Abstract

The present study, which is focused on pupils’ dialogic argumentation put forward during the didactic elaboration of their conceptual obstacles, deals with the relation between two basic elements of the quality of the dialogic argumentation developed by the pupils in class and particularly with the discourse moves of pupils’ comments made during their group discussions and the grounds included in these comments. To fulfill this aim, a teaching sequence on the didactic elaboration of the obstacles regarding temperature and heat was designed and implemented in primary school pupils (aged 11-12). Pupils’ discussions were tape-recorded during the teaching sequence. Then, pupils’ oral discourse was analysed and their individual comments were classified into categories, as regards their discourse moves, and levels, as regards the grounds included. At the next stage, the relation between the categories of the discourse moves of pupils’ comments and the levels of the grounds included in their comments was investigated. Data analysis allowed for mapping the way the categories of the discourse moves are distributed among grounds levels. Moreover, the analysis revealed that the use of grounds levels by the pupils, when the latter want to support their claims, depends on the category of the discourse moves that include their comments. More specifically, it emerged that when the pupils contradict their peers’ views, in contrast to when they support their peers’ views, clearly tend to express comments including grounds of higher quality. The results of the present study affect the research on designing and developing teaching material suitable for the promotion of pupils’ dialogic argumentation.