Agentive Use of Public Quantitative Data in Scientific Argumentation: A Case Study

• In Event: 66.086 - MTCC Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: 66.086-5 - Agency, Interests, and Identity

Abstract

This proposal explores students’ agentive use of quantitative data—specifically, their use of public data in individually motivated ways to support scientific argumentation. We report on a study conducted with a 7th grade science classroom at a public school on the U. S. West Coast exploring trophic cascades in Yellowstone National Park using public data sources. In this short proposal, we track one pair of students through the 5-day enactment and ask: Did students engage in agentive use of data as a source of evidence for argumentation? And, Did students’ agentive use of data become part of their final argument? We identify instructional supports and barriers that impacted students’ agentive use of data, with implications for teaching and curricular design.

Authors

• M. Lisette Lopez, University of California - Berkeley

• Vasiliki Laina, University of California-Berkeley

• Michelle Hoda Wilkerson, University of California - Berkeley