The relative impact of an argumentation-based instructional intervention programme on Grade 10 learners' conceptions of lightning and thunder

Abstract

The basic premise of this study was that when a learner is confronted with two contradictory explanations of the same phenomenon, there is cognitive dissonance in the learner as the learner tries to determine which of the two explanations is correct. An argumentation-based instructional intervention programme (ABIIP) was created for and used on and by the Grade 10 learners in order to attempt to ameliorate this cognitive conflict. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative impact of that intervention programme on Grade 10 learners' conceptions of lightning and thunder. The programme was designed to help learners to develop argumentative skills and use the acquired skills to negotiate and harmonise divergent and conflicting explanations of the nature of lightning and thunder that are propounded by different worldviews (Science and indigenous knowledge). The research design was primarily a case study of 16 Grade 10 learners of the Xhosa ethnic group at a high school in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The Xhosa people are a typical example of a people whose cultural values were undermined and whose voice was silenced by the colonisers and whose local knowledge has been repressed and replaced by forms of Western privileged knowledge and understandings but who remain, deeply and resolutely, steeped in their cultural values and practices, making them a classic example of a people who would battle to harmonise the indigenous and the scientific explanations of natural phenomena. The research instruments used were questionnaires which were administered to learners, ducators, community leaders, indigenous knowledge holders and experts to solicit information on causes, dangers and prevention of lightning; individual and group activities as learners went through the lessons on both argumentation and on lightning; follow up interviews and discussions with learners individually or in groups to seek further clarification of the ideas the learners would have raised in their earlier responses to questionnaires or group discussions; guided and reflective essays by the learners to determine the learners' levels of understanding of the major tenets of the two thought systems and the relationship between the two worldviews and to determine the qualitative gain, if any, that the learners got from the intervention programme; observation schedules used by the researcher during participant observation of group discussions and during the lessons on lightning; an achievement test on lightning; field notes used by the researcher for memoing observations and reflections as the research process proceeded; informal and serendipitous sources of information. The collected data were analysed, mostly, qualitatively. Frequencies, percentages and t-test values were used to express and analyse quantitative data. Aspects of several analytical frameworks that included Toulmin's Argumentation Pattern (TAP) [and its modified versions such as that of Leitao (2000) and that of Osborne et al (2004)] and Contiguity Argumentation Theory (CAT) were used to attach meaning to the collected data and to address the research questions. The major findings of this study were that while an argumentation-based instructional intervention programme has its challenges, it can help learners to develop satisfactory argumentative skills and to use these newly acquired skills to navigate and synchronise different and sometimes contradictory explanations of the nature of lightning and thunder. The results of the study showed that an ABllP can broaden, deepen and strengthen the learners' understanding of lightning. Specifically, the research showed the following: • Initially, the learners equated argumentation with yelling and quarrelling in order to win the argument. They did not bother or were unable to offer adequate or appropriate evidence to support their knowledge claims or to refute their opponents' argumentation. They were preoccupied with their own views, paying little, if any, attention to their opponents' opinions. With more debating activities their views gradually got transformed to the extent that they began to support their claims with valid evidence. Further, they challenged their opponents' arguments as well as required them to justify their claims. In the process, they started to collaborate with each other to build stronger arguments and to shift from one stance or claim to another in light of available evidence. • At the beginning of the intervention programme, the learners seemed to hero worship science; seeing it as the only legitimate way of explaining natural phenomena and as the panacea of humankind problems. At that time, indigenous knowledge was relegated by them to a belief system that did not have any meaningful role to play in today's modem life. However, the intervention programme seemed to help them to reexamine that earlier position. Besides, the learners developed a deeper and clearer understanding of the two worldviews as well as began to appreciate the importance and complimentary roles of these thought systems in explaining natural phenomena such as the nature of lightning and in their everyday lives. At the start of the intervention programme, learners did not think that indigenous explanations of the causes of lightning were valid and useful in any context. All their explanations of the causes of lightning although not always clear or scientifically valid, were nevertheless based on the scientific worldview. Finally, the majority of the learners seemed to accept that the nature of lightning could have more than one possible explanation and that these explanations could come from both the scientific worldview and the indigenous knowledge worldview. In view of the positive results emanating from the study there is need to support the implementation of the policy of integrating school science with indigenous knowledge using argumentation as an instructional tool. The study identified several challenges such as the learners' and educators' attitudes towards and expertise in IK and the required resources and support systems that the Department of Education must address or overcome if this policy on integration is to be implemented fully and effectively. Future research could explore the possible impact of an argumentation-based instructional intervention programme in other learning areas outside science education.