Student-Generated Questions in Inquiry Science: Connecting to Collaborative Argumentation

The National Research Council (NRC) released the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) that established a framework for three-dimensional learning, which includes science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. The first dimension of learning emphasizes scientific and engineering practices asserting that students should not only be familiar with scientific practices but also be able to successfully conduct an investigation utilizing the practices (NGSS Lead States, 2013). The science practices were included in the NGSS because knowing science content is not enough; students need to be able to use their understanding to investigate the natural world (NGSS Lead States, 2013). The expectation is that students not just know science content but can participate in science exploration and the many discourses of science. The scientific practices intentionally overlap one another and are interconnected; they do not operate in isolation (NGSS Lead States, 2013). However, little is known about how the scientific practices overlap, specifically how one scientific practice influences another. Studies often focus on students’ development or implementation of a single scientific practice such as developing and using models or engaging in argumentation. This dissertation study aimed to examine the relationship between questions posed and dialogical arguments constructed by students during collaborative work in small groups during a designed curricular unit titled Compost. The focus was on questions and dialogical arguments that arose naturally as students’ participated in a collaborative project-based inquiry science curriculum. The data from this study showed that students’ questions helped them to navigate the science content presented in the Compost curricular unit. Students’ questions directed student thinking by enabling them to share their prior knowledge, identify points of uncertainty, challenge each others’ ideas, as well as generate and occasionally sustain increasingly complex instances of argumentation.Doctor of Educatio