Exploring Argumentation in the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory

Abstract

Recent research emphasis has been placed on studying how students engage in scientific argumentative reasoning in the chemistry laboratory setting. Although several studies have evaluated the quality and characterized the structure of student arguments following the claims, evidence, and rationale (CER) framework, little is known about the influence of various laboratory factors on student reasoning. In this study, we seek to better understand what factors affect student argumentation in laboratories and how these factors foster or hinder students’ integration of core chemistry concepts and laboratory data. We have identified several factors associated with students’ laboratory experiences and aim to gain additional insight by exploring how students’ use of specific chemical data in various types of experiments impacts both the nature and quality of their post-lab arguments. Ultimately, this work highlights the need for explicit consideration of these factors in designing opportunities for undergraduate chemistry laboratory students to engage in productive argumentation from evidence. In the first part of this project, we analyzed the arguments generated by college organic chemistry students working on a substitution reaction experiment that was framed in two distinct ways: predict-verify and observe-infer. The arguments constructed by students in their post-laboratory reports under each laboratory frame were characterized by paying attention to both domain-specific and domain-general features. Our analysis revealed significant differences in the chemical concepts and ideas that students under the two conditions invoked, as well as in the level of integration, specificity, alignment, and type of reasoning observed within and across different argument components. Our findings highlight the importance of paying attention to how experiments are framed in terms of the goals, procedures, information, and tools available to students as these decisions can have a major impact on the nature of the claims students make, their use of evidence, and the approach to reasoning that they follow. Building on our previous work involving activity framing, the second part of this project involved the analysis of student arguments produced following eight experiments that comprise the first semester of a college organic chemistry laboratory to identify other factors that may significantly affect the nature and quality of student argumentation in undergraduate organic chemistry labs. Our analysis revealed no trends on the effect of experiment order or general type on the quality of student arguments; however, the amount and types of data sources as well as the level of scaffolding provided both had an impact on student argument quality. Although the undergraduate laboratory offers a ripe opportunity for students to engage in argument from evidence, laboratory activity involves a complex web of components each with the potential to affect productive and quality sensemaking. Our findings highlight the importance of explicit consideration of various laboratory factors and their impact on how students express their chemical reasoning through written argumentation.