Discussions and Argumentation in Science Teaching: Teaching Practices and Challenges

Scientific discussions in school classrooms are recent and scarce globally, with teaching characterized by unproductive patterns of interrogation-response-evaluation. Hence, knowing what can facilitate productive and argumentative discussions in science classrooms is critical. This study systematically reviews the literature and finds that such practices have dialogic/interactive purposes, assign roles, and specify participation structures, discourses, and teaching practices. The works reviewed also identify challenges in the curriculum, teacher education, and teacher beliefs in facilitating scientific discussions. Implications address pre-service and in -service teacher education, suggesting the inclusion of scientific argumentation, reinforcing scientific knowledge, and working on teacher beliefs about argumentation.