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An exploratory study of productive disciplinary engagement : understanding primary pupils' emergent dialogical argumentation with science fieldwork
Author
Foo, Seau Yoon
Supervisor
Looi, Chee-Kit
Abstract
Various research studies (e.g. Engle & Conant, 2002) have focused on the creation of collaborative learning environments to facilitate pupils' articulation and improvement of their own ideas about scientific phenomena. In view of this increasing emphasis on social-constructivist approaches for contemporary science education, this study seeks to describe and understand the extent of Primary 5 pupils' productive disciplinary engagement in the first trajectory of intertwining their Knowledge Forum (KF) discussions with fieldwork activities at a rocky seashore ecosystem, as well as derive the classroom conditions which might have facilitated such engagement.
The findings from this exploratory study revealed that the Primary 5 pupils were able to participate actively in the KF platform to advance their Science learning in productive and disciplinary ways. More than half of the dialogical oppositional episodes in the KF space were at the higher levels of argumentation, with some episodes growing in sophistication over time to reflect the intellectual progress made by pupils. It was also found that the conditions for facilitating pupils' productive disciplinary engagement included the use of fieldwork activities with teacher facilitation to set the stage for problematizing, the use of the KF platform with teacher-facilitated offline learning activities to hold pupils accountable to each other and to disciplinary norms, as well as the provision of a multiplicity of reading resources.
The value-add of combining two frameworks for analysis of the KF data, that of Engle and Conant's (2002) theoretical framework of productive disciplinary engagement and Weinberger and Fischer's (2006) multi-dimensional conceptual framework for CSCL-based argumentation, was in enabling the application of complementary analyses along different dimensions. The complementary analyses provided a more holistic evaluation of the collaborative value of pupils' dialogical argumentation in contributing to the classroom conversation. Parts of this exploratory study have been presented in international conferences such as ICLS and AERA (Foo & Looi, 2006; Foo & Looi, 2008; Foo & Looi, 2009).
The findings from this exploratory study revealed that the Primary 5 pupils were able to participate actively in the KF platform to advance their Science learning in productive and disciplinary ways. More than half of the dialogical oppositional episodes in the KF space were at the higher levels of argumentation, with some episodes growing in sophistication over time to reflect the intellectual progress made by pupils. It was also found that the conditions for facilitating pupils' productive disciplinary engagement included the use of fieldwork activities with teacher facilitation to set the stage for problematizing, the use of the KF platform with teacher-facilitated offline learning activities to hold pupils accountable to each other and to disciplinary norms, as well as the provision of a multiplicity of reading resources.
The value-add of combining two frameworks for analysis of the KF data, that of Engle and Conant's (2002) theoretical framework of productive disciplinary engagement and Weinberger and Fischer's (2006) multi-dimensional conceptual framework for CSCL-based argumentation, was in enabling the application of complementary analyses along different dimensions. The complementary analyses provided a more holistic evaluation of the collaborative value of pupils' dialogical argumentation in contributing to the classroom conversation. Parts of this exploratory study have been presented in international conferences such as ICLS and AERA (Foo & Looi, 2006; Foo & Looi, 2008; Foo & Looi, 2009).
Date Issued
2009
Call Number
Q183.4.S55 Foo
Date Submitted
2009