This study explored the effectiveness of Metacognitive Argument-Driven
Inquiry (MADI) strategy on the scientific argumentative skills of Grade 10
students. It used total population sampling through the selection of 50 Grade
10 students of Buenaventura Alandy National High School, who belong to the
Science Enhanced Program and the Special Program in Foreign Language.
Preparation and selection of instruments underwent extensive planning and
validation process by experts and the revision followed. Collection of data
included pre-assessment result that measured students' cognitive levels based
on SOLO Taxonomy and post-assessment performance in scientific argumentative
skills on the five dimensions: critical thinking, creative thinking, problem
solving, evaluation of evidence, and logical reasoning, respectively. One-group
posttest-only design was used as the research design to explore the effect of
MADI through structured teaching of 4 phases of metacognitive learning process;
Tacit, Aware, Strategic and Reflective. Data was analyzed using frequency,
percentage, Pearson r and ANOVA. Findings revealed that most of the students
were at developing level in prestructural/unistructural, and multistructural
levels. There was a wide gap between relational and extended abstract levels
which consisted mostly of students belonging to the beginning level. After the
MADI strategy was applied, most of the students obtained scores in closely
approximating mastery for critical thinking, creative thinking, and evidence
evaluation, while a number of students attained mastered level in problem
solving and logical reasoning. The results also showed there is no significant
correlation between cognitive levels and scientific argumentative skills and
there is no significant difference in the scientific argumentative skills when
group according to cognitive level as students performed comparably regardless
of their cognitive standing. It suggests that MADI can be used in science class
to strengthen students' argumentative skills in secondary schools.