Visualizing Physics: Boosting Argumentation Skills Through Representation

Discussions and arguments are a central component of science and its development, therefore, it is very important to integrate them into science teaching. Various studies show that the use of arguments and discussions in science classes significantly improves students’ conceptual understanding. Despite the importance of arguments and discussions, the reality is that students in schools are rarely exposed to them. The inspiration for the current study is rooted in the unique visual-argumentative structure of verbal information in the Talmud page used in the Jewish tradition. For the purposes of the current study, we developed unique a Physics Talmud Page (PTP) dealing with the very basic free fall issue. Herein, we examine the impact of PTP on the utilization of students’ argumentation abilities and physics understanding. The current research includes 132 participants and tests the differences both in the understanding of physics principles and the argumentation skills between two groups of students: students who read a Physics Talmud Page (PTP) and students who read a visually regular design page (VRDP), when both pages contain exactly the same contents. Our results show a positive impact both on conceptual understanding of physics and argumentation level.