Exploring the effects of the Dialogical Argumentation and Assessment for Learning Instructional Model (DAAFLIM) on Grade 12 learners' comprehension of DNA and its applications

Abstract

This study explored the effects of the Dialogical Argumentation and Assessment for Learning Instructional Model (DAAFILM) on Grade 12 learners' comprehension of DNA and its applications. Two groups of learners from poor black disadvantged two township schools in the Metro Central and Metro South Districts of the Western Cape were used as samples for the study. The DAAFLIM was implemented for the Experimental group, but traditional lecture-based methods were used for the Control group. No DAAFLIM was used for the Control group. The research is underpinned by socio-cultural constructivism, a framework developed by Lev Vygotsky, a post-revolutionary Soviet psychologist. The study employed mixed research methods within a pragmatist research paradigm. Data collection techniques included questionnaires, pre-intervention tests, and multiple post-intervention assessments, such as the Life Sciences Achievement Test (LSAT), Context Test (COT), Cloze Test (CLT), Picture Test (PIT) and Science Vocabulary Test (SVT), and focus-group interviews with learners. Thus, the data collected through various strategies were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively, in line with the pragmatist tradition. The results of this study indicate that learners from both the Experimental and Control groups, who participated in the intervention, held partially informed or uninformed views about DNA and its applications. The study also revealed that girls seemed to have more nuanced conceptions about DNA and its applications than boys. The effectiveness of the DAAFLIM intervention could only be empirically demonstrated in the data obtained from the Science Vocabulary Test (SVT), where the Experimental group performed better than the Control group. This instrument provided learners with the opportunity to share their knowledge of the Nature of Indigenous Knowledge (NOIK) in their mother tongue. The other instruments did not show much difference between the Experimental and Control groups. There are two possible reasons for this: (a) either the instruments used were not sensitive enough, or (b) the intervention was too short to result in meaningful learning.