Best Practices for Argument-Driven Inquiry with Formative Assessment Techniques to Development Grade 7 Students’ Scientific Reasoning in Thermal Energy Topic

Abstract

The purpose of this classroom action research is to develop the level of scientific reasoning ability and find out good practices in Argument-Driven Inquiry with Formative Assessment Techniques. The participants were a classroom of grad 7 students (N=29). Data were gathered by using the scientific reasoning test, teacher’s reflective journal, student worksheets and student’s reflective journal. The content analysis was employed for tracking the students’ scientific reasoning ability. Inductive analysis was used for eliciting good teaching practices. The results indicate that students have a steadily increasing development of scientific reasoning at a high level. Specifically, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning, but it has not been able to develop Abductive reasoning and Retroductive reasoning as well as it should. It was found that some students did not change their level of scientific reasoning ability, especially Abductive reasoning and Retroductive reasoning. The research study revealed good practices in this teaching approach that included: 1) Examples of situations used in learning should be common in everyday life and interesting 2) Choose interesting materials, equipment and experiments 3) Students should be given the opportunity to analyze data individually before starting group work to check students’ understanding, the important characteristic of Formative Assessment Techniques is the focus is on encouraging students to compare their old beliefs with their new ones, this will help stimulate reasoned argumentation, promote students’ scientific reasoning and enhance their learning and 4) Such a learning management model is an approach that allows students to choose the right evidence for scientific reasoning.