Investigation of effectiveness of argumentation theory based teaching in science courses

This study was conducted on 7th and 8th students in 2006-2007 academic year and 8th year students who had been subjected to the same study when they were in 7th year in 2007-2008 academic year. The study investigated the argumentation based science education on the success of the student in the selected topic, their attitude towards science, their perception the concepts related to nature of science and their willingness to participate the argument. The period of the study was determined as two years. The 7th year students were subjected argumentation focused education in the selected science topic in order to make the students acquainted with the technique. The data obtained from the 7th year students were evaluated with the data obtained from the 8th year students. The study was based on pre and post test control groups and the students were also subjected to interviews related to science and nature of science.There was no significant change observed between the academic success rates of the students who were subjected to traditional approach and the argumentation approach. Although the academic success rates of the classes who were taught with argumentation approach for two successive years were higher than the students who were subjected the same approach for only a year the difference was not very significant. There was no difference in the attitudes of the students towards science after the application of argumentation based and traditional approaches. However the argumentation approach resulted in higher success rates and significant differences in the perception of the concepts related to nature of science compared to the traditional approach. There were also significant differences observed between the pre and post application argumentation skills of the students who were subjected to scientific argumentation approach.The success rates, attitudes, perception of the concepts related to nature of science and argumentation skills of the students showed no statistically significant variation according to gender .