Students' ways of performing in the laboratory to support claims and action proposals

Abstract

In this paper, a 10th grade group of students discourse is analyzed. They faced practical tasks in the laboratory. These tasks were conceived as problems and the aim of the study is to identify and study the students’ ways of participation used to make acceptable their conclussions and proposals of action. A scheme for these ways of participation is developed, exploring their rate of use and the evolution of the more used ones. Complexity in the students’ reasoning through collective talking is observed. Although the student do a significative use of knowledge to support proposals and claims, there are another dimensions relevant in their discourse, as the orientation of actions to get short-term pragmatic goals.