Should we catch frogs? Quality of the Arguments of Primary School Students and Cognitive Performance in a Field Study

Abstract

This work is part of a longitudinal study over three years, from 4th to 6th Grade in primary school. This paper focuses on the quality of the arguments of 4th Grade students (9 to10 years of age) while taking decisions about what to study, how to study it and how to behave on a field trip and their relationships to the use of knowledge. The results show a) that the proposed instrument is useful to assess the quality of the arguments; b) that in this group there is a correspondence between the argumentative competence, the ability to justify positions and the cognitive performance, the use of knowledge schemata and categories. Implications for the design of learning environments promoting argumentation are discussed.