• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.155-168
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• 2017

This study investigates how elementary students used cognitive-emotional rebuttals in the context of modeling activities, especially on how their emotional and cognitive processes lead them to use rebuttals in terms of epistemic affect. Twenty-five fifth grade elementary students participated in the study as part of their science class. During the course of their sixth periods, students constructed a human respiratory system model through continuous discussion. The research results showed that elementary students used an elaboration-oriented rebuttal, a defence-oriented rebuttal, and a blame-oriented rebuttal in their modeling activity. The elaboration-oriented rebuttal interspersed with negative epistemic affect was used to elaborate on a student's explanation, and a negative epistemic affect was elicited from their cognitive discrepancy. On the other hand, defence-oriented rebuttal and blame-oriented rebuttal entangled with negative epistemic affect were used to defeat the students rather than help rigor evaluation of students' explanation, and the negative epistemic affect was elicited from the other students' undesirable behavior. These results suggest that students' rebuttals can be elicited by epistemic dynamics related to the epistemic affect. The study shows that if negative epistemic affect were elicited from the other students' naive or false explanations, such an emotion is natural in terms of model construction, and the model can be further developed through the acceptance of the elaboration-oriented rebuttals by students' emotion regulation. In addition, we suggest that negative emotions aroused from the worsening of relationships during small group modeling activities are difficult to regulate and can have negative effects on students' cooperative model construction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2020

In scientific argumentation, students can use rebuttals to escape uncertainty, which, in this case, can be defined as a vague and fuzzy feeling about other students' explanations. As rebuttals can play a critical role in the sophistication of arguments and the alleviation of uncertainty, this study aims to understand the dynamics of uncertainty and rebuttals by exploring the context of the uncertainty experienced by elementary school students in the argumentation of "Why did the kidney beans not germinate?" and to get insights based on the research results. Twenty fourth-grade students and their homeroom teacher in Kyong-Ki province, South Korea, took part in the research. Students engaged in argumentation in five small groups of four students. The researcher collected qualitative data through video transcriptions, student interviews, and field notes. In the data analysis, the researcher employed the constant comparative method to explore in what context students experienced uncertainty and how they used rebuttals. The results of this study were as follows: First, students tried to reduce their uncertainty through argumentation on why the kidney beans did not germinate. Second, students used elaboration-oriented rebuttals, personal opinion-oriented rebuttals, and blame-oriented rebuttals to reduce this uncertainty. However, when they used blame-oriented rebuttals, their uncertainty and negative emotions increased. Third, intervention by the teacher led students to stop using blame-oriented rebuttals. Instead, they employed elaboration-oriented rebuttals to explore why the kidney beans would not sprout, and finally, they escaped uncertainty by discovering an appropriate explanation. Based on the findings of this study, the researcher discussed how the interaction between uncertainty and elaboration-oriented rebuttals could shape and facilitate argument development in elementary school students.