Examination of primary school pre-service teachers’ argumentative writings in the context of science writing heuristics approach

This research reveals primary school pre-service teachers’ (PST) argumentative writings during the implementation of the Science Writing Heuristics Approach. Thirty-four PSTs completed their argumentative writing reports over six weeks. In total, PSTs prepared 194 argumentative writing reports, and the reports were analysed based on epistemic understanding of an argument, the overall cohesiveness, and the text assessment. Codes were transformed into quantitative data after the qualitative analysis of argumentative writings. Repeated-measure ANOVA was conducted to see possible changes in PSTs’ argumentative writings throughout the study. The quality of the reports was mainly low throughout the study. Repeated-measure ANOVA results revealed significant differences between different weeks. However, a linear development was not observed in terms of argumentative writing. Possible explanations for this situation are discussed, considering the nature of the study and different types of argument-based inquiry approaches. Implications are suggested considering PSTs’ argumentative writing reports.