Regardless of which instructional strategy is chosen to facilitate the learning of argumentation, Cavagnetto and Hand (2012, p.39) claim that “Like inquiry, the effectiveness of argument is dependent on the goal of instruction.” Berland and Reiser (2009) identify three goals associated with argumentative practice that help one understand how explicit instruction and immersion work together. These are sensemaking, articulating, and persuasion. Sensemaking requires discipline-specific knowledge and relies on the understanding of content. Articulation demands skill in communication and rhetoric. Persuasion requires the argumentative practice have a social aspect connecting sensemaking to the learning community in which the process is taking place. Each of these goals are intertwined but also unique, particularly with respect to the level of their development found in an individual student. Highly developed sensemaking, for example, does not guarantee that an argument will be persuasive. Each of these goals identify a different aspect of argumentation that should be addressed during instruction through strategies and supports that are not necessarily the same but sometimes can be. For example, the goal of
sensemaking may be supported by teaching how to articulate argument components through direct instruction. Alternately, sensemaking can be developed in parallel with persuasion if learning is assumed to be appropriated socioculturally (Berland and Reiser, 2009) within an immersion activity.
Thomas Kuhn’s (1970) work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, initially published in 1962, was among the first to acknowledge the role the scientific community plays in establishing truth about the physical world. Sociocultural concepts such as those proposed by Kuhn and others point to scientific knowledge as being communally constructed (Newton, Driver, & Osborne, 1999). These ideas have deep and lasting influence on how philosophers of science and other academics view the nature of science (Sandoval & Millwood, 2015). The basic roles that scientists play during their social practice are those of creators and critiquers of claims (Ford and Forman, 2006). The interplay in which scientists engage, between representing the natural world through inherently uncertain claim-making and subsequent argumentation about those representations, is a fundamental aspect of science practice (Manz, 2015). Thus, it’s not surprising that persuasion is viewed as the ultimate goal of scientific argumentation (Berland & Reiser, 2009; Sandoval & Millwood, 2015), and why persuasion rather than performance may be the best frame through which students view argumentative practice (Berland & Hammer, 2012).
Berland and Reiser (2009) suggest that having persuasion as a goal benefits argument construction. They claim that there are two strategies a student can pursue in order to construct a written argument (of the type typically required on an AP Physics 1 exam). The first is when the reasoning made in the argument is intertwined with evidence. Although the argument may not contain incorrect elements, this construction can be confusing to the reader. The second is when the two are carefully distinguished so that a reader can easily identify them in the explanation.
Their research indicates that when the goal of persuasion is pursued, students are more likely to construct arguments of the second type. McNeill and Krajcik (2008) support this idea conversely, claiming that if explicit instruction on the components of an argument is done without emphasizing the purpose (goal) of the practice, argument construction becomes algorithmic and ineffective. Typical school science practice can be differentiated from authentic science practice for this reason, as sensemaking often assumes the lead role in school science whereas persuasion is paramount in actual science practice. Jimenez-Aleixandre, Rodriguez, & Duschl (2000, p. 759) use the phrase “doing the lesson” as opposed to “doing science” as a way to capture this distinction. They claim that to reason in a scientific way means having to defend the choices one makes though argumentation and that students should engage in persuasive argumentation, where the goal is to convince someone of your claim.
Alternatively, Manz (2015) discusses the importance of the distinction between published arguments made by scientists that are meant to persuade and the collaborative arguments made by practitioners along the way towards that goal. The former emphasizes disputative argumentation while the latter focuses on deliberative discussion. Persuasion is the primary goal in disputation. Arguments that are disputative defend claims that the scientist wants the world to see and is meant to have influence. But if one forgets about the process through which a published scientific article is based, deliberative argumentation, one “erases the historical and personal activity that supports it (Manz, 2015). Deliberative argumentation is more about sensemaking and may be the appropriate primary goal of school science. Manz (2015, p.569) promotes the development of a student “activity system” whose context provides students the opportunity to engage in deliberative discussions whose norms are clearly understood and where “productive uncertainty” can be resolved. Work currently underway by Andy Cavagnetto at Washington State University is
investigating the benefit of deliberative discussion in large biology course lectures (Cavagnetto, 2018, personal conversation).
All of these insights can play a role when instructors plan lessons meant to develop argumentation skill. The crucial question to ask is, “What is the goal of the instruction?” If sensemaking is primary, the instructional choices may be different than when persuasion is the top goal.