Abstract
The purpose of this study was to analyze the features, progress and quality of students' argumentation in socio-scientific issue taught by an inexperienced teacher and an experienced teacher. We developed a representation as an analytical tool for tracking the progress and quality of students' argumentation. We found Chinese students tend to be unwilling to become involved in any kind of verbal exchange which has the potential for conflict (i.e. argumentation). The primary reason for such hesitancy is fear of becoming emotionally upset. When teaching students the objective process of claim/support within the context of an argumentation class, the teacher who had no past experience teaching argumentation was less effective than the experienced teacher in helping students to view such a verbal exchange objectively without involving their emotions. The experienced teacher tended to be more sensitive than the inexperienced teacher to students' shift from objective involvement to emotional involvement.