When Science Is Taught This Way, Students Become Critical Friends: Setting the Stage for Student Teachers

Abstract Effective science education draws on many different ways of teaching science. The literature documents some potential benefits argumentation instruction as a powerful tool for learning and maintaining wonder curiosity in the classroom. Unlike expository teaching, which relies teacher-driven pedagogy students accept teacher’s authority over any content to be justified priori, allows focus importance high-quality evidence epistemic knowledge, reasoning, justification. Using quasi-experimental design, two study groups undergraduate student teachers were exposed conditions, Exp-group with dialogic (DAI) Ctrl-group instruction. Each group received same twice week 12 weeks (2 h per lesson). Pre- posttests administered collect data. One-way MANCOVA pretest results covariates showed that instructional approaches (Wilk’s Λ = 0.765, p < 0.001) had significant effect tested variables after intervention. A pairwise comparison performance indices between revealed exp-group was better able evaluate alternative solutions defend arguments collaborative consensus unstructured scientific problems. This suggests can used help improve their thinking, skills, are required solve problems involving phenomena.