PHYSICS PROBLEM SOLVING

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statements relating to group functioning or the Problem-Solving Strategy as procedural,
but the strategy contains elements of physics content.
It will be difficult in the descriptions of the groups to cleanly separate the
analytic, physical principle arguments from the procedural arguments. The reason is
because the problem-solving arguments specifically relate to the problem-solving
strategy. Students were taught, for example, that a free-body diagram was an important
part of the Physics Description. Thus, “We've got to draw the free-body diagram” is an
anticipated procedural Claim that is a very necessary part of the solution. This inter-
relatedness of the process and content may not allow for the clean distinction Toulmin
would make between “analytic” and “substantive” or procedural arguments:
We shall therefore class an argument as analytic if, and only if, it satisfies that
criterion-- if, that is, checking the backing of the warrant involves ipso facto
checking the truth or falsity of the conclusion-- and we shall do this whether a
knowledge of the full backing would in fact verify the conclusion or falsify it (Toulmin, 1990, pp. 133).
In the context of the Gasthaus example, drawing a free-body diagram is both a
substantive and an analytic argument. If the negative statement was true, namely that
drawing a free-body diagram is unnecessary, then the conclusion from that action,
namely that the sign is in static equilibrium, would be false. This clearly contradicts the
given information. Hence, it seems reasonable to utilize the Toulmin structure when
describing the problem-solving group’s procedural conversations. These “arguments” are
much more akin to legal arguments in that they focus on the procedure, process, and
promotion of orderly progress through the problem.
I should note that a given segment of a group’s conversation may not contain all
components of the Toulmin structure. In Toulmin’s structure, the argument ends with the