Exploring Students' Metacognition in the Context of Argumentation (Mc-A) in an Elementary Science Classroom

• Author / Creator

  Jin, Qingna

• The importance of students’ metacognition for their argumentation in science classrooms has been theoretically proposed and widely accepted in the literature. Yet, limited research, especially empirical research, has explored students’ metacognition in the context of classroom scientific argumentation. This research seeks to fill this gap by exploring students’ metacognition in the context of argumentation (Mc-A). This four-month qualitative case study was conducted in a grade 5/6 science classroom in Canada. Eighteen students and one science teacher participated in this study. To engage students in argumentative practices and stimulate their metacognitive experiences, argument-focused metacognitive scaffolds were integrated into the classroom instruction throughout the research period. Two main kinds of scaffolds were implemented by the teacher: questioning and prompting students’ thinking during argumentation, and teacher modelling of thinking related to argumentation. With the aim to explore students’ Mc-A, this study investigated (1) how students’ Mc-A was involved in their argumentative practices in the science classroom, and (2) how the manifestation of students’ Mc-A was related to classroom interactions. Multiple methods for data collection were employed, including observation, interviews, and collecting students’ writings. Qualitative data analysis revealed that students’ Mc-A was involved in their argument construction, argument evaluation, and argumentative dialogue and affected their decision making regarding what and how they would think and do during the processes. It was also found that the manifestation of students’ Mc-A was related to their interactions with the teacher, their peers, and the researcher. These findings add to the field’s understanding of elementary students’ scientific argumentation and the relation between metacognition and argumentation, and suggest pedagogical ways to prompt students’ scientific argumentation and metacognition.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Scientific Argumentation
  • Elementary Science
  • Science Education
  • Metacognition

• Graduation date

  Fall 2019

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-84p2-y386

• License

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