Profile of The First Year Student’s Argumentation Skills on General Chemistry Courses at a Public University in West Sumatera: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Scientific argumentation is one of the key components of habits of mind, while habits of mind are one dimension of scientific literacy that should be developed in Indonesia. However, the student’s scientific argumentation ability in learning, which has been weak lately, has become a common problem that needs to be solved immediately. The solution can be related to how to evaluate the learning process, construct the problems found in learning, and design learning that can motivate students to argue. This is a descriptive study. It aimed to find out the profile of the early scientific argumentation skills of first-year students who took general chemistry courses at one of the public colleges in West Sumatra. Research instruments consist of four open and semi-closed essay questions. Those were given to 125 chemical education students involved in this study. Data was analyzed by evaluating the students’ written argumentation, which became the research samples by following the Toulmin Argumentation Pattern (TAP), consisting of claim, data, warrant, backing, and rebuttal. The study results show that most students (97.25%) have level 0–3 argumentations skills. While only 2.25% of students have level 4 argumentation skills and 0.5% are at level 5. This means that the early argumentation skills of chemistry students are still low, and only a few students are able to emerge with a rebuttal in the scientific arguments they build. These findings are further used as the basis for designing learning strategies that can improve students’ argumentation skills during the learning process, especially in general chemistry courses, so that their habits of mind and scientific literacy will also increase.