Abstract

The development of students’ abilities to critique scientific arguments are an essential component of science education. However, research on students’ abilities to critique scientific arguments is limited. This study examines primary and middle school students’ abilities to critique the evidence in written scientific arguments that they read. A questionnaire is used as the data collection instrument, which was dispensed to 261 primary school students (eleven years old) and to 257 middle school students (fourteen years old) in Greece. The analysis of the data identified students’ abilities to critique scientific arguments. In particular, data analysis revealed that most of the students have not developed the abilities to critique the evidence in written scientific arguments. These students did not locate evidence in arguments, did not identify new relevant supporting evidence that is appropriate to include in an argument, did not critique a new piece of evidence, and did not compare two arguments based on the relevance and support of the evidence. This study concludes with a discussion and recommendations for future research.