The purpose of this study was to investigate the shift of Thai teachers' views of learning and their pedagogical practices from the traditional approach to be more centered on an argument-based inquiry approach (ABI) in Thai classrooms, where teachers and learners have long been familiar with the lecture-based tradition. Other than examining the changes, the study further explored the relationship throughout the ABI implementation phase with a specific focus on driving questions, problem solving and reasoning, and establishing a supportive learning environment. The study was conducted in Thailand with five physics teachers. Data collection involved classroom observations and teacher interviews. The constant comparative method was employed throughout the data analysis process. The research questions that guided this study were: (1) What changes occurred in teachers' pedagogical practices and views of learning throughout the implementation phase of the argument-based inquiry approach? (2) If change did occur, what was the relationship of the change among the observed criteria (questioning, problem solving, and the establishing of a supportive learning environment)? The results revealed that after fourteen weeks, the three teachers who expressed a positive attitude toward the ABI approach and expressed their willingness to practice started to shift their practices and views of learning toward a student-centered model. Although each teacher exhibited a different starting point within the three observed criteria, they all began to shift their practices first, before reflecting on their beliefs. In contrast to these teachers, the other two teachers were impeded by several barriers and therefore failed to implement the approach. These positive attitude, willingness, and shift of practice appear to be connected and necessary for change. The study highlights that in order to support the implementation of the ABI approach, especially in a large class size cultural setting, opportunities for teachers to be challenged in both classroom and cognitive spaces, where they are immersed in authentic practices and be able to reflect on their own actions as well as their existing beliefs, are crucial. However, to advance the dimensions of this issue, long-term professional development and a longitudinal study observing a large class size cultural settings are suggested.

This study was designed to examine the effect of Science Writing Heuristic Approach on Students’ Learning of Multimodal Representations across 4th Grade to 8the Grade Levels. Multimodal representations in the forms of figures, tables, pictures, and charts are part of scientific language. A quasi-experimental design with control and treatment group of classes was used. Students completed the summary writing task by including multimodal representations in the both control and treatment classes. The students’ writing samples were evaluated with four measures of multimodal categories, including sign, functional, conceptual and embeddedness structures. To examine the differences of treatment and control groups and the effect of age, the Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis was used in this study. The HLM provides an opportunity to use statistical models that account for nesting of the data. Analysis of quantitative data indicated that the treatment classes significantly outperformed than the control classes on four measures of categories. Age also was a significant contributor to students’ learning of multimodal representations. Three key points emerged from the results. Firstly, the SWH approach had positive effects on students’ understanding of the multimodal representations. Secondly, the impact of the age was different for each category. Thirdly, the categories were used in this study had significant potential when exploring the students learning of multimodal representations. The study indicated some practical benefits that the strategy of promoting argumentative scientific language effectively was resulted in better communication, understanding of the topic with multimodal representations, and some transferring impacts of all these with the summary writing activities.

Critical Thinking has been identified in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as skills needed to prepare students for advanced education and the future workforce. In science education, argument-based inquiry (ABI) has been proposed as one way to improve critical thinking. The purpose of the current study was to examine the possible effects of the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach, an immersion argument-based inquiry approach to learning science, on students' critical thinking skills. Guided by a question-claims-evidence structure, students who participated in SWH approach were required to negotiate meaning and construct arguments using writing as a tool throughout the scientific investigation process. Students in the control groups learned science in traditional classroom settings. Data from five data sets that included 4417 students were analyzed cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Yearly critical thinking gain scores, as measured by Form X of Cornell Critical Thinking Test, were compared for students who experienced the SWH approach versus students who experienced traditional instruction in both elementary (5th grade) and secondary schools (6th-8th grades). Analyses of yearly gain scores for data sets that represented a single year of implementation yielded statistically significant differences favoring SWH over traditional instruction in all instances and statistically significant interactions between gender and grade level in most instances. The interactions revealed that females had higher gain scores than males at lower grade levels but the reverse was true at higher grade levels. Analyses from data sets that included two years of implementation revealed higher overall gains for SWH instruction than for traditional instruction but most of those gains were achieved during the first year of implementation. Implications of these results for teaching critical thinking skills in science classrooms are discussed in detail.

The purpose of this study was to examine the patterns of dialogue that were established and emerged in one experienced fifth-grade science teacher's classroom that used the argument-based inquiry (ABI) and the ways in which these patterns of dialogue and consensus-making were used toward the establishment of a grasp of science practice. Most current studies on ABI agree that it does not come naturally and is only acquired through practice. Additionally, the quality of dialogue is also understood to be an important link in support of student learning. Few studies have examined the ways in which a teacher develops whole-class dialogue over time and the ways in which patterns of dialogue shift over time. The research questions that guided this study were: (1) What were the initial whole-class dialogue patterns established by a fifth-grade science teacher who engaged in ABI? (2) How did the science teacher help to refine whole-class dialogue to support the agreeability of ideas constructed over time? This eighteen week study that took place in a small city of less than 15,000 in Midwestern United States was grounded in interactive constructivism, and utilized a qualitative design method to identify the ways in which an experienced fifth-grade science teacher developed whole-class dialogue and used consensus-making activities to develop the practice of ABI with his students. The teacher in this study used the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach to ABI with twenty-one students who had no previous experience engaging in ABI. This teacher with 10 of years teaching experience was purposefully selected because he was proficient and experienced in practicing ABI. Multiple sources of data were collected, including classroom video with transcriptions, semi-structured interviews, after lesson conversations, and researcher's field notes. Data analysis used a basic qualitative approach. The results showed (1) that the teacher principally engaged in three forms of whole-class dialogue with students; talking to, talking with, and thinking through ideas with students. As time went on, the teacher's interactions in whole-class dialogue became increasingly focused on thinking through ideas with students, while at the same time students also dialogued more as each unit progressed. (2) This teacher persistently engaged with students in consensus-making activities during whole-class dialogue.These efforts toward consensus-making over time became part of the students' own as each unit progressed. (3) The classroom did not engage in critique and construction of knowledge necessarily like the community of science but rather used agreeing and disagreeing and explaining why through purposeful dialogic interactions to construct a grasp of science classroom practice. The findings have informed theory and practice about science argumentation, the practice of whole-class dialogue, and grasp of science practice along four aspects: (1) patterns of dialogue within a unit of instruction and across units of instruction, (2) the teacher's ability to follow and develop students' ideas, (3) the role of early and persistent opportunities to engage novice students in consensus-making, and (4) the meaning of grasp of science practice in classroom. This study provides insight into the importance of prolonged and persistent engagement with ABI in classroom practice.

The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal impacts of the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach on student science achievement measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). A number of studies have reported positive impact of an inquiry-based instruction on student achievement, critical thinking skills, reasoning skills, attitude toward science, etc. So far, studies have focused on exploring how an intervention affects student achievement using teacher/researcher-generated measurement. Only a few studies have attempted to explore the long-term impacts of an intervention on student science achievement measured by standardized tests. The students' science and reading ITBS data was collected from 2000 to 2011 from a school district which had adopted the SWH approach as the main approach in science classrooms since 2002. The data consisted of 12,350 data points from 3,039 students. The multilevel model for change with discontinuity in elevation and slope technique was used to analyze changes in student science achievement growth trajectories prior and after adopting the SWH approach. The results showed that the SWH approach positively impacted students by initially raising science achievement scores. The initial impact was maintained and gradually increased when students were continuously exposed to the SWH approach. Disadvantaged students who were at risk of having low science achievement had bigger benefits from experience with the SWH approach. As a result, existing problematic achievement gaps were narrowed down. Moreover, students who started experience with the SWH approach as early as elementary school seemed to have better science achievement growth compared to students who started experiencing with the SWH approach only in high school. The results found in this study not only confirmed the positive impacts of the SWH approach on student achievement, but also demonstrated additive impacts found when students had longitudinal experiences with the approach. By engaging in the argument-based classrooms where teachers value students' prior knowledge, encourage students to take control of their learning, and provide non-threatening environment for students to developing big ideas through negotiation, student's achievement can be enhanced. The results also started to shed some light on sustainability of the SWH approach within the school district.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of an immersive argument based learning environment on students’ multimodal competencies. The objective was to study the impact on students learning as they engage in an ABI classroom, centered on the SWH approach, when compared to students in traditional classrooms. Summary writing samples were collected and coded for informational text features which allowed us to understand cohesion with the learners. Additionally, we were able to study these impacts longitudinally, measuring teacher experience and student exposure to this learning environment. Studies of this nature have been done but only with upper grades, never had it been done with early learners, kindergarten through second grade. These summary writing samples were collected and analyzed in two different groups, the first containing 601 samples and the second 760 samples. A factor analysis was performed to examine the internal structure of the features, resulting in the creation of 3 factors: illustrations, text signals and organizers, and graphics. This allowed us to measure acceleration of the learners multimodal skills and the cohesion related to experience, both of classroom and teacher experience. The results of this study have shown that we are able to significantly impact students rate of usage of informational text features by altering the learning environment. We are able to demonstrate significant rates of growth in usage of higher order skills and cohesion amongst science concepts. This is important as we look to find ways to close achievement gaps, increase interest in science, and help students become more effective learners. The results show great promise for immersive ABI as a means to engage young learners in rigorous, valuable learning experiences.

The purpose of this study was to examine students' understanding of argumentation when talk and writing were provided as learning tools, as well as to explore how talk and writing can best support students' construction of scientific knowledge. Most current studies have examined discourse patterns over a short interval of only a few class periods or compared only the students' initial and final products to assess the quality of their argument structure. Few studies have examined how students develop their understanding of argumentation over time and how their understanding might result in overcoming those challenges. Moreover, talk and writing have been offered as two critical learning tools to support students' argumentative practice. So far, few studies have explored how those two learning tools could be combined to better support students in constructing scientific knowledge. The research questions that guided this study were: (1) How do students develop an understanding of the components of argumentation for public negotiations over time when participating in an argument-based inquiry classroom? (2) In what ways do talk and writing support scientific knowledge construction in an argument-based inquiry classroom? This sixteen-week study was grounded in interactive constructivism and utilized qualitative design to identify students' understanding of argumentation, trace their learning trajectories, examine potential use of the combination of talk and writing, and analyze the cognitive processes involved when talk and writing were used as learning tools. Due to the lack of studies that focus on the elementary level, this study was conducted in a fifth-grade classroom that used the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach with 22 students participating. Six students were selected for interviewing intensively. Multiple sources of data were collected, including classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, students' writing samples, and the researcher's field notes. To strengthen the interpretations, data analysis was conducted using three different approaches: (1) the constant comparative method, (2) the enumerative approach, and (3) in-depth analysis of knowledge construction trajectory (KCT) episodes. The results showed that as fifth-grade students had more opportunities to practice, they could develop a more sophisticated understanding of argumentation, use talk and writing as learning tools to negotiate their ideas with peers, engage in more complex cognitive processes, and take ownership for their learning in science. Three major findings are discussed: (1) increased understanding of argumentative components in public negotiations, (2) increased ability to craft written arguments, and (3) five patterns in the use of talk and writing for knowledge construction and cognitive processes. The findings have informed theories about argumentative practice, the use of language as a learning tool, and science learning from six aspects: (1) understanding of argumentation, (2) ability to craft written arguments, (3) use of talk and writing, (4) cognitive processes, (5) meaning of negotiation, and (6) methodology consideration. This study provides insights into the design of an argument-based environment in which students can develop successful argumentative practices. A long-term professional development program in the support of teachers implementing argument-based inquiry is suggested.