Investigating Deliberative Argumentation in Large-Lecture Biology

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Modern biology research rapidly generates new and complex expansive information. This flux of new knowledge makes it impossible to teach a complete body of knowledge to future biologists, much less to educate an informed public about biology. Instead, modern biology instruction increasingly emphasizes teaching of scientific practices, such as interpreting data and arguing from evidence. These topics have long been the purview of laboratory biology courses. However, embedding them into large introductory lecture courses has the potential to reach more students, especially those who enroll in the introductory courses to fulfill general education requirements and those taking their first science classes as they prepare to enter a STEM major. This project will develop approaches and measures to incorporate deliberative argumentation into large-lecture biology classes. Deliberative argumentation emphasizes collaborative approaches and active searches for alternative explanations, which are practices that are widely used by research scientists. Teaching students to take part in these practices lets them "think like a scientist" and encourages them to stick with science as a college major and to consider a career in a STEM field. Large introductory lecture courses often serve as gatekeeper courses, with high failure rates that discourage students from continuing in STEM majors. Even more troubling is that failure rates in these classes are often disproportionately high for underrepresented minority students. Incorporating deliberative argumentation into these classes is a strategy to help students develop a conceptual understanding of the topics that they study, which may in turn help students to earn better grades and pass the course, providing motivation to stick with a STEM major. Promoting practices in the classroom that improve the teaching and learning of science can help to retain students in STEM, which supports the national interest of developing an informed citizenry and building a larger scientific workforce.The goal of this three-year Exploration and Design project is to increase knowledge about how the rhetorical practices of scientists, specifically deliberative argumentation, can be implemented and leveraged for learning core concepts in large-lecture biology courses. Using Asterhan and Schwarz's argumentation-to-learn framework, the project will focus on individual characteristics of students (i.e. content knowledge and skills necessary to productively engage in argumentation), argumentation task design, and supports (i.e. teacher scaffolds and discourse instructions). The project is designed to determine how deliberative argumentation should be structured in large-lecture biology to support student learning by accomplishing four aims: 1) Optimize pre-class activities to support deliberative argumentation; 2) Refine and demonstrate feasibility of in-class argumentation activities; 3) Develop and validate measures of deliberative argumentation; and 4) Pilot argumentation activities in large-lecture introductory undergraduate biology courses. In doing so, the proposed research will lay the foundation for future efficacy and effectiveness studies by establishing the feasibility and potential of an argumentation-for-learning approach in large-lecture introductory biology. Project personnel will adopt a quasi-experimental design to identify effective pre-class activities for preparing students for argumentation (Aim #1). An iterative design-based research (DBR) approach will be used to test and refine the design of argumentation sessions for large-lecture biology (Aim #2). The project intends to develop and validate a measure of deliberative argumentation (Aim #3) to inform the iterative argumentation session design. Project efforts will conclude with a pilot study, which will apply a repeated measures experimental design to determine the potential impact of the argumentation intervention (Aim #4). The proposed research will broaden understanding about "what works" in creating student-centered undergraduate large-lecture biology courses. Specifically, the project will generate evidence regarding the efficacy of two pre-class activities in preparing students for active learning instruction and to identify key instructional supports for argumentation-to-learn. The study is designed to advance knowledge in the field of argumentation by creating a robust and replicable measure of deliberative argumentation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.