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Fostering Relational Reasoning and Scientific Understanding Through Quality Talk Discourse

Sun, April 10, 8:15 to 9:45am, Convention Center, Floor: Level One, Room 144 B

Abstract

Objectives
The challenges of 21st century citizenship demand that individuals achieve scientific literacy, understanding not just the what of scientific knowledge, but also why and how science operates (National Research Council, 2012). Unfortunately, many students struggle to achieve deep conceptual scientific understanding (Chi, 2005), particularly in purely didactic environments. One of the ways researchers and educators are addressing this is by integrating discourse models into science classrooms to promote students’ high-level comprehension (Kittleson & Southerland, 2004) and science literacy (Reveles, Cordova, & Kelly, 2004). More research is needed to understand how to foster productive discourse that leads to critical-analytic thinking (Reznitskaya et al., 2008).
Certain kinds of discourse are hypothesized to better foster scientific literacy. In particular, there is evidence that many of the various forms of relational reasoning identified by Alexander and colleagues (2015; analogical, anomalous, antinomous, antithetical) predict achievement in science (Broughton, Sinatra, & Reynolds, 2010; Chinn & Malhotra, 2002; Chinn & Samarapunga, 2009; Slotta & Chi, 2006). Yet, to our knowledge there is no research on how students’ relational reasoning in discourse relates to written scientific argumentation. By implementing a model of discussion, Quality Talk (QT), into high school physics and chemistry classrooms and capturing both small-group discourse and individual written argumentation data, this research sheds light on the association between these two critical components of scientific literacy and their malleability.
Framework
QT is a teacher-implemented, small-group discourse model that provides direct instruction to students on scientific argumentation and critical-analytic thinking (Murphy, Wilkinson, & Soter, 2011). It is derived from cognitive, sociocognitive, sociocultural, and dialogic perspectives. QT also emphasizes teachers’ gradual release of responsibility of the discourse to students. In essence, QT provides an instructional frame that fosters students’ scientific literacy; thus, we would expect that participation in QT would also have a positive influence on students’ relational reasoning.

Methods and Data
A full description of QT and its effects upon discourse and written argumentation will be presented in the full paper. In brief, four high-school physics and chemistry teachers implemented QT in their classrooms throughout the academic year. Researchers provided ongoing teacher professional development, as well as QT science lessons that aligned with teachers’ curricula. We collected student discourse and written argumentation data at six times. At each time, students reviewed readings on the QT science lesson, discussed them in small groups, and then individually completed a written argumentation assessment.

Results
Analyses of students’ written arguments (i.e., claims, evidence, and scientific reasoning) showed a statistically and practically significant increase in performance over time (p < .001, w2 = .646). Transcripts of the discourse at those times were coded to identify instances of relational reasoning. In the full paper, we will present in depth analyses of student discourse (see Table 2 for examples) to describe how students’ relational reasoning changed over time and how it tracked with their written argumentation performance.

Significance
These findings have implications regarding the use of classroom discourse models, such as QT, to foster such reasoning and science literacy in high school classrooms.

Authors