The effect of argumentation based science education on the attitude towards scince and the perception of problem solving skills

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of argumentation based science education on the attitude towards science and the perception of problem solving skills. In the study, convenient sampling method was preferred for determining the study group. The study group of this research is containing 38 students of 7th grade of 2 different groups attending a middle school located in Yahyalı province of the city of Kayseri in 2017-2018 academic year. While one of the group which contains 17 students was picked as experimental group the other group (containing 21 students) was chosen as control group. This study was carried out by using pre-test and post-test group of semi-experimental research method. While the control group students were being applied the current teaching approach, the experimental group students were doing activities based on Argumentation Based Science Teaching (ABST) approach. The study lasted 18 classes including the implementation of pre-tests and post-tests. 7th grade socioscientific subjects of spring semester were preferred in experimental group applications. "The Scale For Problem Solving" and "Attitude Towards Science Scale" were used to analyze the quantitative data in this research. Mann-Whitney-U Unrelated Samples, Shapiro-Wilk and Wilcoxon Signed Rank were applied nonparametrically. According to the results of the research, even though there was a statistical difference between experimental group students who did argumentation based activities and control group students in their problem solving skills, there was not a significant difference on their attitude towards science. Keywords: Science education, argumentation, argument based science learning, problem solving skills, attitude towards science, socioscientific topics