Science Literacy: Using Multimodal STEM Text Sets to Help Students With Disabilities Engage in Argumentation

Area of Science:

• Science Education
• Literacy Instruction
• Argumentation Skills

Background:

• Students face complex information and misinformation, necessitating improved science comprehension and evidence-based reasoning skills.
• Effective strategies are needed to support all learners, particularly students with disabilities, in developing scientific argumentation abilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of multimodal STEM text sets on students' ability to construct scientific arguments.
• To assess if multimodal text sets improve argumentation skills for students with and without disabilities.

Main Methods:

• A pre-post design was employed, administering a scenario-based assessment before and after instruction.
• Instruction utilized multimodal STEM text sets to integrate science content learning with literacy skills.
• Student argumentation was evaluated based on claim-evidence-reasoning components.

Main Results:

• Both students with and without disabilities demonstrated significant improvements in argumentation skills.
• The instructional approach using multimodal STEM text sets yielded similar positive effects for both student groups.
• Students with disabilities showed notable gains, indicating the effectiveness of multimodal texts as scaffolding.

Conclusions:

• Multimodal STEM text sets are effective in enhancing scientific argumentation for diverse learners.
• These text sets provide crucial scaffolding, enabling students with disabilities to succeed in general science education.
• Integrating literacy and science through multimodal texts supports equitable learning outcomes.