Investigation of Scientific Argumentation in the Classes for Elementary Gifted Students

초등 단위 학교 영재 수업에서 나타나는 과학적 논증 과정에 대한 탐색

This study was to analyze the characteristic of scientific argumentation in the classes for the gifted of elementary school. The participants of this study were 5 fifth graders and 9 sixth graders, 14 in total, from the basic unit schools for gifted students of J elementary school in Incheon city. And it constituted small scale groups made up of 2~3 students with similar or identical ability in scientific reasoning. It had set up hypothesis for each group before the experiment, and students had a group discussion as a whole after the experiment. Classes were conducted 4 times, all courses were recorded as a sound/video. The ability in scientific reasoning of the students was inspected, making use of SRT II by means of pre-survey, and their argumentation levels were analyzed, utilizing 'Rubric for scientific argumentation course assessment.' As a result, argumentations did not incurred in every class. Analysis in argumentations of the students resulted in low level argumentation. This means argumentation cannot incur based on that with the limit in understanding the principle of experiments over the threshold of textbook no matter that he is an gifted student or not. The student both in formal operational period and transition period (2B/3A), the ability of scientific thinking in upper level, was improved of his argumentative ability in an overall aspect. However, a student of concrete operational period, the ability of scientific thinking in lower level, had argumentation with still lower level even after the experiment at the moment of discussing with the students on the upper level of scientific thinking ability.