Argumentation prompts mediating student resource use on conceptual problems

Scientific argumentation has been highlighted in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as one of the key science and engineering practices. While there have been relatively few studies on student argumentation in undergraduate physics, research has shown that the use of argumentation prompts can potentially improve not just the argumentation quality, but also the conceptual quality of student responses to written conceptual physics problems. In this study we extend previous research to look more closely at the impact of construct and evaluate argumentation prompts on the resources students bring to bear on conceptual physics problems. We examine the kinds of conceptual resources used by future elementary teachers when justifying their claim and also when they constructed a rebuttal to a counterargument.