An analysis of pre-service teachers‘ ability to use a dialogical argumentation instructional model to solve mathematical problems in physics

Abstract

This study chronicles a teacher training education programme. The findings emerged from the observation of argumentation skills employed by students in a physical science education classroom for pre-service high school teachers. Their task was to use the nature of arguments to solve mathematical problems of mechanics in a physics classroom. Forty first-year students were examined on how they used a dialogical argumentation instructional model (DAIM) based on Toulmin‘s (1958/2003) Argument Pattern (TAP), Downing‘s (2007) Analytical Model (DAM) and Ogunniyi‘s (2007a & b) Contiguity Argumentation Theory (CAT) to solve mathematical problems in physics. Thus efforts to judge the pre-service teachers‘ capability to solve mathematical problems in physics with respect to mechanics were compounded by the demand for the inclusion of a self-efficacy framework. According to Bandura (2006) self-efficacy is the judgment of capability. Self-efficacy plays a key role in human functioning in that it affects not only people‘s behaviour but other issues such as goals and aspirations, outcome expectations, affective proclivities and perception of impediments and opportunities in the social environment (Bandura, 1995, 1997 & 2006). The pre-service teachers involved in the study received training and feedback on how to construct scientific reasoning and to express proficiency in advancing solutions to problems. They also received training and feedback in critiquing and justifying claims that connect the use of math-in-physics. The pre-service teachers were divided into small groups compatible with those in the dialogical argumentation instructional model (DAIM). After training in small groups, each group received tasks that required the transfer of skills to new math-in-physics problems. These required a different form of argumentation. It was hoped this would reveal how this process affects their self-efficacy. The process was repeated for a period of six months during which further training was provided.