High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?

The aim of this research was to explore Australian high‐school students’ argumentation and informal reasoning about biotechnology. Data were obtained from semi‐structured interviews with 10 Year‐8 students (12–13 years old), 14 Year‐10 students (14–15 years old) and 6 Year‐12 students (16–17 years o...

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Main Authors: Dawson, Vaille, Venville, G.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Routledge 2009
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/5650
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author Dawson, Vaille
Venville, G.
author_facet Dawson, Vaille
Venville, G.
author_sort Dawson, Vaille
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The aim of this research was to explore Australian high‐school students’ argumentation and informal reasoning about biotechnology. Data were obtained from semi‐structured interviews with 10 Year‐8 students (12–13 years old), 14 Year‐10 students (14–15 years old) and 6 Year‐12 students (16–17 years old) from six metropolitan high schools in Perth, Western Australia. The transcripts were analysed using both Toulmin’s argumentation pattern and informal reasoning patterns (rational, emotive, and intuitive) as frameworks. The notion of scientific literacy was used as the basis of the theoretical framework to examine the data. Most students used no data or only simple data to justify their claims. Students of all year groups used intuitive and emotive informal reasoning more frequently than rational. Rational informal reasoning was associated with more sophisticated arguments.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2009
publisher Routledge
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-56502017-09-13T14:43:27Z High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy? Dawson, Vaille Venville, G. The aim of this research was to explore Australian high‐school students’ argumentation and informal reasoning about biotechnology. Data were obtained from semi‐structured interviews with 10 Year‐8 students (12–13 years old), 14 Year‐10 students (14–15 years old) and 6 Year‐12 students (16–17 years old) from six metropolitan high schools in Perth, Western Australia. The transcripts were analysed using both Toulmin’s argumentation pattern and informal reasoning patterns (rational, emotive, and intuitive) as frameworks. The notion of scientific literacy was used as the basis of the theoretical framework to examine the data. Most students used no data or only simple data to justify their claims. Students of all year groups used intuitive and emotive informal reasoning more frequently than rational. Rational informal reasoning was associated with more sophisticated arguments. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/5650 10.1080/09500690801992870 Routledge restricted
spellingShingle Dawson, Vaille
Venville, G.
High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?
title High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?
title_full High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?
title_fullStr High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?
title_full_unstemmed High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?
title_short High-school Students' Informal Reasoning and Argumentation about Biotechnology: An indicator of scientific literacy?
title_sort high-school students' informal reasoning and argumentation about biotechnology: an indicator of scientific literacy?
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/5650