using concept cartoons in formative assessment: scaffolding students’ argumentation

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Using Concept Cartoons in FormativeAssessment: Scaffolding students’argumentationChristine Chin a & Lay‐Yen Teou b

a Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group,National Institute of Education , Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity , Singaporeb Punggol Primary School , SingaporePublished online: 01 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: Christine Chin & Lay‐Yen Teou (2009) Using Concept Cartoons in FormativeAssessment: Scaffolding students’ argumentation, International Journal of Science Education,31:10, 1307-1332, DOI: 10.1080/09500690801953179

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International Journal of Science EducationVol. 31, No. 10, 1 July 2009, pp. 1307–1332

ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/09/101307–26© 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09500690801953179

RESEARCH REPORT

Using Concept Cartoons in Formative Assessment: Scaffolding students’ argumentation

Christine China* and Lay-Yen TeoubaNatural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; bPunggol Primary School, SingaporeTaylor and Francis LtdTSED_A_295483.sgm10.1080/09500690801953179International Journal of Science Education0950-0693 (print)/1464-5289 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & [email protected]

The purpose of this study was to investigate how concept cartoons, together with other diagnosticand scaffolding tools, could be used in formative assessment, to stimulate talk and argumentationamong students in small groups, as part of peer-assessment and self-assessment; and to providediagnostic feedback about students’ misconceptions to the teacher for teaching towards conceptualchange. Two classes of Primary 5 and 6 students worked in small groups to discuss the opposingviewpoints posed by the cartoon characters, using scaffolding tools to guide their discussions andto evaluate, challenge, and document each others’ ideas. Students also used drawings to depicttheir ideas. The conversation from one group was audio-taped. These tools provided a record ofstudents’ thinking in a form that was accessible to the teacher for monitoring and feedbackpurposes. Findings showed dialogic talk and interactive argumentation among students where theymade their reasoning visible. Students’ assertions and questions had formative potential as theyencouraged exploratory and reflective discourse by drawing upon each others’ ideas. The teacher’sdiscursive practices, as well as her role in designing scaffolding structures for supporting ‘assess-ment conversations’ when using concept cartoons and in devising strategies that take into accountstudents’ conceptual and epistemic thinking, are emphasised.

Introduction

Students come to science classes with a number of misconceptions in various topics.To elicit these misconceptions, a number of techniques have been used. Whilesurveys and interviews are used mainly by researchers; concept mapping, students’written work, drawings, and discussions are more practical for teachers in everyday

*Corresponding author. Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group, National Insti-tute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616,Singapore. Email: [email protected]

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1308 C. Chin and L. -Y. Teou

classroom settings. One technique that offers much potential for use by teachers inthe classroom is concept cartoons (Keogh & Naylor, 1997; Naylor & Keogh, 2000).

Concept cartoons can engage students in focused discussion when they talk aboutthe concepts presented by the cartoon characters. This can engender debate and argu-mentation among students, particularly if they have opposing ideas and do not agreewith each other’s viewpoints. Hence, the use of concept cartoons offers much promisein formative assessment as it allows teachers not only to obtain feedback aboutstudents’ thinking but also to address any misconceptions that their students mayhave. Furthermore, in the course of debating their ideas, students have the opportu-nity to engage in interactive, dialogic talk in a group setting where they articulate theirthoughts, question each other, generate claims, propose explanations, and justify theirreasoning. This kind of discourse, which involves argumentation, has been advocatedby a number of science educators (e.g., Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Newton,Driver, & Osborne, 1999) as not only better representing the nature of science butalso provoking more critical and epistemic thinking, as well as developing conceptualunderstanding. In view of the potential afforded by concept cartoons as both a forma-tive assessment and learning tool, this study was carried out where a teacherattempted to engage her students in thinking and arguing about selected scienceconcepts using concept cartoons, with the aim of diagnosing their misconceptions anddesigning learning interactions to engender conceptual change.

Using Concept Cartoons in the Science Classroom

Concept cartoons were created by Keogh and Naylor and make use of cartooncharacters engaged in dialogue. They represent both the scientifically acceptableviewpoint as well as common misconceptions held by students in familiar, everydaycontexts. They use minimal text to make the ideas accessible to learners with limitedliteracy skills and are visually appealing. Because they are motivational to students,concept cartoons provide a ready stimulus for focused discussion where there is littlerisk of expressing a personal viewpoint as students can attribute any wrong ideas thatthey have to the cartoon character instead of themselves. These characteristics makeconcept cartoons easy to use, keep children on task, and help to minimise the usualclassroom management concerns (e.g., Keogh & Naylor, 1998).

Concept cartoons have multiple uses in the classroom as a teaching, learning, andassessment tool. Besides eliciting students’ ideas, concept cartoons can stimulateproductive discussion, as well as the clarification and restructuring of ideas (Keogh& Naylor, 1993). In this regard, concept cartoons have the potential to promoteconceptual change as they promote discussion through which scientifically acceptedideas are confirmed and alternative conceptions are challenged. In promoting activeinvolvement and reflection in the learner, concept cartoons are also useful as ameans of peer and self-assessment.

Although concept cartoons are a practical strategy for use in the science class-room, little empirical research has been reported on them, except for the studiescarried out by its inventors. For example, Keogh, Naylor, and Downing (2003)

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Concept Cartoons 1309

reported that typical responses from students involved high levels of engagementand motivation, purposeful debate, and justification of alternative ideas. In an eval-uation of the use of concept cartoons in a range of teaching situations throughmainly questionnaires and interviews, Keogh and Naylor (1999) found theresponse of teachers and learners to be highly positive, with students being on-taskand engaged in deep discussion for long periods of time. The concept cartoonsprovided a stimulus for scientific investigations as they created a powerful desire inlearners to test their ideas. Keogh, Naylor, de Boo, and Feasey (1999, 2001) foundthat student-teachers felt concept cartoons were easy to understand, less threaten-ing, and stimulating. The student-teachers thought that using concept cartoonshelped them to think about the given situations in a different way and to beginrestructuring their understanding.

Naylor, Downing, and Keogh (2001) reported that concept cartoons were aneffective stimulus for argumentation in primary science. The process of argumenta-tion frequently led to scientific investigation as a way of resolving the argument,and the arguments generated went beyond a superficial level of engagement.However, some concerns surfaced from this study—children might understand theconcepts but were not able to ‘argue’ due to lack of vocabulary or verbal skill, orthey might have a point to make but had no confidence in contributing. Keoghet al. (2003) and Naylor, Keogh, and Downing (2007) found that although primaryschool students (Years 3 and 4, aged 7–9 years) could co-construct argumentswithout teacher intervention or guidance, rebuttals of another’s claims were infre-quent and very few students related data to claims through the use of warrants.Also, the use of backings or theoretical justifications for warrants was almostentirely absent. Because of difficulties in applying either the Toulmin (1958) orMercer, Wegerif, and Dawes (1999) framework for the analysis of argumentation,the authors developed an alternative model (which they called the Downing model)for analysing argumentation. While Toulmin’s framework considers the presenceof a claim, data, warrant, backing, rebuttal, and qualifier in an argument, Merceret al.’s framework proposed that good, reasoned arguments include long turns oftalk as well as the use of indicator words such as ‘because’, ‘I think’, and ‘I agree’.Unlike these two frameworks that focus, respectively, on the logical content or thelinguistic elements of the argument, the Downing model pertained to the nature ofinteraction between the individuals and comprised seven levels ranging from ‘pupilsare unable or unwilling to enter into discussion’ to ‘pupils evaluate the evidenceand make judgements’.

Formative Assessment in Science

Formative assessment is assessment that informs teachers about what students havelearnt, indicates what students may be finding difficult, and helps teachers to adjusttheir teaching to maximise students’ learning. Bell (2000) defined it as assessmentthat is intended to enhance both teaching and learning and ‘the process used byteachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to

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enhance that learning, during the learning’ (p. 48). This definition parallels that ofBlack and William (1998a, b) in having the teacher give feedback to the student, theteacher and/or students take an action to improve learning during the learning, andthe students engage in self-assessment.

Indeed, an essential element of formative assessment is feedback, which can be oftwo types: feedback from student to teacher, and feedback from teacher to students(Black & Harrison, 2004). In addition, students can be engaged in self-assessmentand peer-assessment where they make judgements about their own and their peers’understanding (Black & Harrison, 2001a). To obtain feedback from students,teachers can use a number of diagnostic or elicitation tools, such as conceptcartoons. To provide feedback to students either orally or in writing, teachers coulddevise questions to explore students’ ideas, challenge their misconceptions, encour-age thinking, promote reflection, and create some conflict that requires discussion(Black & Harrison, 2001b; Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & William, 2002, 2003).While teachers can use the feedback obtained to revise their classroom practices,students can use the feedback from teachers to monitor their own learning (Bell &Cowie, 2001). Students reflect on their own learning (self-assessment), receivefeedback from peers (peer-assessment), as well as react to their own and/or other’sevaluations of their learning. Thus, formative assessment comprises not only diag-nostic but also self-assessment and peer-assessment.

Black and Harrison (2004) discussed four principles of learning relevant to thecontext of formative assessment: start from where the learner is, students must beactive in the learning process, students must understand the learning target, andstudents must express and talk about their ideas as this is an important part oflearning. Cowie and Bell (1999) viewed formative assessment as a purposeful, situ-ated, and contextualised activity that is an integral part of teaching, is responsive tostudents, and involves a partnership between teachers and students. They also sawformative assessment as a social and discursive practice where language plays a centralrole as it is used to communicate meaning. If we view learning as a discursive activitywhere language is used to promote thinking, then activities associated with formativeassessment must provide opportunities for students to share, discuss, and argue abouttheir ideas; for example, in peer groups or whole-class dialogue. From the student’sperspective, this helps them to clarify their thinking, justify their ideas using evidence,reason to evaluate evidence, and to base their conclusions on evidence. From theteachers’ perspective, this helps them gain access to the students’ minds so they canintervene to address misconceptions or to promote further learning.

Naylor, Keogh, and Goldsworthy (2004) translated the principles of formativeassessment into practical strategies using concept cartoons as a resource in the class-room. They described their assessment activities as being: developmental, in provid-ing a stimulus for developing ideas further; purposeful, in creating a sense of purposefor further activity; collaborative, in providing opportunities for debate and socialconstruction of ideas; and seamless, in having no boundary between assessment andlearning. Since concept cartoons are excellent in promoting peer discussion, they arean important tool for both assessment (namely, diagnostic, peer, self) and learning.

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Purpose and Significance of Study

Previous studies on concept cartoons have provided some empirical evidence fortheir usefulness in formative assessment. However, the focus of their findings wasmainly on how teachers and students have responded positively to their use, andhow motivated and highly engaged students were when they were discussing ideasrelated to the cartoons. With the exception of the work reported in Keogh et al.(2003) and Naylor et al. (2007), few other studies have provided excerpts ofstudents’ discourse to reveal the actual nature and content of students’ talk involvingconcept cartoons. Also, little has been reported by the above authors or others else-where on how teachers can effectively make use of concept cartoons apart from justdistributing them to students to serve as a stimulus for spontaneous group talk.Hence, the aim of the present study was to extend the research on concept cartoonsby investigating how their use could be enhanced by combining it together with asuite of other strategies.

Unlike the study reported by Naylor and co-workers (Keogh et al. 2003; Nayloret al. 2007) where the children discussed the concept cartoons without any explicitguidance or direction provided by the teacher and where the conversation was left toevolve within the group, the present study employed a more structured form of scaf-folding where students followed given ground rules. As Duschl and Osborne (2002)have argued, appropriate structures and scaffolds must be in place to guide studentsto play intellectual roles that include questioning, theorising, challenging others’perspectives, and coordinating theories and evidence. Otherwise, if left to their owndevices, students’ talk might not be productive if it merely consists of a series ofclaims and counterclaims. Also, unlike earlier reported studies that did not focus onthe teacher in playing a supportive role during the use of concept cartoons, thepresent study took a more holistic approach by including the teacher in drawing theconcept cartoons, in designing ground rules for the assigned tasks, and in scaffoldingchildren’s discourse when using the concept cartoons.

Thus, the purpose of the present study was to investigate how concept cartoonscould be used, together with other scaffolding and diagnostic tools, to stimulate talkand argumentation among students in small groups, where they articulate and evalu-ate their ideas as part of peer-assessment and self-assessment; and to provide diag-nostic feedback about students’ misconceptions to the teacher so that he/she coulduse this information to teach for conceptual change. The concept cartoons andsupporting tools used were designed to encourage students to make explicit andjustify their reasoning about science concepts, pose questions, and propose explana-tions to each other.

Methods

Classroom Setting and Concept Cartoons

This study was carried out in Singapore. Two classes (Primary 5 and 6, aged 10–12years) taught by the same teacher (the second author) participated in the study. The

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teacher, who had 5.5 years teaching experience, was head of the school’s sciencedepartment and was enthusiastic in experimenting with innovative ways of workingwith concept cartoons. The study was carried out over two sessions for the Primary6 class (n = 36) and over three sessions for the Primary 5 class (n = 38), with eachsession lasting one hour. Students worked in seven groups of five to six students each.

Seven concept cartoons were used in the full study. However, for the studyreported here, only four of them will be used to present the findings. These fourconcept cartoons pertained to photosynthesis (green and red leaves), hereditarytraits, heat transfer (snowman), and heat transfer (cold metal spoon). Each conceptcartoon depicted three to five characters that offered different claims, opinions, orexplanations about a scientific concept with which students could identify in aneveryday situation, and was tagged with the question ‘What do you think?’. Detailsabout each of the four cartoons are given in the Results section. Two of the sevenconcept cartoons used in the larger study were adapted from existing sources in theresearch literature, while the rest were drawn by the teacher and colleagues from herschool. Although an excellent resource on concept cartoons (Naylor & Keogh,2000) was available commercially from the UK, the teachers in this school felt thattheir own drawings could better portray cartoon characters that looked Asian andthat their students could identify with more closely. The settings in the cartoonscould also depict a more local context and thus be more motivating for theirstudents.

Instructional Procedure and Materials Used

While concept cartoons were used as the main stimulus for eliciting students’ ideasand argumentation about the various science concepts, other scaffolding and diag-nostic assessment tools were also used alongside the cartoons. These tools comple-mented the concept cartoons in encouraging students to articulate their ideas andalso served to document students’ ideas for subsequent analysis by the teacher, aspart of diagnostic feedback. These other tools included discussion templates,students’ drawings, and paper dialogues. Strategies such as small-group discussionsand whole-class teacher questioning were also used as part of formative assessment.

The discussion template provided structured guidance for small-group discussionsand also required the students to record their reasons for agreeing or disagreeingwith the respective cartoon characters. There were two parts to this template.Section A (Responses) consisted of two parts. Part 1 (‘Who do you agree with?’)required the students to record which cartoon character they agreed with and whythey agreed with that character. Part 2 (‘Who do you disagree with?’) prompted thestudents to record who they disagreed with and to give their reasons for doing so.Each of the two parts contained a table with three columns for students to indicatethe character with whom they agreed or disagreed, their reasoning, and their names.Section B (‘Challenge me’) encouraged students to write down questions that theywanted to ask their peers, as part of challenging opposing viewpoints. The targetedgroup member(s) could then respond to the ‘challenge question’. This section also

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contained a table with three columns for students to write the name of the personwho posed the challenge, the person to whom the question was directed, and thechallenge question. Sentence starters such as ‘I agree with …’, ‘I disagree with …’,‘because’, and ‘I want to challenge you’ were given as prompts to provide linguisticscaffolding for students.

Unlike the discussion template, the ‘paper dialogue’ was more open. This madeuse of a blank sheet of paper that was passed around members of the group for themto communicate their ideas in written form. The format of the writing was deliber-ately left open, and students could write whatever they wanted about any ideas thatthey had pertaining to the given concept cartoon. These ideas included any claims orassertions that they wanted to make, beliefs, questions, explanations, justifications,and responses to their group members’ writing. Students were encouraged to readwhat their group members had written and to comment on or challenge their ideas.In this way, a ‘dialogue’ was documented on paper and this provided a writtenrecord for the teacher to look at later on. An advantage of this tool was that itcaptured the key ideas of the discussion that transpired in the group—this allowedthe teacher to track her students’ thinking and to provide any necessary and appro-priate follow-up after the session. Since there were several group discussions takingplace in class simultaneously, the teacher had to circulate among the groups toprovide guidance and it was impossible for her to stay with any one group for anextended period of time and follow through the talk, amidst the buzz of differentgroup discussions. Furthermore, the act of having to put their thoughts on paperforced the students to articulate their ideas more clearly. However, a disadvantage ofthis tool was that talking in the group was kept to a minimum as students spent timewriting their thoughts.

Group activities using the discussion template and paper dialogue were imple-mented using the ‘Numbered Heads Together’, ‘Roundrobin’, and ‘Roundtable’strategies in structuring cooperative learning (Kagan, 1994), where students tookturns to contribute their viewpoints and to record what they had discussed. Eachgroup member was first assigned a number. Group members then took turns totalk about and write down their viewpoints about the topic in question, ensuringthat every numbered member contributed to the group’s efforts. In essence,students took turns contributing to the group—in an oral form for Roundrobin andin a written form for Roundtable. In addition to allowing students to express theirideas in text and oral form, students from the Primary 5 class also expressed theirideas in the form of drawings when the concept cartoon on ‘hereditary traits’ wasused. Students were given a sheet of paper and asked to draw diagrams or picturesto show who or what they thought determined their physical appearance andgender.

Each lesson began with the teacher introducing the concept cartoon in a wholeclass discussion. Following this, the students were divided into mixed-ability groupswhere group members typically had opposing views; this was done to encouragediscussion and argumentation among the members. Students were given a conceptcartoon and told to study it silently for one minute. They then worked in their

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groups to discuss the viewpoints posed by the characters in the cartoons. Todiscourage students from being too judgemental prior to hearing the views of others,all members were allowed to present their viewpoints before anyone else could chal-lenge them. The discussion template and paper dialogue were used to guide studentsin their discussions. After the group discussions, the information collected fromthese discussions was consolidated through group presentations where members ofthe audience were encouraged to challenge each other’s ideas. This phase of thelesson was facilitated by the teacher in a whole-class discussion. The lessons endedwith a student summarising the key learning points of the day.

Data Collection and Analysis

Owing to the limited time available for the implementation of this study, not all ofthe various diagnostic assessment tools were used for every concept cartoon in eachof the two classes. The Primary 5 class used the discussion template. A group ofstudents from this class, who were vocal and forthcoming with verbalising theirideas, also had their oral discussions audio-taped. Because the paper dialogue wasunstructured, provided less guidance for discussion, and made extra demands onstudents’ writing abilities, it was used with the older Primary 6 students.

The audio-recording of students’ discussion was transcribed verbatim and thediscourse analysed to determine the content of students’ talk. Students’ writtenwork, obtained from the other diagnostic assessment tools, was content-analysed.The analysis focused on how the concept cartoons and the other tools guidedstudents in their learning tasks. It also focused on how they helped to provide feed-back to the teacher as part of formative assessment. In analysing students’ argumen-tation, we used the frameworks of both Mercer et al. (1999) and Toulmin (1958), aswe were interested in students’ use of language in argumentative thinking as well asthe logic in their reasoning.

Results

This section presents findings from the use of four concept cartoons that focused onselected concepts pertaining to photosynthesis, hereditary traits, and heat transfer.We illustrate how these concept cartoons, together with other strategies such as thediscussion template, students’ drawings, small group discussion, whole-class teacherquestioning, and paper dialogue, were used in formative assessment. All students’names are pseudonyms.

Photosynthesis (Green and Red Leaves): The discussion template

This concept cartoon assessed students’ ideas about whether chlorophyll is found inred leaves. The cartoon did not make use of human characters—instead, it showedthree green leaves and one red leaf engaged in conversation. The green leaves werepersonified as looking arrogant and the red leaf appeared sad.

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Green leaves: Eeeee … You’re different! We’re green plants and we make our own food.Red leaf: Sob! Sob! I have to depend on other organisms as I can’t make my own

food. I am odd as I am red!

Students’ responses to the ideas contained in this concept cartoon were elicited viathe discussion template and audio-recording. Figure 1 shows sample responses fromthe students that indicated their viewpoint(s) and the reasons underlying theirthinking. Two misconceptions were diagnosed: (Figure 1a) red leaves do not containchlorophyll and thus are not able to photosynthesise or make their own food (e.g.,Wei Wei), and (Figure 1b) some green plants such as ferns cannot make food (e.g.,Zhi Yen and Xiao Ting).Figure 1. Discussion template on ‘green and red leaves’ with sample responsesThe ‘Challenge me’ sheet contained questions that elicited explanations from thestudents to whom the questions were directed. Examples included ‘Why did youdisagree with the green leaves?’, ‘Some plants are red but has [have] a little green.Why is that so?’, ‘Why do plants photosynthesise and how do they make food?’, and‘Some plants do not photosynthesise, so what do they depend on for food?’. Thelatter question elicited a response that read ‘They depend on fertilisers for food’.The student who wrote this answer (Brent, Group 4) clearly did not fully under-stand the concept of plants making food through the process of photosynthesis andthought that fertilisers could serve as an alternative food source for some plants.Although most of the questions posed on the ‘Challenge me’ sheet were addressedverbally, some of them also elicited written answers from the respondents.

The ideas elicited and questions posed by students on the Discussion templateserved to focus the students’ thoughts and to direct their discussions. After the groupdiscussions, the teacher brought the students together in a whole-class discussion tohelp them consolidate the key concepts. The following is an excerpt from the class-room talk.

Student 1: The red leaves are the same as the green leaves and both make food.Teacher: Why do you think so?Student 1: They are both leaves.Student 2: The red leaves have hidden chlorophyll and green leaves have chlorophyll.Teacher: Some plants are fully covered with red leaves without any green leaves but

they still survive. Why?Student 3: Because there is hidden chlorophyll in the red leaves.Teacher: Yes, very good! So the chlorophyll is hidden under the red pigment and

helps to trap _____ [pause]?Students: Sunlight.

The discussion template thus provided a focus for the students to document theirideas and guide their discussion. It also provided feedback for the teacher about herstudents’ ideas, questions, reasoning underlying their conceptions, and misconcep-tions about the topic.

Hereditary Traits: Students’ drawings and small-group discussions

The concept cartoon on ‘hereditary traits’ showed a father, a mother, and a nurse.It aimed to stimulate debate about how hereditary traits were passed down from one

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generation to another. The father claimed that the hospital had given him the wrongbaby as the baby did not look like him. The mother disagreed as she felt that thebaby did look like its paternal and maternal grandparents. The conversation amongthe three people is given below.

Father: Staff nurse Aw, I think you have made a mistake! This can’t be my baby; hedoesn’t look like me at all. He has big eyes, curly hair and attached ear lobes,but I have small eyes, straight hair and free ear lobes. He doesn’t look likemy wife too!

Mother: Dear, I am sure he is ours. He looks like our parents. Your father has bigeyes, while your mother has attached ear lobes, and my father has curly hair!

Nurse: Some people look totally different from their family members or relatives.They are just so special!

Students’ drawings, the discussion template, and audio-recording were used inconjunction with this concept cartoon. For the drawings, students were asked todraw diagrams or pictures to illustrate who or what they thought determined theirphysical appearance and gender. A number of misconceptions were diagnosedthrough students’ drawings and their discussion. These included the following:

The behaviour of a child depends on how both parents behaved during the mother’spregnancy.

If the child is a girl, then a larger percentage of the genes is inherited from the motherwhile if the child is a boy, the majority of the genes would come from the father.

The genes transmitted by an individual’s parents are independent of those of his or hergrandparents.

A baby will be a girl if there are more female genes, and will be a boy if there are moremale genes.

The number of genes increases as people get older.

Figure 2 shows a sample drawing by a student who thought that if both parentsfrequently fought and quarrelled with each other when the mother was carrying thefoetus, then the child would be a noisy one; and that if both parents were quietduring the gestation period, the child would be a quiet one after birth.Figure 2. Student’s drawing depicting her conception that the behaviour of a child depends on how both parents behaved during the mother’s pregnancyThe audio-recording showed students supporting their assertions with simpleevidence based on their daily life observations about people’s characteristics.

Don: I agree with the nurse … Even though family members pass on genes to theyounger generation, it is not fully 100% that the baby will look like the parents ….

Jean: I agree with the nurse and the mother. Some people will not look exactly liketheir parents. Their parents and them [sic] may have the same genes but theymay not look alike. They may look like their grandparents and this means thattheir parents do not look like their own parents. So it’s all right for the baby notto look like his parents.

Lena: I agree with the nurse and the mother because it’s quite true that people havespecial ability, i.e. talent in singing and art …. The baby has big eyes … thegrandfather has big eyes and the grandmother has attached earlobes, which isdifferent from the parents.

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Figure 2. Student’s drawing depicting her conception that the behaviour of a child depends on how both parents behaved during the mother’s pregnancy

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Following this, Don suggested that the baby inherited his genes from his grandpar-ents instead of from his own parents. Lena was puzzled by this suggestion andresponded by asking how this could happen since it was the parents who ‘gave birthto this child’. Don then proposed that some genes might be ‘hidden’ and ‘not shownexternally’, an idea that was consistent with the students’ earlier observation thatsome genetic traits were not manifested in the parental generation. He got close tothe concept of recessive genes carrying traits that are not expressed as a phenotypealthough he had not yet learnt about Mendelian genetics and did not have the scien-tific vocabulary to articulate this.

Don: Even though the baby does not look like the parents, there is still a slight chancethat the baby is the parents’ son or daughter because his grandparents shouldhave passed the genes to him instead of his own parents doing that …

Lena: Why do you say that the genes will be passed on by the grandparents to the baby insteadof the parents?

Don: There are many possible reasons to this question which I’m also not sure [of].Lena: But actually, it is the parents who gave birth to this child.Don: But it is the grandparents who gave birth to the parents. So the parents might

have some genes hidden inside them which are not shown externally.Lena: You should be more specific. From the grandparents, passed on to the parents,

and the parents passed on to the baby.

Phil then posed the question of how one could tell whether the baby came from theparents. Don suggested comparing whether there were any similarities betweenthe baby and its parents. However, Jean speculated that the hospital could have gotthe baby mixed up with another one. To this, Don replied that the hospital shouldthen ‘do a DNA check’.

Phil: If the baby looks very different from their parents, how can you tell if it really belongsto the parents?

Don: You actually have to depend on the older generation. If the older generationhas any similarities with the baby, there is still a slight chance that the baby isfrom the family.

Jean: Maybe it is the hospital that had got it mixed up.Don: It is quite impossible the baby was mixed up as the baby was born in the exact

ward where the mother is in. The nurse had not carried the baby to and fro.There is [are] a lot of internal similarities like the skin colour, as well as thedimples on their faces.

Jean: What if there is a mix-up?Don: Then they should do a DNA check.

In the next excerpt, Lena proposed that the baby could have inherited its attachedearlobes from his grandparents. Don further observed that the baby did share hisgrandparents’ big eyes, attached ear lobes, and curly hair, and reiterated his hypoth-esis of ‘hidden genes’.

Phil: I think there is a possibility for the baby to be the child of the two parents as hehas a lot of similarities with his grandparents …

Lena: Although the father and mother have free earlobes, that doesn’t mean the childis not theirs. Perhaps the grandparents have attached ear lobes. Even if the

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grandparents do not have attached ear lobes, perhaps it may be the child’sspecial characteristic.

Jean: I agree with Lena … Though the baby looks different from his parents now, hemight look more like his parents when he grows older …

Don: It can still be concluded that the baby is the parents’ child because the baby sharesthe same genes as his grandparents e.g. big eyes, attached ear lobes and curlyhair…. Even though the parents do not look exactly like the grandparents, theremay be some hidden characteristics in them. These hidden characteristics arepassed to the baby and the baby looks like the grandparents.

Up to this point, the students had discussed the idea that an offspring could looklike its grandparents despite not necessarily resembling its parents. Cam thenproposed that an individual might not look like anyone in the family because genescould ‘change over a period of time’. At this juncture, Lena asked an intelligentquestion: ‘Why didn’t the grandparents’ genes show up in the parents?’. This ques-tion stirred up a vigorous discussion where Jean then suggested that the parents’physical features might have changed when they got older. However, Phil was scep-tical of this idea and responded by further asking whether the genes of the babycould change as it got older. Although Jean clarified her earlier suggestion by statingthat one’s looks could change but not the genes, Don rebutted her claim.

Cam: I agree with the nurse and the mother because the baby might sometimes resem-ble their parents or grandparents, or even nobody in the family, as scientistshave found out that the genes change over a period of time.

Lena: Why didn’t the grandparents’ genes show up in the parents?Jean: Maybe when the parents were young, they looked like the grandparents and

when they were older, they then changed. The baby might be like them, i.e.look like them when he was young and not look like them when he grewolder.

Phil: Are you saying the genes of the baby actually change when they grow older?Jean: No. I mean only the characteristics change and not the genes. They will look

different, but the genes in the baby remain the same.Don: There is no scientific proof that the parents would look like the grandparents

when they were young but not when they are older. That is why I do not totallyagree with Jean’s statements.

The conversation that followed revealed further naive beliefs held by the studentssuch as a baby will be a girl if there are more female genes and will be a boy if thereare more male genes, as well as the misconception that the number of genesincreases as people get older. However, Phil rejected these ideas as he thought thatthey were ‘funny’ and illogical. He counter-argued the proposal that the sex of aperson would be dependent on the number of ‘male’ or ‘female genes’ in the indi-vidual, reasoning that such an idea was ridiculous. Subsequently, he offered theexplanation that the sex of a baby depended on how the X and Y ‘genes’ from bothmother and father were combined. He had used the incorrect terminology ‘genes’and was actually referring to chromosomes; nevertheless, the discussion took a stepin a productive direction when he subsequently offered to show his group membersthe books that he had read on how the X and Y chromosomes determine the sex ofa baby.

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Jean: When every child grows older, like during the menstruation period [puberty],there will be a lot of change. For example, the girls will have more femalehormones and the boys will have more male hormones.

Lena: Just like if there are more female genes in the baby, the baby will be a girl. If there aremore male genes, the baby will be boy.

Don: The number of genes becomes more when we grow older.Phil: I disagree. If the number of genes grows, at times there may be more female

genes and the person will be female. If the number of male genes grows, thenthe female may change into male. That sounds funny.

Don: Yeah. If that’s the case, the person will be traumatised!Phil: I’ve also read from books that the sex of the baby actually depends [on

whether] the X-gene from the mother’s egg joins with the Y or X-gene from thefather’s sperm.

Jean: Bring your book and show us.

In the above discourse, there was dialogic talk and interactive argumentation wherestudents put forward their ideas and made their reasoning visible. For example, thefour students (Jean, Lena, Don and Phil) responded to and followed up on eachother’s different ideas about what determines a baby’s sex. The multiple perspectivespresented in the concept cartoon provided the stimulus to engender discussion, theaccompanying discussion template served as a guide and scaffold for students todebate their viewpoints, and the audio-recording captured the talk in action. Thestudents proposed arguments and counter-arguments based on their prior naïveideas, posed questions when they encountered puzzlement or when they wanted tochallenge each other’s thinking, drew upon data and evidence in the concept cartoonor from other sources to substantiate their claims, generated explanations to accountfor the phenomenon observed, rebutted alternative ideas, constructed scientificknowledge collaboratively, and also allowed their misconceptions to be madeexplicit. All these served to provide feedback to the teacher about what transpired instudents’ heads as they argued about their thinking.

Heat Transfer (Snowman): Whole-class teacher questioning

This concept cartoon (Naylor & Keogh, 2000) illustrated three children arguingabout whether putting a coat on a snowman will make it melt more quickly.

Girl in green pullover: Don’t put the coat on the snowman—it will melt it.Boy in blue pullover: I think it will keep it cold and stop it from melting.Boy in purple pullover: I don’t think the coat will make any difference.

At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher referred to the ‘Snow City’ at theSingapore Science Centre, where visitors get to experience artificial snow in a simu-lated cold and snowy environment.

Teacher: [If you go] to Snow City, what do you think you may want to bring along?Students: Jacket. Sweater.Teacher: What will you do with the jacket or sweater?Students: Put them on.Teacher: What is the purpose of putting on the jacket?

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Students: To keep us warm….Teacher: Can you explain how does a jacket keep us warm?Students: So that the heat in our body will not be able to escape….Teacher: Today, we are going to base on [use] what we know about heat, that is,

heat travels from a hotter place to a colder place, to argue our viewpoints.

The students then got into groups to discuss the ideas given in the concept cartoon.Their writing on the discussion template and group discussion from the audio-recording revealed that most students agreed with the girl in the green pullover anddisagreed with the boy in the blue pullover. A sample response is:

If the coat is put onto the snowman, the heat in between the snowman and the coat willnot be able to escape into the surroundings and the snowman will gain heat faster andtherefore will melt at a faster rate. (Don)

From their everyday experiences, the students knew that a coat would keep themwarm because of its insulating properties. They applied this idea directly to theconcept cartoon and concluded that heat would be trapped between the snowmanand the coat, thereby making the snowman warmer and it would then melt. Onestudent (Cam) even thought that the coat, being of a dark colour, would absorb moreheat from the surroundings than the white snowman. What the students did notconsider, however, was that unlike a human body—which produces heat and whichis warmer than the ambient temperature in winter—the snowman does not produceheat and could be at a lower temperature than the surroundings, particularly if it werein broad daylight, with the sun shining. These ideas were addressed during the whole-class discussion when one of the groups presented what they had discussed earlier.

Student 1: The coat is used to keep people warm and if the coat is put over the snow-man, it will also keep the snowman warm. The snowman will start to melt.

Teacher: [Repeated what the pupil said.]Student 1: The coat brings the heat to the snowman, therefore the snowman will melt.Teacher: Brings the heat from [pause]? Where is the heat from?Student 1: The surrounding.Student 2: When the coat is put in the house, heat will be trapped inside. So when you

put the coat over the snowman, the heat has nowhere to go and it will goinside the snowman and [it] will slowly melt the snowman.

Teacher: Okay. But let’s assume that the coat has been put in the open, which iswhere you find the snow, for around 15 to 20 minutes. Do you think thatthis will still happen?

Student 2: Actually, it will still happen. There is heat in the surrounding. When weput the coat around the snowman, the heat in the air is trapped betweenthe snowman and the coat.

In the excerpt above, we see that although the students had inappropriate ideas, theteacher did not explicitly correct what they said. There was no overt evaluation—instead, the teacher remained neutral and posed further questions to probe theirreasoning and diagnose the rationale for their thinking. She then decided to revisit thebasic concepts involving heat transfer between two objects at different temperatures.

Teacher: OK. Let’s put that aside and look that what Don said at the beginning ofthe lesson. He said that heat travels from a hotter place or object to a colder

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place or object, and everybody agreed to [with] that statement. So for thissituation, which is the hotter object? The surrounding or the snowman?

Students: The surrounding.Teacher: [Drawing a diagram on the board to represent the surrounding and the

object] Look at this diagram. This represents the warmer surrounding andthis represents a colder object. So here we are saying that the surroundinghas a higher temperature and more heat. Right? Then where will the heattravel from?

Student 3: From the surrounding to the colder object.Teacher: Why?Student 3: Heat travels from a hotter object to a colder object.

Once the students had grasped the fundamental but important idea that heat trav-els from a hotter to a colder object, the teacher then got the students to apply thisconcept to the case of the snowman. With a few guiding questions from the teacher,Student 4 was able to generate the explanation that ‘the bad conductor slows downheat loss’, ‘the surrounding is losing heat’, and ‘the object is colder and the surround-ing has more heat than the object’.

Teacher: You say that heat travels from a hotter object to a colder object. So heattravels from here [pointing to the surrounding in the diagram] to here[pointing to the colder object]. So when you put a coat onto the object[drawing on the diagram], you are putting a bad conductor of heat over theobject. Do you agree with this?

Students: Yes.Student 4: The bad conductor slows down heat loss.Teacher: Where do you find the heat lost? Refer to the diagram … Which part is losing

heat?Student 1: The object is losing heat.Student 4: It is not.Teacher: Then, which one?Student 4: The surrounding is losing heat. [The majority of the pupils nodded their

heads.]Teacher: Can you explain why the surrounding is losing heat?Student 4: The object is colder and the surrounding has more heat than the object.Teacher: Yes. We are still using the statement which we made just now. Heat

travels from the hotter place, which is the surrounding in this example, toa colder object which is the cold object. So, the surrounding is losingheat, right?

We see that the teacher made use of ‘responsive questioning’ (Chin, 2006) by respond-ing to and building onto students’ earlier ideas to bring their thinking forward ina gradual step-wise manner. The questions had formative potential by drawingout students’ ideas and scaffolding or extending their thinking. This was unlike theInitiation–Response–Evaluation pattern of questioning (Lemke, 1990; Mehan, 1979)where the teacher’s questions are pitched at the lower level of recall and where theteacher evaluates students’ responses overtly.

The teacher then posed the question of whether the snowman would gain heatmore or less quickly if it had the coat on. Student 4 was then able to say that it wouldtake a ‘longer time’ and that the snowman would not melt more quickly.

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Teacher: The majority of you agree that the snowman will melt faster. And here, wesay the surrounding has more heat and the bad conductor will slow downthe heat flow from the surrounding to the cold object. Will this cold objectbecome hot slowly?

Students: [Silence]Teacher: Let’s think of it in this way. If an object gains a lot of heat, will it become hot

very quickly?Students: Yes.Teacher: For example, if I ask you to stand in the field under the hot sun, will you feel hot

very quickly?Students: Yes.Teacher: So, when there is a lot of heat going into an object, it will become hot very

quickly. Let’s go back to the original question. If the snowman is getting lessheat from the surrounding due to the coat, will it gain heat quickly?

Students: No.Student 4: It takes a longer time.Teacher: Since it takes a longer time in gaining heat, do you think that it will melt more

quickly?Student 4: No.

To round off the class discussion, the teacher consolidated the key conceptsdiscussed earlier and then asked the class which cartoon character was correct. Thistime, the students were able to say that the boy with the blue pullover was correct.The teacher then referred to another concept cartoon on whether wrapping a bottleof iced water with a towel would help to keep it cold for a longer time. This time,the students were able to apply their ideas of heat transfer to give the correctanswer.

Teacher: Let’s look at the next example. If you want the bottle of water to remain coldfor a longer time, do you put a towel over it? Apply what you learnt in theprevious example to this situation.

Student: Yes.Teacher: Why? Can you give your reasons?Student: The towel is there to keep the heat in the surrounding away from the cold

water. We don’t want the heat to go into the cold drink.Teacher: Very good. [Repeated what the pupil said]

By restating the student’s answer, the teacher not only reaffirmed the response butalso made use of the strategy of ‘revoicing’ (Chapin, O’Connor, & Anderson, 2003),where the idea was reinforced and made available as ‘common knowledge’ to all inthe class (Edwards & Mercer, 1987).

Heat Transfer (Cold Metal Spoon): Paper dialogue

This concept cartoon depicted three people discussing how and why one’s fingersfeel cold when one’s hand is in contact with a cold object. It attempted to elicitstudents’ ideas of how heat is transferred.

Boy in blue shorts: Oooh … This glass of cold water is making the metal spoon feelso cold! And the cold spoon is making my fingers cold too!

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Man in white shirt: This metal spoon is cold because metal is a material that conductscoldness very well. Your fingers feel cold because the metal spoonconducts coldness from the cold water to your fingers.

Lady in green blouse: I think it has nothing to do with coldness of the water. It is yourfingers that are losing heat to the metal spoon. So, your fingersfeel cold.

Students’ written discourse is illustrated via the paper dialogues. The studentsmade assertions, engaged in ‘reciprocal peer questioning’, and generated explana-tions in response to questions asked. Many parts of the paper dialogue containedquestion–answer couplets where a student responded to a peer’s question. Thefollowing is an excerpt from Group 1:

Student 1: I agree with the girl [lady in green blouse]. Heat travels from hot body tocold body. The hand loses heat to the spoon. The spoon loses heat to thecold water, therefore making the spoon cold.

Student 2: Why is the man wrong?Student 1: There is no such term as ‘coldness’. The material is a good conductor of

heat. It allows heat to pass through easily.Student 3: The girl also used the term ‘coldness’. Why then did you agree with her?Student 1: The ‘coldness’ of the water means that the water is cold.Student 4: I agree with the girl [lady in green blouse]. Heat does travel from a hot

body to a cold body. When the spoon is put into the cold water, the spoonis considered as a hot body and the water as a cold body. The spoon ismade of metal. Metal is a good conductor of heat. A good conductor ofheat allows heat to travel through it easily. Therefore, the spoon loses heatto the water. When the boy’s fingers touch the spoon, the boy loses heat tothe cold spoon. Thus, the boy’s fingers feel cold. The girl may have used awrong term ‘coldness’ but her reason is correct. Thus, we agree with her.

The students discussed the inappropriateness of using the word ‘coldness’, andStudent 4 articulated her reasoning in good detail. Her argument was rich andcomprised the elements of a claim (‘the boy loses heat to the cold spoon’), data (‘thespoon is made of metal’), backing (‘heat does travel from a hot body to a cold body’,‘metal is a good conductor of heat’), and warrant (‘A good conductor of heat allowsheat to travel through it easily. Therefore, the spoon loses heat to the water. Whenthe boy’s fingers touch the spoon, the boy loses heat to the cold spoon. Thus, theboy’s fingers feel cold.’).

Students in Groups 3 and 5 discussed the concept of ‘cold’ and ‘coldness’.Figure 3 shows the paper dialogue produced by Group 3, and an excerpt fromGroup 5 is given below.Figure 3. Sample of paper dialogue showing students’ written responses to the concept cartoon on heat transfer (cold metal spoon)Students in Group 5 sought clarification about the use of the term ‘conductor ofcold’.

Student 1: The metal spoon is cold because metal is a good conductor of heat as wellas cold. The spoon does not conduct coldness from the cold water to thefingers. The fingers lose heat to the metal spoon so it feels cold as heattravels from hot body to cold body. If the water is hot, the metal spoonconducts heat and the fingers will gain heat.

Student 2: Is there such a thing called ‘conductor of cold?’

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Student 3: Well, actually it is just a term used by us. In actual fact, good conductor ofheat (correct term) [placed in parenthesis in the original text] is the same[underlined in original text] as ‘good conductor of cold’. Good conductorsof heat also conduct coldness, e.g. iron, stainless steel, etc.

Figure 3. Sample of paper dialogue showing students’ written responses to the concept cartoon on heat transfer (cold metal spoon)

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Student 2: So a poor conductor of heat is a poor conductor of cold?Student 3: Yes. You people also use the term too!

There was also evidence of extended thinking where students imagined differentscenarios beyond that given in the concept cartoon and engaged in hypothetical andconditional thinking. For example, a student in Group 2 showed hypothetical thinkingin the following excerpt:

Student 1: Will the boy’s hand feel cold if the metal spoon was being heated and put into theglass of cold water? … Will the water still be cold if it is put into a room oftemperature at 40°C?

Student 2: No, the water will not be as cold as it will gain heat from the surroundinguntil the temperature of the water and the surrounding is about the same… Things will not gain coldness. Things will only lose or gain heat. Whencold or hot objects are put in surrounding of temperature higher or lowerthan it, they will lose or gain heat to the surroundings until the tempera-ture of the object and surroundings is about the same.

Hypothetical thinking about various conditions also surfaced in Group 6.

Student 1: Will the situation be the same if the water is hot?Student 2: No. When the temperature of the water is high, the heat from the water

will travel to the metal spoon. Hence, the boy’s finger will gain heat fromthe metal spoon.

Student 1: Will the boys’ fingers feel hot?Student 2: Yes.Student 3: Will the situation be the same if the spoon is made of wood?Student 4: No. Wood is an insulator of heat.Student 3: Will the boy’s fingers feel hot?Student 4: No.

In summary, the findings showed that, when used together with concept cartoons,the paper dialogue was a feasible means of stimulating dialectical thinking instudents, as well as in providing written feedback to the teacher about students’discourse.

Discussion

Concept cartoons can facilitate both assessment and learning in a number of ways:to elicit students’ misconceptions, to promote questioning and reflective thinking instudents, and to stimulate talk and argumentation that help students to developconceptual understanding. For teachers, concept cartoons can serve as a tool todiagnose misconceptions and identify knowledge gaps in students, thereby allowingthem to address these problems subsequently. Students’ questions and assertionsrelated to concepts depicted in the cartoons also provide insight into what and howthe students are thinking. For students, concept cartoons provide a platform forthem to articulate their puzzlement, to question, and to challenge each others’ ideas.This stimulates dialogic talk among students that help them to construct scientificknowledge.

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Contribution to the Teaching of Science

In contributing to teaching science, this study highlights the important role of theteacher in (a) designing scaffolding structures to support ‘assessment conversations’(Duschl, 2003) where students talk around key concepts; (b) establishing groundrules for collaborative discussions so as to maximise ‘productive disciplinary engage-ment’ (Engle & Conant, 2002); (c) drawing some cartoons himself/herself to providea context that has more personal relevance for students; and (d) guiding whole-classdiscussions skilfully so as to elicit information about students’ understanding, clarifymisconceptions, and help students to resolve conflicting viewpoints presented in theconcept cartoons. In guiding classroom discussions, the teacher needs to use respon-sive questioning by probing, prompting, building onto students’ prior responses, andchallenging their ideas so that he/she can take students’ thinking forward. From thefeedback that the teacher receives about students’ conceptions and reasoning, he/shethen needs to decide how to follow up in making the next move(s).

As Scott and Ametller (2007) have pointed out, the teacher needs to strike abalance between ‘opening up’ and ‘closing down’ classroom talk by shifting betweendialogic and authoritative, as well as interactive and non-interactive communicationapproaches. Any sequence of meaningful discourse between teacher and studentsmust entail both authoritative and dialogic modes of interaction (Scott, Mortimer, &Aguiar, 2006). For example, in the case of the concept cartoon on the snowman, theteacher first explored students’ everyday views through an interactive, dialogic modeof communication. She did not explicitly evaluate or correct students’ responses butsimply asked for further clarification and prompted others to contribute and justifytheir viewpoints. Then towards the end of the sequence of episodes, she focusedattention on the school science point of view via authoritative discourse.

The use of complementary scaffolding and diagnostic tools such as the discussiontemplate, paper dialogue, and audio-recording helped to make visible both the asser-tions that students made about various scientific phenomena as well as their reason-ing underlying the beliefs. While audio-recordings can provide rich and insightfulaccounts of the conversations that transpire among students, it is not practically feasi-ble for teachers to record their students’ discussions for all groups and sessions inregular lessons because of the time needed to listen to and analyse these recordings.However, if left to ‘disappear into thin air’, students’ ideas elicited through groupdiscussions remain undocumented and teachers would miss the valuable opportunityof finding out what and how students really think. Thus, the paper dialogue anddiscussion template provide an alternative means for teachers to tap into students’thinking. The writing on these documents provides a record of students’ ideas andreasoning in a form that is accessible to the teacher for monitoring and feedbackpurposes. In addition, these tools also serve to illustrate the progression in students’ideas through their responses to each other’s comments about the concept cartoons.

It was noted earlier that compared with the discussion template, the writingdemands of the paper dialogue suppressed group talk since there is a trade-offbetween students talking more or writing more, given the same timeframe. The

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decision to use either of these two tools would depend on both the students’ writingability and whether the teacher’s objective of the lesson is on oral or writtendiscourse. Scaffolding in the form of writing prompts could also be provided for thepaper dialogue. Another noteworthy point is that the personification of the leaf in theconcept cartoon on green and red leaves was atypical of concept cartoons in thatthe objects of the cartoon were giving viewpoints rather than the onlookers. Althoughthe deviation from convention and its visual appeal was highly motivational forprimary students, this personification could lead to misconceptions and thus, suchcartoons need to be very carefully constructed.

Contribution to the Learning of Science

In contributing to learning science, the discussion template provided a structure forhow students should conduct their discussion about the concept cartoons. It encour-aged students to express their thoughts, make and justify their assertions, ask ques-tions, and pose challenges to each other rather than just assimilate facts andprocedures or supply answers. Students were required not only to state which cartooncharacter they agreed or disagreed with, but also to write down their reasons for doingso. This requirement for students to give their rationale was important becausestudents may sometimes correctly agree with a particular cartoon character but forthe wrong reason. In fact, this was found to be the case in the present study. Analysisof the cumulative writing on the discussion templates by the different members of agroup showed that each student built on his or her peers’ previous responses, andoften contributed one or more components of the explanation or argument underly-ing the concept being addressed in the cartoon. The final written group product wasthus was additive yet responsive in nature.

In most classrooms, students play a passive role in simply listening to or answeringquestions posed by the teacher. However, because the students had to declare whichcartoon character they felt was correct, they had a vested interest in defending theirviewpoints. In doing this, they also had to challenge opposing ideas put forward bytheir peers and ask questions of them. Thus, they were more willing to take on anactive role as enquirer. In answering each other’s questions and attempting to convincegroup members of the assertions they made, the students proposed explanations toback up their claims, justified their reasoning using data and evidence, built on theirpeers’ ideas to expand on their thinking, rebutted their peer’s claims if they contra-dicted with their own, and offered alternative viewpoints. There was introduction ofnew perspectives, shifting, and realignment of ideas. The concept cartoons stimulatedthe students to question what they thought they knew, think about the concepts in adifferent way, and in some cases to restructure their thinking. In this way, conceptcartoons allowed both the elicitation and restructuring of students’ ideas quite seam-lessly (i.e., concurrently or consecutively) and sometimes without the need for explicitteacher intervention. However, the teacher’s role as facilitator remains essential.

The kinds of questions asked by students, as gathered from the paper dialogue,discussion template, and audio-recording, were different from those typically asked

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by teachers in traditional classrooms. These questions were authentic in that theyreflected genuine wonderment about what students really did not understand andwanted to know. They were not simple, factual questions but showed hypothetical,predictive, and reflective thinking that often required an elaborated response for afuller understanding.

The ‘back-and-forth’ arguments and counter-arguments that students madeengendered a rich discussion that afforded them opportunities to engage in deepcognitive processing and to construct a more holistic understanding of the scientificconcepts. While several cases of student talk illuminated the misconceptions thatstudents held, there were also instances where students reconsidered their ideas lead-ing to a change and development in their thinking. The example of Student 4 whoseideas advanced progressively in the lesson using the ‘Snowman’ concept cartoon is acase in point. However, whether this change was a temporary one or a more perma-nent conceptual change could only be determined if the student had been reassessedsome months later. A change in students’ thinking occurred probably because thestudents encountered a cognitive conflict—a result of the disagreement between theiroriginal conception and that of their peers during the group or class discussion—andhad to resolve these conceptual differences.

One infrequently occurring but important type of discourse advocated in scienceclassrooms is exploratory talk (Mercer et al., 1999) where ‘partners engage criticallybut constructively with each other’s ideas. In this kind of talk, statements andsuggestions … may be challenged and counter-challenged, but challenges are justi-fied and alternative hypotheses are offered … Reasoning is [also] visible in the talk’(p. 97). This kind of ‘talk’ was illustrated in the present study for both oral and writ-ten discourse. There was also frequent use of conversational markers of dialecticalthinking and ‘indicator words’ associated with reasoning (Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif,& Sams, 2004). For example, the hypothetical nature of claims and reasoning wasassociated with words such as ‘I think’, ‘may’, ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, and ‘what if?’.Reasons were linked to claims by the use of logical connectives such as ‘because’,‘so’, ‘thus’, ‘therefore’, ‘even if …’, ‘even though …’, and ‘it can be concluded that…’. Hypothetico-deductive argumentation was indicated by ‘if … then’ statements(Lawson, 2003). Rebuttals were expressed by words such as ‘but’. Students’ ideasand assertions were made explicit with ‘I agree with …’ or ‘I disagree with …’. Suchwords in the students’ discourse were italicised in the Results section presentedearlier.

Contrary to the suggestion given by Naylor et al. (2007) and Keogh et al. (2003)that teacher guidance and the use of ground rules might inhibit the productivity ofstudents’ argumentation in group discussion, this study found that providing anexplicit structure for managing discourse, together with the use of additional scaf-folding tools, was valuable in helping children to organise their discussion effectively.This strategy might also have helped to keep the students purposefully engaged andto minimise ‘disputational’ talk (which is characterised by cycles of assertion andcounter-assertion) and ‘cumulative’ talk where the speakers simply agree with eachother uncritically without debate (Mercer, 1996).

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Conclusion

The present study showed how concept cartoons may be used to mediate studentlearning and how students can be facilitated to evaluate their knowledge claims andto communicate them to others in the context of formative assessment. To optimisethe use of concept cartoons in teaching and learning science, teachers need to designclassroom tasks and devise strategies that take into account students’ conceptualand epistemic thinking, as well as consider the social processes and forums thatshape how knowledge claims are communicated, represented, argued, and debated(Duschl, 2003). This may be accomplished using ground rules and supporting struc-tures that provide both linguistic and conceptual scaffolds to prompt and extendstudents’ thinking.

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using concept cartoons in formative assessment: scaffolding students’ argumentation

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