Abstract

Peer argumentation, especially the discussion of contrary points of view, has experimentally been found to be effective in promoting science content knowledge, but how this occurs is still unknown. The available explanations are insufficient because they do not account for the evidence showing that gains in content knowledge are unrelated to group outcomes and are still evident weeks after collaboration occurs. The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between peer-group argumentation and science content knowledge learning. A total of 187 students (aged 10 to 11 years) from 8 classrooms participated in the study, with the classrooms spread across 8 public schools, all located in Santiago, Chile. We conducted a quasi-experimental study randomized at school-class level. Four teachers delivered science lessons following a teaching program especially developed to foster dialogic and argumentative classroom talk (the intervention group), and four teachers delivered lessons in their usual way (the control group). Students were assessed individually using both immediate and delayed post-test measures of science content knowledge. The results showed no differences in pre- to post-immediate content knowledge between conditions. However, the intervention-group students increased their content knowledge significantly more than the control-group students between post-immediate and post-delayed tests. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that, after controlling for school-level variables, time working in groups, and scores in the pretest, the formulation of counter arguments, although occurring in both groups, significantly predicted delayed gains in the intervention group only. Moreover, the frequency of counterarguments heard by students during the group work did not make a difference. Focal analysis of one small-group work suggests that teachers’ instructional practice may have contributed to the consolidation of students’ knowledge at an individual level in a post-collaborative phase.

摘要

同行论证，尤其是相反观点的讨论，在实验上被发现可以有效地促进科学知识的普及，但是如何实现这一点仍是未知的。可用的解释是不够的，因为它们没有解释证据表明内容知识的获得与小组成果无关，并且在合作发生后的数周内仍然很明显。本文的目的是促进对同龄人小组论证与科学内容知识学习之间关系的理解。来自8个教室的187名学生（年龄在10至11岁之间）参加了研究，教室分布在智利圣地亚哥的8所公立学校。我们进行了一项准实验研究，该研究在学校课堂水平上随机进行。四位老师按照专门为促进对话和辩论式课堂讨论而开发的教学计划（干预组）讲授了科学课，四名老师以通常的方式讲授了课程（对照组）。使用立即和延迟的科学内容知识测验对学生进行单独评估。结果表明，条件之间即时到即时的内容知识没有差异。但是，干预组的学生在立即测试和延迟测试之间增加的内容知识明显多于对照组的学生。分层多元回归分析显示，在控制了学校水平的变量，分组工作的时间以及预测的分数之后，尽管两组都发生了反论点的形成，仅在干预组中显着预测延迟的获益。而且，学生在小组工作中听到反对意见的频率没有影响。对一项小组工作的重点分析表明，在合作后阶段，教师的教学实践可能有助于巩固个人知识。