A comparative study of the effectiveness of two argumentation scaffolds – reasoning flow scaffold (RFS) and claim–evidence–reasoning (CER) – in developing students' written argumentation skills in chemistry

This study compared the effectiveness of two argumentation scaffolds – reasoning flow scaffold (RFS) and claim–evidence–reasoning (CER) – in developing high school students' written argumentation skills in chemistry. Two classes with 95 tenth-grade students from a senior high school participated in this study. Pre-test and post-test were administered to students in both classes (Class A, N = 47, and Class B, N = 48). Class A completed two written scientific argumentation assignments using CER, while Class B completed the same assignments with the RFS. Responses from the pre- and post-tests were evaluated using the structure of observed learning outcome (SOLO) taxonomy as the analytic framework. The results of data analysis showed that students in the RFS group performed significantly better than those in the CER group on reasoning and rebuttal, while there were no significant differences in claim or evidence between the two groups. This paper concludes with implications and recommendations for practice and future research.