PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

(^) was followed by an Alternate Claim or an Alternate Claim and a Modified Claim, I
counted that as an Alternate Claim following the Claim. If the original Claim was
followed only by a Modified Claim, then that was counted as a Modified Claim
following.
I “summed across groups” and tabulated the episodes in which initial Claims that
were followed only by a Modified Claim or by an Alternate Claim (and possibly a
Modified Claim as well). The results of this tabulation are shown in Table 4-11.
(^) Type/Number of
Initial Claims Only Claim FoModified llows Alternate ClaimFollows^
Correct (28) 21 7
“Fuzzy” (46) 30 16
Incorrect (21) 6 15
Total^57 38
Table 4-11. Modified Claim and Alternate Claim Use vs. Claim Quality.
These results support the hypothesis that the groups’ use of Modified Claims and
Alternate Claims is related to the degree of correctness or quality of the original Claim.
Modified Claims and Grounds, Warrants, and Backings tend to follow and clarify mostly
correct initial Claims (21/28 or 75%). Modified Claims follow and slightly “tweak” an
ambiguous initial Claim (30/46 or 65%). Sometimes Alternate Claims follow an
ambiguous initial Claim (16/46 or 35%). Alternate Claims follow incorrect initial Claims
(15/21 or 71%).
Based on these results, I hypothesized further about why some groups consistently
use Alternate Claims and some rarely do: Groups that have a consistent use of Alternate
Claims should also have more incorrect original claims. To test this hypothesis, I
determined an overall Claim quality rating for each group by averaging the correctness