group
supported the claim. This led students to begin to evaluate one another’s ideas based upon
the structure and the relationships between the argument components, i.e., the question,
claim, and evidence. Mr. Martin created argument space (Erduran et al. 2004) in which
students could debate based on the relationships between these components. After debating
the group’s argument about the coherence between question, claim, and evidence, Mr.
Martin orchestrated students’ discussion in terms of the relationship between each com-
ponent of argument (e.g., ‘‘Does their evidence support their claim?’’ ‘‘You write a claim
to support your evidence?’’). Mr. Martin attempted to teach students the relationship
between claim and evidence through conversation. We interpreted this dialogue as an
important feature of the immersion approach in which students do not learn the argument
structure before they engage in argument-based discussion. Instead, teachers embed the
structure of argument in the practice of discussion and foster students to understand ‘‘what
counts’’ as a high-quality argument while they learn disciplinary big ideas. The students in
the discussion appeared to be willing to revise their initial arguments because of their
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Table 12 Excerpt from whole-class discussion during the fourth public argumentation
Jaden Our claim is food goes through steps to allow your body to (Presenting)
absorb energy from food
Mr. Are you listening? Food goes through steps to allow your body
Martin to absorb energy from the food. You’re looking for how they
know that—can they actually support the claim? Keep going
Luke The parts of the digestive system are made of organs. Each step (Presenting)
of the digestive system breaks down [food]… nutrients are
turned into waste and go out the exit
Chris Your evidence supports your claim, but your claim doesn’t Challenging Relationship
relate to the big idea. The claim is food goes through the (Claim-
steps to allow your body to absorb energy from food. The question)
big idea is human body systems work together. Your claim
has nothing to do with human body systems
Jake What if they changed it to food goes through steps through the Supporting Evidence-based
digestive system
Chris Then it would support the big idea Supporting Simple
Nate I don’t think your evidence supported your claim. Because the Challenging Relationship
focus of their claim is food’s broken down and energy is (Claim-
absorbed. Are you showing how you know that food has evidence)
energy and it’s absorbed into the body?
Jaden: First the teeth chew up the food, the tongue pushes the food up Defending Evidence-based
to the teeth, the saliva breaks down the food even more…and
then the food goes into the small intestine…Absorbs the
nutrients in the food
Nate Well…Your evidence is missing how food’s broken down Challenging Relationship
(Claim-
evidence)
Mr. So they talk about being broken down, those are examples? Are
Martin they showing how they know that food has energy and it’s
absorbed into the body? Does their evidence support their
claim?
Group No
Jaden We can change our claim to be able to like… We could change Supporting Simple
the claim so it could support the evidence
Mr. So you… You write a claim to support your evidence?
Martin
Journey No, you write the evidence to support your claim, so maybe we Rejecting Evidence-based
should change the claim and the evidence to make it… To
make sense…We need to do claim with a new evidence, too
peers’ critique, and they resolved any disagreements through the discussion based on their
understanding of ‘‘what counts’’ as a high-quality argument. Following this discussion,
Jaden came to accept his peers’ suggestion and said, ‘‘We should change the claim and the
evidence to make sense.’’ Chris illustrated his shifted emphasis on linking question, claim,
and evidence in this way: ‘‘If the evidence has nothing to do with the topic and claim, then
I don’t think that’s very good evidence… A good claim would be something that really
relates to the big idea and is answering the big question’’ (Chris, interview).
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4.2.3 The Quality of Evidence
At the end of the semester, the students came to focus more on the quality of evidence, as
shown in Fig. 3. The proportion of the utterances where students challenged the quality of
evidence increased to 59 % (84/143) during the fifth whole-class discussion. This change
was obvious enough for the first author to detect during his observations, as described in
his field note: ‘‘Students apparently seemed to develop a better grasp of the quality of
evidence given that their questions came to more concern the sufficiency and reasoning of
evidence’’ (Field notes). The excerpt from the fifth round of whole-class discussion
illustrates how students focused on the quality of evidence (see Table 13).
As indicated in the excerpt, the students and Mr. Martin constantly asked questions
about the quality of evidence. After Sara and Bella presented their claim and evidence,
Megan asked questions about the appropriateness of the reasoning behind their claim and
requested a more detailed explanation of the evidence. Other students such as Megan,
Lucy, and Mike also critiqued the adequacy of the reasoning underlying this group’s
presentation by building on Megan’s questions. This suggests that students had begun to
develop a sophisticated grasp of what counts as good evidence after they had engaged in
more whole-class discussion. In addition, Lucy made a rebuttal (‘‘My arm doesn’t help me
get air in or out.’’) to challenge Bella’s argument. The role of the teacher in this discussion
was critical. Mr. Martin not only provided students with argument space but also guided
them to clarify the challenging questions raised by others. This example suggests that the
students developed a better grasp of what counts as good evidence. This development was
also apparent in the interviews with the six target students. For example, Mike said:
Now I understand that only providing one data wouldn’t be that good evidence because it wouldn’t
really get much stuff to know. You actually have to have reasoning, I think, to actually explain how it
happened. (Mike, interview)
Taken together, over time students were more willing to challenge or critique ideas
proposed by others. Their focus on challenging one another’s ideas shifted from surface
knowledge claims to the coherence of the argument and the quality of evidence. Of
importance is that this shift took a great deal of time—16 weeks in this study. Previous
studies on scientific argumentation have suggested that knowing what constitutes a
coherent argument and understanding the importance of the quality of evidence does not
come naturally to most individuals (Osborne et al. 2004) but is grown through practice
(Martin and Hand 2009; Ford 2008). This study adds additional empirical evidence to this
assertion.
4.3 Assertion 3: Students Came to Use Evidence to Defend, Support,

and Reject Arguments in Whole-Class Discussion
Data analysis indicated that these students came to use more evidence to defend, support,
and reject an argument through participation in multiple rounds of whole-class discussion
focused on group presentations of arguments, as shown in Fig. 4. The proportion of the
utterances where students used evidence to defend, support, and reject an argument were
13 % (1/8), 0, and 0 %, respectively, in the first whole-class discussion. In the fifth whole-
class discussion, in contrast, the proportion of those utterances was substantially increased
to 88 % (37/42), 74 % (28/38), and 59 % (13/22), respectively. The Chi-square goodness-
of-fit test confirmed that the differences in the use of evidence to defend, support, and
reject an argument were statistically significant by comparing the first round with the fifth
123
Table 13 Excerpt from whole-class discussion during the fifth public argumentation
Sara Our claim is some systems help air get in and out of your (Presenting)
body
Bella Our evidence is the systems that help get air in and out of our (Presenting)
body are bones and muscles. The muscles help because the
muscles pull down the diaphragm to get air into the lungs
and the muscles also push out the diaphragm to get the air
out of your body. The bones because they hold the muscles
and joints in place
Megan: Do the muscles and the bones help do anything to help air get Challenging Quality of
in and out of your body? Evidence
(Reasoning)
Bella Yeah. The muscles help because like bones hold the muscles Defending Evidence-based
and joints in place, it’s the opposite way around—the
muscles hold the joints and bones
Megan Ok, so what are those muscles? No, I mean, I know muscles Challenging Quality of
help, but what are the muscles that have bones in them that Evidence
still help? (Reasoning)
Lucy And you said bones, but my arm doesn’t help. My arm has a Challenging Quality of
bone in it—my arm doesn’t help me get air in or out Evidence
(Reasoning)
Megan We don’t know what bones you’re talking about or muscles Challenging Quality of
you’re talking about that have bones that help you. Because Evidence
as far as we know, the diaphragm doesn’t have a bone… (Reasoning)
Bella We could change that because like, the bones… The bones Defending Evidence-based
helps! Diaphragm doesn’t have a bone but the skeletal
system helps because they hold the muscles and joints in
place, like our chest holds the diaphragm. We know the
diaphragm, the muscles, and the bones around the
respiratory system. When your chest moves, your lungs get
bigger and smaller. When you breathe in and out, that’s
how you’re breathing. You’re moving in and out. That’s
why it’s moving
Mike Where do you get this? Well, I mean, how do you know this Information
evidence? Seeking
Sara Well, we know the diaphragm and the muscles around it from Elaborating
the test
Kurt Can you explain how you got that from your test? Information
Seeking
Mr. Yeah, we know it from our test. Does that explain your
Martin reasoning and how you arrived at this answer? How do you
know that there’s actually muscles and bones that work
with the respiratory system? Dakota, have they explained
how they know that systems help air get in and out of the
body?
Dakota Not really, because they just really talk about… They’re Rejecting Evidence-based
not… All they’re talking about is the diaphragm, and that’s
mainly it. They’re not telling how air goes into your
lungs—they’re just talking about that…
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Fig. 4 Frequency, proportion, and types of defending, supporting, and rejecting utterances contributed by
students over five different rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments
round.3 However, the difference between each round was not always statistically signifi-
cant.4 The results highlighted that the development of students’ use of evidence for jus-
tification was a gradual process over a long period of time. The effect size results of each
sub-category of Defending, Supporting, and Rejecting over five rounds are shown in
Table 14. This table shows that students gradually used evidence to defend, support, and
reject in whole-class discussion.
To illustrate this finding, we use an example drawn from the second round of whole-
class discussion in the first unit where students debated whether sunlight or darkness is
necessary for seeds to germinate. Some students believed that seeds need sunlight or
darkness to germinate, but others simply rejected the idea by saying, ‘‘We don’t believe
that they need sunlight or darkness,’’ or ‘‘You can put it anywhere.’’ Students who agreed
with the idea supported their position with comments such as, ‘‘But some plants do,’’
‘‘They need sunlight,’’ or ‘‘I learned in kindergarten that it needs sun to germinate.’’ Their
discussion proceeded by simply expressing and rejecting the merit of ideas based on their
personal inferences, intuition, or past experience without supporting evidence. After this
class, Ryan reflected on the discussion and said: ‘‘If that person still thinks [they are right],
they say it all again. They just keep repeating the same idea. We’re not getting anywhere’’
(Ryan, interview).
However, after engaging in further rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group
presentations of arguments, these students grasped better practices of using evidence to
defend, support, and reject an argument proposed by others. The following excerpt illus-
trates how students were attempting to use evidence to evaluate an argument while dis-
cussing how the diaphragm works with the lungs in the fifth round of whole-class
discussion (see Table 15).
Unlike at the beginning of the semester, these students were more likely to rely on
evidence to defend (Ryan), reject (Dakota), and support (Lucy) an argument through
3
The results of Chi-square goodness-of-fit test are as follows: v2 (1) = 219.44, p \ 0.01 (Defending); v2
(1) = 20596.21, p \ 0.01 (Supporting); v2 (1) = 7663.5, p \ 0.01 (Rejecting).
4
The results of Chi-square goodness-of-fit test are as follows: Defending: not significant at the 0.01 level
for first round to second round; v2 (1) = 68.3, p \ 0.01, for second round to third round; not significant at
the 0.01 level for third round to fourth round; v2 (1) = 7.79, p \ 0.05, for fourth round to fifth round;
Supporting: v2 (1) = 9728.52, p \ 0.01, for first round to second round; v2 (1) = 5, p = 0.025, for second
round to third round; not significant at the 0.01 level for third round to fourth round and fourth round to fifth
round; Rejecting: v2 (1) = 45.69, p \ 0.01, for first round to second round; v2 (1) = 71.69, p \ 0.001, for
second round to third round; not significant at the 0.01 level for third round to fourth round and fourth round
to fifth round.
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Table 14 Relative risk effect size on each category over five rounds

round/first second round third round round/fourth round/first
round round round
Defending_Simple 1 0.46 0.79 0.38 0.14

Defending_Evidence- 1.07 4.5 1.14 1.29 7.05
based
Supporting_Simple 0.49 0.72 1.02 0.74 0.26
Support_Evidence- ? 1.27 1 1.15 ?
based
Rejecting_Simple 0.95 0.59 1.06 0.68 0.41
Rejecting_Evidnece- ? 9.13 0.92 1.48 ?
based
? indicates that denominator of a fraction is zero; namely, the category is not identified in the previous
round
Table 15 Excerpt from whole-class discussion during the fifth public argumentation
Classroom discussion Categories Sub-
categories
Ryan A muscle called the diaphragm moves the lungs so they get bigger and Defending Evidence-
smaller…the muscles squeeze the lungs to hold pressure on the lungs based
to force air out. The muscles relax, it brings air in…
Dakota The diaphragm can’t like, literally like, push… it doesn’t squeeze them Rejecting Evidence-
or move. I did research what diaphragm is. I can explain that. Because based
it says like, the diaphragm kind of pushes the lower half of your body
down so the lungs have room to expand, and it also like, pushes the
bones up when you’re breathing out so the air can get out, because if
it didn’t, the air would just stay in your lungs
Jaden The lungs need to expand when you breathe in, so the diaphragm pushes Defending Evidence-
like, the stomach down and kind of squishes it so the lungs have room based
to expand like that. And then, when they get full of air…
Mr. Can you draw a picture of that? I’m having a hard time picturing that.
Martin Aren’t you?
Ryan [drawing a picture, shown in Fig. 5] Squishes them and it pushes them Defending Evidence-
up so that the air can go out because like, the air is in here, so the based
diaphragm is squishing it, like if you squish a balloon without the cap,
like, without it being tied, if you squished it, the air would go out
Mary The diaphragm doesn’t move the lungs; it doesn’t touch them… Rejecting Simple
Lucy You can’t move your lungs [she showed their group’s model made by Supporting Evidence-
two bottles, balloons, and straws]. When the diaphragm goes down, it based
gives it more space and it pulls the pressure down, kind of. And then
when it… When the diaphragm goes up…
scientific reasoning. Students came to be more aware of the importance of evidence to

support their own ideas, rather than just expressing their ideas without any reasoning. This
feature is reflected in the interviews with the target students as follows:
123
Fig. 5 Student sketches representing images of the respiratory system
The most important part [of argumentation] I want to hear in other people’s thing is their evidence. If
you don’t support your idea by using evidence, then we’re not going to know anything about the idea
and why you said that. (Bella, interview)
The beginning of the year, we weren’t really talking then we fell behind, and I’m guessing it’s
probably because of us going, ‘‘Okay, we’ll change that.’’ We didn’t go all on defense mode…
They’re trying to tell you to do something and trying to make a conversation-type thing with you, and
you’re just dropping down your side of the conversation, going, ‘‘Okay.’’ Now I think our thinking
has changed a lot. If you came up with this claim and evidence, why don’t you support it? So I think
the most important part is supporting it with evidence. (Ryan, interview)
The students’ improved practices for the use of evidence in whole-class discussions led
them to be more willing to be open to one another’s arguments and to revise their original
ideas accordingly.
Importantly, Mr. Martin fostered students’ use of writing as a tool to visualize their
ideas and articulate their evidence (e.g., ‘‘Can you draw a picture of that? I’m having a hard
time picturing that. Aren’t you?’’). As shown in the excerpt above, to respond to Dakota’s
critique, Mr. Martin guided Ryan to defend his argument by drawing a diagram (shown in
Fig. 5a) to visualize his model and explain it, rather than insisting on his idea without
providing solid evidence to support it. With this diagram, other students obtained a clearer
understanding of Ryan’s model of the respiratory system and why he thought the dia-
phragm ‘‘squeezes’’ the lungs to make air move in and out. In response to Ryan’s model,
Lucy described the model she had made with bottles, balloons, and straws. During the
discussion, another student, Sara, drew another model to support Lucy’s idea (Fig. 5b). To
explain her model, Sara said, ‘‘When you breathe in the diaphragm goes down and there is
less pressure.’’ For the rest of the discussion, students continuously made judgments and
explanations based on these diagrams and consequently the discussion moved to a much
deeper and more evidence-based level. At the end of the whole-class discussion, the
students clearly explained how the diaphragm works with the lungs and ribcage by
comparing the two models, exhibiting their understanding of the relationship between air
pressure and volume:
When the diaphragm goes down, the ribcage gives the lung more space. The diaphragm going down
creates a larger space, or area of lower air pressure inside of the body than outside. The air of higher
pressure travels to the area of lower air pressure until the pressures are equalized. When the
123
diaphragm moves upward the chest has a higher air pressure than outside and forces the air out of the
body. (Observation)
This example highlights that by this point in the semester students were more likely to
be open to each other’s arguments and evaluate them based on the given evidence.
Importantly, the more they engaged in argumentative practices, the more they used writing
or other modal representations, with Mr. Martin’s prompting, to visualize their ideas. The
students appeared to be comfortable using both talk and writing (or drawing) to build
arguments. Olivia put it this way: ‘‘If you agree or disagree, you can’t just say, ‘I agree’
and expect them to just believe you. You have to say why you disagree or why you
agree…drawing a picture is a good way to explain my idea’’ (Olivia, interview). Overall,
during whole-class discussion students developed better practices of using evidence and
also used writing as a tool to explain and visualize their ideas for their defense, rejection,
and support of claims. The results suggest that students developed skills to resolve dis-
agreements in the later rounds of whole-class discussion as well as to revise their original
arguments through these evidence-based discussions and writing.
4.4 Assertion 4: The Quality of Students’ Writing Continuously Improved

Over Time
To track the development over time in students’ written scientific arguments after each
round of whole-class discussion, each group’s written arguments were scored using the
argument-based writing scoring rubric (see Table 6). The mean scores and standard
deviation of all groups for the five components of the scoring rubric are shown in Table 16.
In the first unit (Ecosystems), the total score for written scientific arguments in the first
round of whole-class discussion was 2.86 (out of 20 possible points). The total score
dramatically increased to 13.29 in the summary writing at the end of the unit. In the first
topic of the second unit (Human Body Systems—the digestive system), the mean score in
the first writing activity was 10.86; that mean score increased to 15.86 in the summary
writing. In the second topic of the second unit (Human Body Systems—the respiratory
system), the mean score in the first writing activity was 12.57 while the mean score
increased to 19.57 in the summary writing. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that
students’ written argument scores were statistically significantly improved from the first- to
the final-round written arguments in both units.5 Similar results are also reflected in
Cohen’s d effect size report. Table 16 also shows that the improvement in students’ written
arguments after each round of whole-class discussion was statistically significant and the
effect of the intervention between each round was large. This analysis suggests that these
students were able to craft higher quality and more sophisticated arguments as they had
more opportunities to write scientific arguments through multiple rounds of whole-class
discussion focused on group presentations of arguments.
As shown in Table 16, in the first unit, accuracy of a claim was statistically significantly
improved after the first whole-class discussion; accuracy of a claim and relationship
between a claim and a question were statistically significantly improved after the second
whole-class discussion; and quality of evidence focusing on sufficiency was statistically
significantly improved after the third whole-class discussion. In the first topic of the second
unit, except for the quality of evidence focusing on reasoning, the other four components
5
The results of Wilcoxon signed-rank test are as follows: Ecosystems: Z = -2.38, p = .017; Human Body
Systems—the digestive system: Z = -2.28, p = .017; Human Body Systems—the respiratory system:
Z = -2.38, p = .018.
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Table 16 Mean scores, standard deviation, and Wilcoxon signed-rank analysis of students’ group written
presentations over eight rounds of writing activities
Total Score Accuracy of a Relationship Quality of Relationship Quality of
claim between a evidence between a evidence
claim and focusing on claim and focusing on
question sufficiency evidence reasoning
First unit: Ecosystems
1st writing 2.86 (1.34) 0.71 (0.49) 0.571 (0.53) 0.71 (0.49) 0.429 (0.53) 0.429 (0. 53)
Z=-2.39 Z=-2.41 n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.
p=.017 p=.016
[1.67, large] [3.6, large] [0.27, small] [0.46, small] [0.55, medium] [0.27, small]
2nd writing 5.43 (1.72) 2.57 (0.53) 0.71 (0.49) 0.86 (0. 38) 0.71 (0.49) 0.57 (0.53)
Z=-2.38 Z=-2.43 Z=-2.39 n.s n.s. n.s.
p=.017 p=.015 p=.017
[3.27, large] [3.82, large] [3.35, large] [1.54, large] [0.71, medium] [0.47, small]
3rd writing 10.71 (1.50) 4 (0) 3.14 (0.90) 1.571 (0.53) 1.14 (0.69) 0.86 (0.69)
Z=-2.38 n.s n.s. Z=-2.45 n.s n.s.
p=.017 p=.014
[2.05, large] [1.627, large] [2.1, large] [0.5, small]
4th writing 13.29 (0.95) 2.43 (0.53) 2.43 (0.53) 1.14 (0.38)
Second unit: Human Body Systems
Digestive System
1st writing 10.86 (1.22) 2.71 (0.49) 2.29 (0.49) 2 (0) 2 (0.58) 2 (0)
Z=-2.38 Z=-2.46 Z=-2.45 Z=-2.43 Z=-2.43 n.s.
p=.017 p=.014 p=.014 p=.015 p=.015
[3.56, large] [3.72, large] [1.94, large] [2.44, large] [2.56, large] [1.15, large]
2nd writing 15.86 (1.57) 4 (0) 3.14 (0.38) 3 (0.58) 3.42 (0.53) 2.43 (0.53)
Respiratory System
1st writing 12.57 (1.13) 2.14 (0.38) 3.14 (0.38) 2.57 (0. 53) 2.71 (0.49) 2 (0.58)
Z=-2.38 Z=-2.53 Z=-2.45 Z=-2.43 Z=-2.46 Z=-2.41
p=.018 p=.011 p=.014 p=.015 p=.014 p=.016
[7.93, large] [3.82, large] [2.63, large] [3.82, large] [3.72, large] [2.83, large]
2nd writing 19.57 (0.53) 4 (0) 4 (0) 4 (0) 4 (0) 3.57 (0.53)
Note: *number (number) = Mean Score (Standard Deviation)
* indicates statistical significance; n.s. indicates no significance
*[number, indicator] = [Cohen’s d, scale]
were significantly improved after the fourth whole-class discussion. In the second topic of
the second unit, all components were significantly improved after the fifth whole-class
discussion. As Table 16 suggests, written arguments improved first in the accuracy of a
claim, then in the relationship between a question, claim, and evidence, and finally in the
quality of evidence focusing on sufficiency and reasoning. There was an obvious pro-
gression across the five aspects of argumentation over the eight rounds of writing.
4.5 Assertion 5: Students Connected Oral Argument Skills to Written

Argument Skills as they had Opportunities to Revise their Writing After
Debating and Developed an Awareness of the Usefulness of Critique
from Peers
The developmental trends in the quality of written arguments were similar to the devel-
opment patterns in students’ oral argument practices (see assertion 2) and their increased
emphasis on evidence-based supporting, defending, and rejecting (see assertion 3).
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At the beginning of the semester, students mainly challenged the test procedure and
accuracy of claims. This tendency was reflected in their written arguments, which showed
a higher score in accuracy of claims than other components. In the middle of the semester,
the focus of students’ spoken challenges shifted toward the coherence of the argument; this
resonated in their written arguments with a strengthened relationship between questions
and claims and between claims and evidence. At the end of the semester, students began
increasingly to challenge the quality of evidence, and their written arguments also
exhibited improved quality of written evidence to support their reasoning. As students’
practices of oral argumentation gradually improved to become more evidence based in
defending, supporting, and rejecting ideas, the scores of their written arguments for the
relationship between claim and evidence and the quality of evidence increased. Taken
together, students’ participation in oral argumentation appeared to positively relate to the
quality of their written arguments.
This improvement in the quality of written argument and the connection between oral
and written arguments seemed to relate to two factors: (1) engagement in scientific writing
embedded within multiple rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presenta-
tions of arguments, and (2) increased awareness of the usefulness of critique from peers.
4.5.1 Scientific Writing Practices Embedded in Whole-Class Discussion
The results suggest that the students developed a better ability to use the argument structure
and components for creating sound arguments after they engaged in a series of whole-class
discussions focused on group presentations of arguments. This is evident in the following
interview excerpts.
The discussion’s so we can share our ideas, kind of mix them together to make a better argument
[writing]. (Ryan, interview)
Some people even just got up right in the middle of discussion and went over—including me because
I was trying to help some people find how to improve their claims and evidence [writing]. (Chris,
interview)
Well, I think our class discussion was good, because everybody sometimes, said they agreed with
stuff, and Mr. Martin taught us that you can’t just say, ‘‘Okay’’ when people give you a comment.
You have to say why you agree or disagree to them. The person that’s telling the comment on your
writing has to say why they agree or disagree with you. After that, we have to revise our claim and
evidence [writing] based on the comment (Olivia, interview)
I think my idea is clearer because we talked about it [writing] and so it got me thinking that… if
sunlight wasn’t there, we would be not energetic for days and we wouldn’t have enough… A seed
wouldn’t have sunlight for it to grow, and it wouldn’t be able to grow. (Nate, Interview)
After the discussion, I changed my mind. I wrote down my idea [claim and evidence]…After I wrote
down my idea [claim and evidence], I was clearer and more confident and able to talk in class. We
listened to each other and explained to each other. (Bella, interview)
These examples suggest that students developed a better understanding of what counts
as data, claims, and evidence after participating in several rounds of whole-class discussion
focused on group presentations of arguments, which fostered their improvement in oral and
written argumentative practices.
4.5.2 Awareness of the Usefulness of Critique
Another aspect of the written arguments that students considered as beneficial was the
critique from their peers. For example, after Nate and the members of his group presented
their claim and evidence in the first whole-class discussion, other students provided cri-
tiques such as, ‘‘You may need to explain why seeds need water to germinate,’’ and ‘‘Your
123
evidence just repeats your claim again’’ (Observation). Nate perceived the usefulness of
this feedback and stated:
I think our evidence is too simple. Janice said she cannot get our claim and evidence. I think I am
going to explain how our test went, not just saying that a seed would need water but saying why or
how it could have too much. (Nate, interview)
Similarly, Bella described the benefits of peer critique for improving her group’s argument:
Once we shared it, I realized that we had to make a lot of fixes to it. Everybody made comments; we
decided that we should discuss more about the big idea…because they were explaining to us which
parts were bad and which parts were not. I feel I learned more. (Bella, interview)
These examples show that students perceived the usefulness of peer critique as a resource
to revise their written arguments. However, not all critique was considered useful; for
example, Mike said that, ‘‘Some of them [peers’ critiques] were good, could have gotten us
ahead on the topic. Some of them were just repeating them’’ (Mike, interview). He further
clarified, ‘‘If they explain very well and tell me my problem, then I agree with them’’
(Mike, interview). Olivia also commented that, ‘‘Some of their feedback was not that
important because they do not say the reason’’ (Olivia, interview). This implies that
students accepted peer critiques and revised their arguments accordingly only when those
critiques were evidence based with sound reasoning.
5 Discussion and Implications
While many studies on argumentation to date have focused on secondary school students,
teaching argument structure, and assessing the impact of argumentation using pre-/posttest,
this study examined the development of elementary students’ argumentative practices in an
SWH classroom for an extended period of time. The SWH approach required the students
to be immersed in argument as the basis of their inquiry, rather than seeing argument as
separate from the process of doing science. In other words, the development and use of
argument is not separated from the learning of science concepts in SWH classrooms. The
findings of this study suggest that when students were given opportunities to ask questions,
generate claims, and draw evidence from data, they progressively developed better prac-
tices of social negotiation and understanding of what argument means, which was then
reflected in their oral and written discourse.
The findings align with McNeill’s (2011) study in which students gradually developed
more sophisticated view of argument and evidence as they engaged in more argumentative
practices. The findings also provide sound evidence to confirm the studies conducted in the
field of mathematics education suggesting that sustained practice is a key factor to suc-
cessfully engage students in productive argumentation (Carpenter et al. 2003; Fraivillig
et al. 1999). The findings add to the growing body of research on developmental psy-
chology on young children’s learning science (Metz 2011; Lehrer et al. 2008; Sandoval
et al. 2014). Building on the findings of this study and previous research, we suggest that
the development of the practices was greatly dependent upon two critical factors: time and
practice (Martin and Hand 2009; Kuhn et al. 2013; Ryu and Sandoval 2012).
In terms of time, this study suggests that the ability to engage in both social and
epistemic aspects of argumentative practices does not come naturally to most individuals
but rather is grown through practice, centered on the need to engage in roles of constructor
and critiquer, the understanding of different components of social negotiation and when to
use these components, the understanding of how to make evidence from raw data to
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support a claim, and the understanding of how to reach a consensus in a whole-class

discussion. While participating in whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of
arguments, the students initially focused on the construction of their own arguments and
struggled with critiquing those of others. As a result, they were less engaged in using
critiquing strategies and more engaged in seeking information. They were working to make
sense of their peers’ arguments and thus were rarely challenging them even though the
learning environment and curriculum were designed for both construction and critique of
scientific knowledge. Students were less focused on justification (i.e., supporting,
defending, rejecting) for their ideas and more focused on presenting the ideas. However, as
the students continued to engage in whole-class discussion focused on group presentations
of arguments over time, they began to use questions that centered more on challenging,
defending, rejecting, and/or supporting the arguments being presented. They gradually
shifted their argumentative practices toward incorporating critique as well as construction
of scientific knowledge within the whole-class discussion.
As discussed in the findings, when Chris presented an argument to the whole class, his
peers (e.g., Jeff and Grey) helped him respond to the challenging questions and elaborate
his claim and evidence. Consequently, they cooperatively constructed more complete
scientific knowledge by using critiquing strategies during discussions. The function of
argumentation shifted from making sense of the arguments of others to critiquing and
justifying arguments based on evidence in order to reach a consensus. Similar trends were
observed in the shifted focus of the structure of argument in oral and written discourses.
Students shifted their focus from test procedure and accuracy of a claim to the quality of
evidence and the relationship between question, claim, and evidence. Given the devel-
opment of practices of oral and written argumentation from both social and epistemic
aspects, the findings of the current study indicated that time was necessary for students to
develop both competence and skill in using the six core components (information seeking,
elaborating, challenging, defending, rejecting, and supporting) as well as an understanding
of ‘‘what counts’’ as a high-quality argument (what counts as question, data, evidence,
claim, and coherent argument) that enabled them to move between the roles of constructor
and critic when engaging in argumentative practices.
The apparent improvement in students’ quality of arguments and critique components
might be due to the content of the discussion and students’ familiarity of content (Means
and Voss 1996; von Aufschnaiter et al. 2008; Sadler and Donnelly 2006). For example,
Von Aufschnaiter et al. (2008) suggested that the high quality of argumentative practice is
likely to be related to the degree of students’ understanding of the content and familiarity
of the task. We support this opinion, but we are more concerned about how students use the
argumentative discussion as an epistemic condition to develop and evaluate their under-
standing of core ideas. That is, students who learn science in immersive environment
engage in learning about the concepts and content of the unit while arguing with each
other. Importantly, this development in argumentative practices occurred simultaneously
with learning the science content. Students’ quality of arguments was improved along with
the progression of their understanding of concepts. This view can be explained by Gee’s
(2004) notion of language as an epistemological tool for developing canonical scientific
knowledge. Argumentation can be and should be seen as a language event. In this event,
Klein (2006) suggested that argument and argumentation should not be treated as by-
product of thought, but as epistemological resources for developing knowledge.
A salient outcome of this study is that students continuously developed their argu-
mentative skills from one unit to the next; this finding is in contrast to other studies (e.g.,
Reznitskaya et al. 2012; Von Aufschnaiter et al. 2008). We cannot be certain why this
123
happened without a comparison study to substantiate these outcomes. We conjecture that

sustained practice may be a key mediator for engaging students in argumentation and
continuously developing their argumentative skills over time. Reznitskaya et al. (2012)
support this view, stating, ‘‘students needed repetitive and varied experiences with argu-
mentation in order to map dialogic discussion principles onto their individual argument
schemas’’ (p. 302). This statement raises a question: How do students map their oral and
writing practice to the schemas of argument? In the framework of our study, argument is
viewed as the basis of the inquiry process. Students thus did not learn the structure of
argument separate from learning disciplinary big ideas. Rather, they learned what counts as
a high-quality argument through varied language practices. This orientation of the argu-
mentation approach is aligned with Ford’s (2008) perspective that the ‘‘grasp’’ of scientific
practice derived from apprenticeship aligns with the professional development of scien-
tists. As Ryu and Sandoval (2012) argued, scientists are not taught to argue before doing
science, but instead ‘‘appropriate the argumentative practices of their field as they
apprentice into it’’ (p. 491). Building on the current study and other research, we agree with
Cavagnetto’s (2010) notion of ‘‘immersion in practice’’ in which argument should be seen
‘‘as an embedded component to scientific practice’’ (p. 350) for ‘‘both the construction and
understanding of science principles and cultural practice (including discourse practice) of
science’’ (p. 351). Argumentative practices should be immersed in different inquiry areas
that provide meaningful contexts in which students can engage in the activities of arguing
to learn and learning to argue as a central focus of the learning process. However, these
speculations, to a certain degree, go beyond the scope of this study. Future research will
require more targeted studies, substantial sample sizes, diverse content, collaboration from
different perspectives of argumentation, and different contexts to substantiate these claims.
Furthermore, this study reveals that the development between oral and written argu-
ments through whole-class discussion is positively related to each other in SWH class-
rooms. Previous research attempting to link the development of oral and written arguments
has found that students’ written arguments are weaker and less complex than their oral
arguments. For example, Berland and McNeill (2010) found that students’ development of
oral and written arguments was disconnected. They suggested that the factor of audience is
important for pushing students to develop persuasive and complete arguments and connect
oral and written argument. The findings of this present study provide empirical evidence
that responds to Berland and McNeill’s conjecture by suggesting that audience is a critical
factor to the development and connection of both oral and written argument. As shown in
assertions 3 and 4, when the students engaged in several rounds of whole-class discussion
focused on group presentations of arguments, they came to understand that their audience
was not only the teacher but also their peers through the recognition that critique could
come from the students themselves as well as the teacher. Their written products then
became more sophisticated and complete. This advanced awareness of audience resulted
from students’ consistently improved practices of oral argumentation that in turn became
part of their reasoning processes to construct written arguments. Thus, the awareness of
audience should be considered as a critical norm for engaging students in argumentative
practices, and it is important to recognize that this awareness grows from multiple rounds
of whole-class discussion embedded within the construction and critique practices of the
science ideas being learned over time.
Another important finding of this study is that students were more willing to revise their
ideas if the discussion and critique of their peers was evidence based. From the beginning
to the middle of the semester, students talked over each other without providing sound
evidence to defend, reject, or support one another’s claims. In consequence, their
123
discussions were often limited and ineffective and students rarely changed their initial
ideas through critique. They also appeared to struggle with using the argumentative context
as an opportunity to refine their own thinking. Kuhn et al. (2000) reported a similar
situation in their study. However, as the semester approached its end, the students in the
current study were more willing to revise their ideas when their peers provided reasonable
evidence to support their opinions. Discussions that occurred during this time often
required students to use evidence in defending, supporting, and rejecting ideas and argu-
ments, which helped them to rethink, reflect, and compare their ideas to others’ because of
the evidentiary support provided by other students. These qualities and actions provided
students with opportunities to revise their ideas and reconstruct their scientific under-
standings. However, the understanding and practice take time to develop. That is, students
need to understand that critique is not about people but about their arguments, the purpose
of critique is to find weakness of their arguments in order to improve their arguments, and
the quality of critique is determined by the quality of evidence provided by peers.
As students gained more experience with argumentative practices, the role of oral
discourse also shifted to include writing as a critical element for shaping evidence, as
shown in Ryan’s case. When Ryan presented his model of the respiratory system to the
class, Dakota, Mary, and Lucy challenged it. Responding to the challenges, Ryan elabo-
rated and defended his ideas by providing evidence through drawing his model. He ended
up being persuaded by his peers’ evidence-based critiques and accepting the argument
proposed by Lucy. When students engaged in evidence-based discussion, they used writing
associated with talk as epistemological tools to help them explain and visualize their ideas
more completely. In consequence, they were able to construct their ‘‘new’’ knowledge by
utilizing both talk and writing during whole-class discussion. Stieff et al. (2011) referred to
this constellation of skills as ‘‘representational competence’’ in that students need to use
richer models to describe their ideas in building knowledge. Jordan (2015) considered this
sort of writing as ‘‘dynamic texts’’ allowing multiple students to continuously interact with
the written texts ‘‘in expectation that they [students] will have changed’’ (p. 361). Chen
et al. (2016) called this condition as ‘‘the use of talk and writing simultaneously’’ in which
students not only use talk as a learning tool to verbally express their arguments but also
utilize writing as a learning tool to visualize their claim and evidence in public debate.
Brooks (2009) and Gilbert (2005) suggested that younger children need time to develop
these unique skills. In this regard, this study suggests that talk associated with writing
should be considered as a critical epistemological tool to help students engage in evidence-
based argumentation; that is, talk alone was insufficient for the argument to be made and
required the context of written products to enhance and support the totality of the argument
(Cavagnetto et al. 2010; Nichols et al. 2015; Varelas et al. 2008). There is a positive
relationship between talk and writing in the way in which science is constructed and
critiqued.
Although the study focused on how students developed their practices of oral and
written argumentation through engaging in the SWH approach over time, the impact of the
teacher contributing to the students’ development was substantial (Benus 2011; Berland
and Reiser 2011; Chen et al. 2016; Chin 2007; Christodoulou and Osborne 2014; McNeill
and Pimentel 2010; Walshaw and Anthony 2008). For example, the teacher in this study
scaffolded students’ understandings of the relationship between question, claim, and evi-
dence (assertion 2) as well as modeled how to represent an argument visibly through
drawing (assertion 3) during whole-class discussions. In argumentation, the teacher is
required to establish criteria or norms for what counts as a claim, what counts as data, what
counts as evidence, and what counts as a coherent argument in an explicit fashion in an
123
appropriate context and time: not as a separate lesson but as a function of ‘‘just in time’’
instruction so that the criteria are framed around the science being studied (Sampson et al.
2011). In this present study, the teacher was skillful at creating classroom culture and
social negotiation that facilitated students’ development of argumentative practices as well
as learning science content. Given that, the substantial development in students’ oral and
written arguments might not be the case with other teachers whose skill levels do not reach
the point of the teacher in this study. More research is needed to explore directly the impact
of the level of the teachers’ skills in engaging students in argumentative practices.
In summary, through immersion in both social and epistemic aspects of argumentation
using the practices of talk and writing as epistemological tools, students were able to move
from constructing argument to engaging in the critical and essential components of critique
to develop a grasp of both the conceptual knowledge being studied and argumentative
practices. We suggest that discussions about argumentative practices in science should be
conducted with the convergent view of both social and epistemic aspects utilizing talk and
writing as a discourse to create norms of the complex practices, rather than considering the
structure of argument or social negotiation in isolation.
6 Limitations of the Study
Given the analytical methodology focused on whole-class discussion utilizing the SWH
approach, the results should not apply to individual students’ development and other
instructional contexts. Another possible limitation of the data analysis employed in this
study is that only one-third of students were recruited for interview and thus these data
cannot represent the rest of the students in the class. However, these data analyses from
interviews help us understand how students’ thinking changed over time. Future analysis
could trace how individual students learn from their engagement in argumentative
practices.
In addition, this study was designed to compare the quality of whole-class discussion
across rounds so as to examine any evidence of changes in students’ argumentative
practices. Several possible mediating factors might impact the results and interpretation of
findings, such as the level of cognitive difficulty of the discussed topics, the way the
teacher managed whole-class discussion, etc. The study was a naturalistic qualitative study,
and thus the whole-class discussions were framed in the timing of when they were needed
in relation to the learning situation. Each of these conversations was framed around the
broad concept of public negotiation of the small-group-generated claims and evidence.
While they varied in length and subject matter, each was framed by a common under-
standing that social negotiation of ideas was paramount and that ideas were to be engaged
with. Given that these occurred at different times, and that this shift in time represents
development of the students’ understandings and engagement with these discussions, we
anticipated that all of these discussions might not be equal in quality. However, this
qualitative study provided researchers with critical insights into how to integrate talk and
writing in argumentation and what critical components for critique are necessary for
engaging students in argumentation. This study also provides grounds for future research
that could be conducted on a much larger-scale experimental design.
Finally, we acknowledge that due to the small sample size and the fact that most
students were of European descent with moderate socioeconomic status in a rural town,
generalizability of the results to other contexts is limited. Most of the students participating
123
in this study were fluent at talking and writing in English. This probably is not the case for
foreign language learners who may struggle at debating arguments and crafting valid
arguments.6 Future research needs to be expanded to more diverse groups including stu-
dents with limited native language proficiency in order to gain a more sophisticated
understanding of students’ development in new practice-oriented science education
reforms.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest.
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Sci & Educ (2016) 25:277–320

Examining Elementary Students’ Development of Oral

Ying-Chih Chen1 • Brian Hand2 • Soonhye Park3

Published online: 10 March 2016

& Ying-Chih Chen

2.1 Argumentation in School Science from a Convergence Position: Social

Argumentation is defined as an iterative process of social negotiation within a specific

2.2 Interventions of Argumentation in Science Classrooms

2.3 Argumentation as Talk and Writing Practices

A number of science educators have been employing immersive approaches as a way to

writing in learning science, engaging students in a series of dialogical interactions and

2.4 Objectives of the Current Study

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Research Context

3.3 The Immersive Approach: The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH)

Several immersive approaches have been designed to engage students in argumentative

3.4 The Teacher

Table 2 Information about target students

Female Male High Medium Talkative Quiet

Table 3 A format for written group presentations

Claim: (What inferences can I make?)

3.7 Data Collection

3.7.1 Classroom Observations

Eleven videotaped classroom observations, including five complete rounds of whole-class

3.7.2 Students’ Group Writings

3.7.4 Field Notes

3.8 Data Analysis

3.8.1 Analysis of Classroom Observations

To examine the development of students’ oral argumentative practices in whole-class

Information Any response used by an individual to

Rejecting Any response used by an individual to

3.8.2 Analysis of Students’ Group Writings

3.8.3 Analysis of Interviews and Field Notes

Table 6 Argument-based writing scoring rubric

Accuracy of Does not make Makes a Makes a Makes a Makes a

Table 7 Examples of students’ written arguments and scoring

Question: What do a seed need to germinate?

4.1 Assertion 1: Students Came to Use More Critique Components as they

Second Third round/ Fourth round/ Fifth Fifth

Information 0.18 0.92 1.01 1.03 0.17

However, as students became more involved in the argumentation practices of critique,

4.2 Assertion 2: By Challenging Each Other’s Arguments, Students Came

4.2.1 The Test Procedure and the Accuracy of a Claim

Second Third round/ Fourth round/ Fifth Fifth

Test procedure 0.19 0.22 0.22 0 0

consensus was reached. Students appeared to be attempting to acquire surface declarative

4.2.2 The Coherence of the Argument

4.2.3 The Quality of Evidence

4.3 Assertion 3: Students Came to Use Evidence to Defend, Support,

Second Third round/ Fourth round/ Fifth Fifth

Defending_Simple 1 0.46 0.79 0.38 0.14

scientific reasoning. Students came to be more aware of the importance of evidence to

Fig. 5 Student sketches representing images of the respiratory system

4.4 Assertion 4: The Quality of Students’ Writing Continuously Improved

*[number, indicator] = [Cohen’s d, scale]

4.5 Assertion 5: Students Connected Oral Argument Skills to Written

4.5.1 Scientific Writing Practices Embedded in Whole-Class Discussion

4.5.2 Awareness of the Usefulness of Critique

5 Discussion and Implications