The Effect of Sociocognitive Conflict on Students' Dialogic Argumentation about Floating and Sinking

Sociocognitive conflict has been used as a teaching strategy which may contribute to
change students’ conceptions about science concepts. The present paper aims at investigating
the structure of the dialogic argumentation developed by students, when they are involved
in science teaching sequence that have been designed to change their conceptions
through sociocognitive conflict strategy. For this purpose, teaching sequence targeted at the
elaboration of students’ conceptions about floating and sinking -based on sociocognitive
conflict processes- were prepared and implemented among 14 years old students. Next, the
dialogues which the students had during the teaching sequence were analysed with the help
of the framework for assessing the structure of the dialogic argumentation of Clark and
Sampson (2008). The results of data analysis demonstrate that the sociocognitive conflict
strategy promotes the structure of students’ dialogic argumentation about floating and sinking.