Argumentation in University Chemistry Education: A Case Study of Practical Investigations from Activity Theory Perspective

Abstract

Argumentation has attracted attentions in science education for over two decades. In particular, argumentation has been recognized for its key role in linking theory and evidence. Meanwhile, tertiary chemistry students have widely acknowledged their challenges in coordinating theoretical knowledge presented in lectures and empirical data gathered through experimentation in laboratory contexts. Therefore, I proposed to explore argumentation, in a specific context, on a chemistry practical course in the university. Moreover, taken the complex learning environment into consideration, this study has employed activity theory as a theoretical framework to reveal the role of argumentation in the second year chemistry practical course in one university in the UK. The data were collected from different sources (including the students, the demonstrators, and the academic tutors) by various methods (such as individual interviews, observations, and the students’ experiment reports). Argumentation has been regarded as a necessary scientific skill to acquire instead of being a tool for learning. This has been advocated by the researchers and educators. Moreover, the different features of students’ oral arguments in the laboratory and written arguments in their experiment reports have been an implicit and explicit instructional context for these two tasks.