Exploring manifestation of critical thinking skills and dispositions on argument and counter argument development about a socioscientific issue

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how divergent critical thinking skills and dispositions of middle school students reflect themselves on argument development and counter argument development about a socioscientific issue which is determined as plastics use. This study utilized the instrumental multi case approach within qualitative research methodology. A total of 19 seventh grade students from a private school in Istanbul participated in this study during the 2020-2021 education year. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) was used to measure critical thinking skills, and the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) was applied to determine critical thinking dispositions of the participants. In order to form homogeneous divergent multiple cases, sub sample of 6 students were selected: 3 students as having high level of critical thinking skills and dispositions (Group 1), and 3 students as having low level of critical thinking skills and dispositions (Group 2). One-on-one interviews were held with the students in both groups, and they developed arguments by reading the plastic usage text prepared by the researcher and filling out the form consisting of open-ended questions. In the same interviews, the text containing the argument against the student's claim about the use of plastics from the argument texts previously prepared by the researcher was presented to the student. Similarly, the form prepared to develop counter-arguments and containing open-ended questions was filled in by the students. In both processes, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the students to enable them to verbally explain the developed argument and counter-argument. During the data analysis process, the written and oral arguments of the students were transferred to the digital platform and the developed arguments and counter arguments were coded as data, warrant, backing and rebuttal in the Toulmin Argumentation Model. These sub-dimensions determined in the arguments and counter arguments were scored based on the rubric prepared by the researcher and they were analyzed analytically. The results showed that there is no major differences between the groups in terms of developing argument and counter-argument. According to the results obtained from analytic analysis showed that there are differences between the groups in terms of changing the claims or showing this tendency, using data from different sources, using the backing sub-dimension in the arguments related to claim, and evaluating alternative material instead of plastics.