Reasoning as a scientist: ways of helping children to use language to learn science

By Neil Mercer, Lyn Dawes, Rupert Wegerif, Claire Sams. 2004

708 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/893c8168562b7806c0eb77e8b4684838be3ee38b

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

Citations in the corpus

Learning to argue: A study of four schools and their attempt to develop the use of argumentation as a common instructional practice and its impact on students (2013, background): “To date, there is an accumulating body of studies which suggest that engaging in argumentation can lead to significant improvements in students’ conceptual understanding when compared to students taught by other methods (Mercer et al., 2004; Venville & Dawson, 2010; Zohar & Nemet, 2002).”
Teacher interventions in small group work in secondary mathematics and science lessons (2016, background): “At the start of the project, each class took a module involving practicing discussion skills and developing class ‘ ground rules ’ for talk (Mercer et al. 2004; Mercer and Littleton 2007).”
Promoting reasoned argumentation, problem‐solving and learning during small‐group work (2009, background): “Similarly, Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, and Sams ( 2004 ), in a study of 196 children in Year 5 who were taught to talk and reasons together as they participated in inquiry science activities, found they demonstrated significantly better knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and relevant par”
Argumentation for Learning: Well-Trodden Paths and Unexplored Territories (2016, background): “Indeed, an increasing body of research has shown that when argumentation activities become an integral part of the classroom experience, students can become quite capable in argumentation on similar and new topics (e.g., Frijters, ten Dam, & Rijlaarsdam, 2008; Iordanou, 2010; Kuhn & Crowell, 2011; K”
Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction (2011, background): “The majority of these learners were categorized at level 2 (41”
Formative assessment – an optimistic but incomplete vision (2015, background): “However, studies in the UK and the USA (Baines, Blatchford, & Kutnick, 2009; Dawes, Mercer, & Wegerif, 2004; Johnson, Johnson, & Stanne, 2000; Mercer et al., 2004), have shown that the benefits of such discussion can only be achieved if students are carefully trained for group work.”
Beyond Construction: Five arguments for the role and value of critique in learning science (2015, background): “AsMercier and Sperber (2011) argue, it is not so much that human reasoning is biased as much as it is a common human failure to envision possible counter-critiques.”
Developing the theory of formative assessment (2009, background): “For peer-assessment, the teacher in classroom interaction can model for learners the way they should interact with one another, but far more will be involved (Blatchford et al. 2006; Mercer et al. 2004).”
Which cognitive processes support learning during small-group discussion? The role of providing explanations and listening to others (2011, background): “Training children to use this form of talk has been found to have a positive effect on their learning (Mercer and Sams 2006; Mercer et al. 2004).”
The medium of instruction and classroom interaction: evidence from Hong Kong secondary schools (2012, background): “Building on such theory there has been considerable work (Mercer et al. 2004; Rojas-Drummond and Mercer 2003) that has pursued this notion of ‘thinking together’ and ‘exploratory talk’ and how these create opportunities for learning academic subjects.”
Assessment for Learning in the Classroom (2004, background): “Alexander, 2008), and the findings of research and development work aimed at improving the quality of peer-group work (Blatchford et al., 2006; Mercer et al., 2004);”
The Impact of Interactive Whiteboards on Teacher--Pupil Interaction in the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies. (2006, background): “Research into dialogic teaching suggests that classroom talk can take a variety of forms and functions, leading to different levels of pupil participation and engagement, and to higher levels of pupil achievement (Nystrand et al., 2003; Mercer et al., 2004).”
Classroom assessment and pedagogy (2018, background): “…of the work of pupil-groups in classrooms have shown that the peer-interactions are not effective unless pupils are given some training to guide them to emphasise reasons rather than assertions and to offset the tendency of some to dominate the discussion (Baines et al., 2009, Mercer et al., 2004).”
Developing High Quality Decision‐Making Discussions About Biological Conservation in a Normal Classroom Setting (2009, background): “In practice, research has shown that activities facilitating argumentation can also promote thinking and reasoning in science (e.g. Mercer et al., 2004; Simon and Maloney, 2007).”