对于参与者来说这是他们第一次经历这样开放性的调查、写一个同行报告并且能有一个对此进行批判性的讨论的机会。参与者是八个志愿者学生和他们的科学老师，他们是来自韩国首尔一所中学的两个男孩和六个女孩，他们在班里的成绩有好的也有中等水平的，但是他们都几乎没有在科学课堂上经历开放的探究或者参与带有批判性的讨论。参与的教师有四年在中学教书的经历。教师在这个探究性活动中扮演的是提供活动材料的人以及本次讨论的组织者。

过程：

在本次研究中研究者设计了一个时间较长的活动目的是为了促进有关学生论证的教学。

关于辩论探究的活动被分成了实验活动和辩论活动两个部分。在夏令营活动中学生已经以小组的形式进行了室外的探究性活动，每个小组由两到三个学生组成。

小组分配如下：

A组（泡沫组）              两个男孩（Sungjun,  Taesik）

B组（带组）                三个女孩（Yubin, Sumin,  Heeyong）

C组（仪器组）              三个女孩（Juhee, Kyunghee,  Minjung） 

实验活动后，学生要求提前写一个关于同行回顾的的论证报告，以及开展一个有关的批判性讨论。

Abstract: This study examined the features of peer argumentation in middle school students’ scientific inquiry. Participants were two boys and six girls in grade 8 of a middle school in Seoul, Korea. Students engaged in open inquiry activities in small groups. Each group prepared the report for peer review and then, during the peer discussion, presented their inquiry results while another group acted as critics, in a way similar to conference presentations by scientists. This study’s data sources included audio- and video-tapes of discussions, copies of student reports, questionnaires completed by the students and transcripts of interviews with the students. It was found that the critical peer discussion in general proceeded through the following four stages: Focusing, Exchanging, Debating and Closing. In addition, 75.6% of evidence used in students’ arguments was personal evidence and students used various cognitive and social strategies in the critical discussion. For an effective critical discussion, making good use of the Focusing Stage was found to be important factor. Students improved their interpretation and methods of experiment during the argumentation process and this feedback made the inquiry circular. Finally, we identify a model of argumentative scientific inquiry as an open inquiry that has the key components of authentic scientific inquiry.

Key Words: argumentative scientific inquiry, critical discussion, peer   argumentation

Practical work is a key component of science education that provides students with access to experience of the natural world. But research on practical work shows that students often achieve little meaningful learning through it and some researchers have even argued that school science practical work promotes deficient or distorted views of science (Hodson, 1998; Hodson & Bencze, 1998; Wellington, 1998).

In most practical work of school science, the emphasis is often on doing rather than on thinking and little time is set aside for discussion, argumentation, and negotiation of meanings. Observation of science lessons in England indicated that much of the time spent on practical work is devoted to carrying out the practical procedures themselves (Newton, Driver, & Osborne, 1999). Some studies found that the fundamental concern of many students in the laboratory is just completion of the given task (Berry, Mulhall, Loughran, & Gunstone, 1999; Edmondson & Novak, 1993). In Korea, a survey of the features of practical work in physics in middle school science textbooks reported that only 3% of the practical work was intended to help students to learn how to use data to support a conclusion and only 9.5% on learning to communicate the results of their work (Kim, Kang, & Song, 2003).