The effect of argumentative writing in science on conceptual understanding, understanding of NOS and self efficacy -

Abstract

The science curricula of the 21st century focus on providing students with the opportunity to become scientifically literate, to be able to engage in scientific explanations built on evidence, and to be able to apply their conceptual understanding of science while learning and communicating about everyday issues. In the Lebanese context, the medium of science instruction is a foreign second language. In the case of English as the second language, a three-language problem challenges science learners as they move from one community to another: Family, school, and science with three languages to use: Mother language or Arabic, language of instruction or English, and the language of science. This three-language problem prevents students from gaining the full benefit of experiencing inquiry, and negatively affects their engagement and achievement in science. Researchers have identified the evidence of enhanced conceptual learning gains when students are involved in writing tasks that demand from them an elaboration of their understanding and reasoning with rich scaffolding of their writing during inquiry. . In addition they have recognized the benefits for embedding language in science instruction and for the development of literacy skills like reading and writing which enhance the learner's verbal and cognitive abilities, and the learner's motivational variables like self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of scaffolding of students' writing of arguments through modeling and demonstration during inquiry on conceptual understanding, understating of NOS, and self-efficacy... Participants were students of two sections of grade 8, an experimental class and a comparison class, in a private school that follows the Lebanese curriculum. Students were guided through inquiry and scaffolding of their argumentative writing. The experimental class followed three phases of instruction and testing: 1) Scaffolding of argumentative writing during English arts classes with pre-testing of students' con