Argumentation is central to science learning. Students in every domain of science should have the opportunity to develop the ability to think and act in ways associated with argumentation. When engaged in argumentation, students learn how to puzzle through problems, to see multiple ways of finding solutions, to gather and evaluate evidence on different sides of issues, and communicate scientific knowledge. These skills can ultimately equip students with the ability to function effectively at work and in the everyday world. In this study, argumentation was processed as a dialogical interaction for students who are in a dialogical relation with others, and who contribute to a conversation by means of thinking, sense making, reasoning, and problem solving in the science classroom. Eighty-seven students completed 48 written tasks, twelve of which deal with problem-solving tasks on mechanics concepts and 36 other tasks concerned with features of how they make and defend arguments. The results show that about two-thirds of the students tended to place primacy on claim making and evidence evaluation on problem-solving tasks that have clear solutions. However, when they had to solve problem tasks that have multiple solutions or no clear-cut answers, regardless of the type of scenarios, their performance dropped considerably. These findings provided additional insight for where more emphasis needs to be placed in both students' arguments and pedagogical explanations on how argumentation in science classrooms can be conceptualized.