Abstract:

Social dialogue is subject to many conditions which can be motivators or inhibitors of conversation. Developing dialogue which can progress through the depths of ideas allows for a better understanding between the parties involved and an enrichment of individual ideas. This paper puts forward argumentation practice by means of verbal interaction in the science classroom as a means for building the student’s knowledge.
The exercise was carried out with engineering students. The study in the classroom was proposed from a narrative text about a fluid static situation. The text was read out loud, so that it would be followed by everyone, interruptions were permitted (such as a request for clarification) and the reading was halted for content analysis and discussion of the ideas in the text. With respect, trust, ideas opening a greater interaction by participants was achieved.
Sessions are analyzed by means of three methods: 1) identifying elements arising from the ASAC protocol (Assessment of Scientific Argumentation in the Classroom) (Enderle et al., 2010); 2) learning acts identified during the session; and 3) speech acts in accordance with the critical discussion rules of pragma-dialectic (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 2006).
The analysis is carried out for a session attended by the teacher and five students. Elements and acts of each of the previous methods are identified in this session. Thus, for example, are identified in the case of acts of learning: partial clarification, conclusion, confusion, skepticism, assessment, inconsistent assessment, interpretation, opposite positions, claim of foundations, and request for clarification. 19 identifying elements resulting from the ASAC protocol, which are grouped into three categories of analysis are used as well, like this: 7 for the conceptual-cognitive category (statement of validation of declarative explanation, alternative statement, statement of claim of inconsistency, statement of claim of skepticism, statement of support, statement of inappropriate support, and statement of validation of alternative explanation); 7 for the epistemic category (rhetorical element, statement of evidence, statement of evidence examination, statement of data evaluation, use of theories, laws and models, statement of inference identification or observation, and language of science element); and 5 for the social category (statement of self-reflection, statement of respect, statement of ideas opening, openness to criticism, and statement of reinforcement). Also some moments of the session following the rules of the critical discussion of pragma-dialectics and identifying fallacies. Particularly in the analyzed moments of the session have been recognized acts of rule 1 (of freedom), rule 2 (of burden of proof), rule 3 (of viewpoint), rule 4 (of relevance), rule 6 (of starting point), rule 7 (of argumentation scheme), rule 9 (of closing), rule 10 (of use), and fallacies like: Argumentum ad misericordiam, Argumentum ad verecundiam, Secundum quid, Straw man, and Vagueness.

Keywords:

Argumentation, Critical Discussion, Argumentative Evaluation, Interaction in the Classroom, Verbal Interaction.