The effects of argumentation based learning activities on conceptual understanding of 7th graders about "Force and Motion" unit and establishing thinking friendly classroom environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of learning activities based on argumentation on conceptual understanding of 7th graders about "Force and Motion" unit and establishing thinking friendly classroom environment. The study was conducted with 20 experimental group and 19 students as control group in a secondary school affiliated to Kandıra, Kocaeli National Educational Institution during the autumn term in 2014-2015 educational year. The experimental group received learning activities based on argumentation while the control group received regular science education depending on the Science and Technology Curriculum over a period of 5 weeks. Both groups were given Force and Motion Concept Test and Thinking Friendly Classroom Scale before and after instruction. Besides, 6 students from the experimental group were interviewed after the instruction about conceptual understanding and thinking friendly classroom features by the form developed by the researcher. The results showed that there is a significant difference between experimental and control groups'conceptual understandings which is because of the reduction of control groups'conceptual understandings. There is a significant difference between experimental and control groups'scores in favor of experimental group taken from thinking friendly classroom scale. The reason of this difference is derived from insignificant increase of experimental group's scores and insignificant reduction of control group's scores. It is found in the result of the semi structured interview made with experimental group that students express that they are in thinking friendly classrooms and although their conceptual understandings are fine, they have some misconceptions. As part of the researh, it is given some suggestions for teachers and researchers. Keywords: Argumentation, conceptual understanding and thinking friendly classroom features