A Study on Teaching the Ability to Examine Validity in Elementary School Science

—Consensus and Accommodation through Consensus Building Situations—

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to devise an instructional method to foster “the ability to examine the validity of mutual ideas based on scientific evidence” among the consensus-building skills in elementary school science classes, and to verify its effectiveness through classroom practice. In order to achieve this objective, we first organized the differences in consensus building according to one of two learning situations: hypothesis-setting: “accommodation,” which is a temporary state of co-existence and parallelism of diverse opinions, or discussion : “consensus,” which is agreement of opinions. Next, considering the differences in consensus formation depending on the learning situation, we devised instructional methods for each of the hypothesis-setting and discussion situations. In the hypothesis-setting scene, considering accommodation, which is the goal of consensus formation, we devised an instructional method to have students examine the validity of the hypothesis after setting up a scene in which they accept the ideas of others. In the discussion scene, we devised an instructional method in which the participants examine the validity of the discussion based on argumentation structure, with consideration of consensus (the goal of consensus formation); participants then decide on a single discussion as a group. In order to verify the effectiveness of our teaching method, we conducted a lesson on “how things dissolve” using potassium chloride for 59 fifth-grade students at an elementary school. The results of the analysis using questionnaires and evaluation questions suggested that the devised teaching method contributed to the development of “the ability to examine the validity of each other’s ideas based on scientific evidence.”