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Argument relevance and structure. Assessing and developing students’ uses of evidence
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to show whether the two crucial dimensions used for assessing the quality of argumentation, argument-as-a-product (argument structure) and argument-as-a-process (relevance), are interrelated, and how they can be used to assess the effect of argumentative mode on students’ arguments. To this purpose, a twofold coding scheme will be developed, aimed at capturing: a) the argumentative function of evidence use and b) the dialogical relevance of evidence use. A study will be described in which students’ use of evidence is elicited in two distinct argumentative modes (dialogical vs. non-dialogical). According to the results, in the dialogical mode students tended to use evidence in a more sophisticated way from both argument evaluation perspectives.
... An argumentative essay cannot be separated from evidence. Without supporting evidence, the arguments will be weak (Macagno, 2016;Zhang, 2018). Zhang (2018) investigated evidence in Chinese EFL learners' argumentative writing. ...
... He found that explanation was used dominantly by Chinese English majors (Zhang, 2011(Zhang, , 2018. The students relied heavily on explanations because of the students' lack of knowledge and skills (Macagno, 2016). Moreover, Macagno (2016) indicated that in the essays, most of the evidence was coded as relevant, while others were coded as irrelevant and wrongly used. ...
... The students relied heavily on explanations because of the students' lack of knowledge and skills (Macagno, 2016). Moreover, Macagno (2016) indicated that in the essays, most of the evidence was coded as relevant, while others were coded as irrelevant and wrongly used. Most of the evidence was classified as relevant in the dialogues, and others were classified as irrelevant and wrongly used (Macagno, 2016). ...
Although many research studies discussed argumentative essays, little is known about argumentative essays discussing the dialogical exchange of argumentation. This study aims to investigate the distribution of elements and the quality of argumentative essays produced by EFL students. The content analysis was employed to examine their argumentative essays. The data were garnered from essay writing tests for forty students of the English Department at a state university in Palangka Raya, Indonesia. They were assigned to write an argumentative essay about "Online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The data analysis comprised collecting, categorizing, and displaying the data and conclusion drawing. The results indicated that (1) a greater number of the students were not able to supply all elements of an argumentative essay, such as an explanation of an issue, thesis statement, counterargument, refutation, and conclusion, and (2) most of them failed to obtain excellence qualification. The study findings imply how teachers can redesign the materials, find effective strategies for teaching an argumentative essay, and provide many practice opportunities. The teachers should focus on teaching an argumentative essay element by allowing the students to understand the goal of each element and integrate them to form a well-developed argumentative essay.
... Argumentation has been a prominent field of study, especially within the context of science education research during the past decades (Erduran, 2022;Erduran et al., 2015;Lee et al., 2009) and studies have ranged from the analysis of students' written and oral arguments to teaching methods promoting argumentation. Specifically, researchers have analysed interviews in which people engaged in oral argumentation (i.e., Kuhn, 1991), students' written arguments from science lessons (i.e., Jimenez-Aleixandre & Pereiro-Munoz, 2002;McNeill & Pimentel, 2009;Rapanta & Christodoulou, 2022), students' artefacts created during the instruction (Sampson & Clark, 2008), and written essays or texts (Erduran et al., 2015;Kelly & Takao, 2002;Macagno, 2016;Osborne et al., 2004). The aforementioned studies have identified a number of difficulties that students face with written and oral argumentation and have proposed instructional approaches that can help enhance both written and oral argumentation in the classroom and tried to identify learning progressions for argumentation (Osborne et al., 2016). ...
... However, most of the studies on written argumentation place an emphasis on only one aspect -writing an argument mostly in the form of a written essay. However, sub-skills of written argumentation as for example deciding which is a more sophisticated argument or counter-argument, and how students argue in different contexts is relatively unexplored (Macagno, 2016;Rodriquez-Mora et al., 2022). Therefore, what is identified as missing from research in argumentation in science education is an exploration of the various sub-skills associated with written argument. ...
... Other than writing arguments, another aspect of argumentation is evaluating written arguments (Macagno, 2016). Studies in the area of evaluating written arguments are sparse, especially studies with middle school students. ...
The purpose of this study was to explore the different sub-skills of students’ written arguments (i.e., writing an argument, choosing a convincing argument) that might exist, and the content dependency of arguments. This paper presents two written argumentation tools that were designed for 11-14 year-old students, and the main outcomes from applying the tools to evaluate the written arguments of 246 students. The analysis of the data implies that choosing a convincing argument is a different kind of skill than any of the other three aspects of argumentation that were evaluated in these tests; that argumentation is content specific, and that argument construction is easier when the students’ have knowledge of the topic, regardless of whether this is a scientific or an everyday life topic. A main contribution in this study is that we have identified the degree of complexity for all four sub-skills that were included in the test. By identifying that writing an argument is a more difficult skill to acquire, or that students are not acquainted with it, it can help educators to design better scaffolding structures to support students when writing counterarguments. Research implications arising from the findings include exploring in detail how students choose to agree or disagree with given claims in different situations – for example exploring the difference in agreeing with media claims on socioscientific issues as opposed to scientific claims in the science classroom. Implications for teaching include using different teaching approaches for scientific and everyday argumentation.
... Contemporary theorists have focused increasingly on the central role of evidence in argument. Metz et al. (2018), Barzilai and Chinn (2018), and Macagno (2016) all highlight the critical role of different epistemic norms people hold in determining how they understand evidence, with differing norms implying differences in what one takes as evidence. Duncan et al. (2018) have gone on to perform the useful service of identifying a typology of forms of evidence that highlights their variety and complexity, making clear that the competence in claim-evidence coordination that argument requires and that Shah et al. (2017) call for is not a simple one-step achievement. ...
... It has an equally if not more important function to serve in weakening claims that do not stand its test. Only a few recent investigators have examined skill in the use of evidence to weaken claims (Chen et al., 2016;Hemberger et al., 2017;Macagno, 2016;Shi, 2019Shi, , 2020Villarroel et al., 2016), observing it to be a more challenging task. ...
... Undermining is the most damaging form of weakening an argument in that it is the hardest for the proponent of the argument to recover from (Macagno, 2016). The argument itself must be reconstructed if its strength is to be restored. ...
Agreement has become widespread that students’ peer-to-peer argumentation should play a central role in science classrooms. Coordinating evidence with claims lies at the heart of a skilled argument. Yet evidence takes numerous forms that pose different interpretational challenges. Might cognitive limitations on the part of the individual student in this regard constrain the potential effectiveness of classroom discourse? This possibility has received limited recent attention relative to the contemporary sociocultural focus on examining and optimising patterns of classroom discourse. We examine seven forms of evidence in the context of two scenarios and document the challenges eighth-grade students exhibit in relating them to a claim. Our analysis led us to propose an overarching challenge across the different forms: establishing the relation that two assertions (claim and evidence) bear to one another, rather than address only one of the two and from the perspective of one’s own beliefs. In Study 1, we present this analysis and report on the limited levels of mastery students exhibit across the different evidence types and in Study 2 on an effort to foster such mastery in early adolescent students.
... numerical data, background information, observation and facts obtained from reading and discussions). Finally, Macagno (2016) defines evidence as measurements, the authority of experts or qualified sources, or experiments that can be used to support a point of view (p. 181). ...
... Regarding the relevance criteria, Walton (2004) states that a dialogic argument is generally considered relevant as long as it is functional (informative) to the goal of such dialogue (Walton 2004). According to Macagno (2016) and Kuhn and Udell (2003), evidence can be nonjustificatory (not addressing the problem at all) nonfunctional (addressing only tangential aspects of the problem) and functional arguments (addressing core aspects of the problem).Therefore, evidence is irrelevant when it does not support the claim sufficiently or when it unconnected to previous moves. ...
... For the design of the rubric to codify the validity of the evidence, we take as a reference the work of Kuhn (1991) and the coding criteria of Macagno (2016) for (1) the structural use of the evidence and (2) the relevance of such evidence to determine if the evidence is informative. Another indicator incorporated into our rubric was the sophisticated use of evidence, whether it was used simply, to support the claim (or weaken the opposite position) directly or involve a more scientific use of the evidence in interpreting and elaborating the information, building on the warrant. ...
The present study has two goals: to explore elementary students’ understanding of evidence and the ways they deploy it to construct arguments, and to examine whether eliciting their concept of evidence during argumentation improves students’ evidence-based reasoning. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 4th and 6th graders (N = 66) in a public school in Mexico. We found significant differences between groups regarding the concept of evidence, with better performance in the older group. A positive correlation between the concept of evidence and the quality of evidence-based reasoning was found. Also, three performance profiles were observed after eliciting the concept of evidence when grade was excluded as a factor. Results suggest that the concept of evidence plays an essential role in developing argumentative competence in pre-adolescence.
... As an example in science learning, teachers provide scientific explanations to students to help them understand the scientific explanations as a reason [5]. The role of argumentation in learning and student interaction has become a major component in education [6]. Argumentative or collaborative dialogue has proven to be a very effective teaching strategy [7,8] to improve students' critical skills [9] and handle background knowledge [6]. ...
... The role of argumentation in learning and student interaction has become a major component in education [6]. Argumentative or collaborative dialogue has proven to be a very effective teaching strategy [7,8] to improve students' critical skills [9] and handle background knowledge [6]. Education experts begin to believe that the core of the way of thinking scientist is how he is able to present evidence as a basis for arguments or claims related to facts through a premise [6,7]. ...
... Argumentative or collaborative dialogue has proven to be a very effective teaching strategy [7,8] to improve students' critical skills [9] and handle background knowledge [6]. Education experts begin to believe that the core of the way of thinking scientist is how he is able to present evidence as a basis for arguments or claims related to facts through a premise [6,7]. ...
This research is aimed to evaluate and compare the argumentation skill in science and non-science students. This research is quantitative research which involved two classes including 30 science students who taught human physiology subject and 30 social and humanities students who taught curriculum development subject. Both classes using blended learning with "argueweb" for online learning and debate for offline learning. The data collected from argumentation score using argumentation observation sheet. The data collected then to analyze descriptively and statistically using t-test. The result showed that there are differences between argumentation skill in science and non-science students. There are differences in quality of argumentation in science and non-science students. Science students showed good and clear backing with so many evidences. While non-science students provide strong and arguable warrant. Thus the quality of both science and non-science students argumentation need improvement to achieve better argument and learning outcomes.
... Accordingly, it supports their being examined in relation to one another, a hallmark of productive discussion. This raises a longstanding issue in educational literature on argumentation, the power of collaborative versus adversarial modes of argument (Bailin & Battersby, 2021;Macagno, 2016;Matos, 2021;Rapanta & Felton, 2021;Shi, 2024). Both have their place. ...
... Still, even collaborative argumentation requires that ideas be situated in argumentative relation to one another (Bailin & Battersby, 2021;Larrain et al., 2021;Macagno, 2016;Shi, 2024), not simply interconnected in a gradually elaborated collaborative construction, what Mercer (2004) called "cumulative talk." Uncritical shared agreement has the potential to discourage students from engaging in cognitively more advanced dialog patterns (Chen et al., 2023;Mercer, 2004). ...
Here, we present comparative case studies of two young adolescents engaged in electronic dialogs on a social issue with a sequence of partners. We trace how an individual coordinates existing ideas with new input the interaction provides. Tracing the evolution of an individual’s ideas entails close examination of the process by means of which it occurs. The skills the individual brings to the interaction shape this evolution, as well as undergo development themselves as a consequence of practice. The two case studies revealed strikingly different patterns, and their comparison provides insights into the processes involved. Their description encompasses not simply the knowledge but also the argument skills the individual brings to the activity and, underlying them, understandings of the purposes and objectives of argumentation. Metacognitive talk about their thinking may be key in conferring the benefit the dialogic activity provides; it aides in dissociating a belief from the holder of the belief, thereby promoting claims being situated in argumentative relation to one another. Text-only communication proved a beneficial condition for this to occur.
... That is, the argument is unpacked through parallel and real-life instances in a manner that the writer's intentions are made clear (as in example 2). In academic writing, the writers use examples in the form of evidence or academic claims to strengthen their arguments (Macagno, 2016). ...
... As shown in Figure 3 below, for example (43.1%) and for instance (17%) were the two most frequently used markers of argumentation. in student writing. There were barely any clause complexes that sandwiched the arguments within a "for-and-against structure" (Macagno, 2016;Wingate, 2012). ...
In academic writing, exemplification plays a crucial role in contextualizing complex ideational material through instances the readers can understand. In addition to illustrating ideas through concrete instances, the act of providing examples serves the purpose of helping the readers grasp the writer's intentions. However, strategically performing exemplification to elaborate the propositional material seems to be a challenge for many novice student writers. Although some studies have mentioned that students use significantly less frequently the exemplification resources in their writing, fewer studies have probed into EFL student writing to determine the problems they face in elaborating the ideas. Using the marker approach, which examines the discourse functions bottom‐up from markers to moves, the learner corpus of essay writing (LCEW) was analyzed for three major forms of exemplification: representation, argumentation, and analogy. The results indicate that the examples are strictly limited to certain patterns like specifying concepts through a subcategory and illustrating the arguments through everyday experiences. Moreover, many examples deviate from the usual patterns of exemplification causing confusion. These findings have pedagogic implications for academic writing courses in the EFL context.
... s0045 Relevance p0120 Argument relevance does not merely imply that contributions are on the topic and coherent with the contents discussed. This is only one aspect of relevance, which, in argumentative dialog, corresponds to the so-called structural relevancedhow the argument components logically inter-relate one with another (Macagno, 2008(Macagno, , 2016. The other aspect of relevance refers to being consistent with the pragmatic functiondthat is, the purpose of the dialog, and the different forms it may take throughout interaction (Macagno, 2016(Macagno, , 2019. ...
... This is only one aspect of relevance, which, in argumentative dialog, corresponds to the so-called structural relevancedhow the argument components logically inter-relate one with another (Macagno, 2008(Macagno, , 2016. The other aspect of relevance refers to being consistent with the pragmatic functiondthat is, the purpose of the dialog, and the different forms it may take throughout interaction (Macagno, 2016(Macagno, , 2019. In argument skill development terms, the former type of relevant participation is contained in argument strategic and metacognitive skills, whereas the latter is expressed through the idea of metastrategic and epistemological awareness (see Reasoning abilities, skills and dispositions implied in argumentative discourse section). ...
Aim: The aim of this chapter is to theoretically substantiate the relationship between argumentation and critical thinking and to summarize empirical evidence of how the former supports the assessment and development of the latter.
Main concepts: To fulfill the above we use concepts from informal logic theory as well as reasoning development. In particular, the argument assessment criteria of reasonableness, relevance, sufficiency, and acceptability are discussed, to show how they contribute to both argument generation and assessment, taking into consideration the dialogic context of argumentation. It is this dialogic practice of argumentation that brings to the surface, and helps develop, not only basic generative and inferential abilities but also more complex meta-strategic and epistemological skills and reasoning dispositions.
Conclusions and outlook: We conclude that argumentation, together with inquiry, are two practices that help make critical thinking skills and dispositions visible, accessible, and assessable in practice, through constructing arguments, counterarguments, and rebuttals in authentic contexts of thinking together with others.
... Own and other perspectives must both remain accessible, making it possible to compare and contrast their points of similarity and difference, seeking to coordinate and possibly reconcile them-all essential dimensions of productive argumentation (Kuhn, 2020;Kuhn & Modrek, 2018). In skilled argumentation each arguer has not only constructed representations of the other's claims but also of the other's reasoning, a powerful meta-level process that lays the groundwork for relevant, effective counterargument (Macagno, 2016;Macagno & Walton, 2018). ...
... A more demanding form of metacognitive control in reasoning to a conclusion in an argumentive context arises when a third element-evidence-is introduced, creating a triad of own and other position and a body of evidence whose factual correctness is accepted, although not necessarily its relevance (Macagno, 2016;Macagno & Walton, 2018). Now an arguer must do more than question an opponent's claim or the correctness of the opponent's evidence. ...
The construct of metacognition appears in an ever increasing number and range of contexts in educational, developmental, and cognitive psychology. Can it retain its status as a useful construct in the face of such diverse application? Or is it merely an umbrella term for diverse mental phenomena that are loosely if at all connected? Here I argue for metacognition playing many diverse roles yet having key features that connect these in a shared framework. Proposed as central to this framework is the exercise of inhibitory cognitive control as a necessary condition for metacognitive competence. Also argued for is greater recognition of metacognition as a disposition, not just competence. As a disposition its foundations are epistemological, and its value and importance lie in supporting individuals’ effective management of their own minds. This disposition puts them in maximum control of what they think and know and the processes they engage in to revise their beliefs, individually and in interaction with others.
... Arguments-as-products may comprise both structural and functional elements of discourse (for more about this distinction, see Rapanta et al. 2013;Macagno 2016). In terms of structural elements, effective argumentative reasoning might take some of the following forms: (a) effective integration and use of evidence (i.e., Berland and Reiser 2011;Kuhn et al. 2013); (b) effective integration of arguments and counterarguments, i.e., balanced or dialogical arguments (i.e., Kuhn and Udell 2007;Polo et al. 2016); and (c) effective use of counter-arguments and rebuttals (i.e., Kuhn and Udell 2003;Crowell and Kuhn 2014). ...
... This finding is in line with recent recommendations for more research on the role and nature of reflection as a mediating process in students' learning to argue (Iordanou and Constantinou 2014). That said, when students are asked to deliberate in a context of highly divergent positions, the focus must not be on divergence per se, but on how and why these positions differ from each other in terms of their evidence quality and relevance (Macagno 2016(Macagno , 2019 and how argumentative talk is productively employed from part of the students as required or prompted by the activity design (Schwarz 2009). That latter is not always guaranteed, calling for additional research into the types of instructional prompts and dialogic moves used to support student interaction. ...
Over the past 20 years, a broad and diverse research literature has emerged to address how students learn to argue through dialogue in educational contexts. However, the variety of approaches used to study this phenomenon makes it challenging to find coherence in what may otherwise seem to be disparate fields of study. In this integrative review, we propose looking at how learning to argue (LTA) has been operationalized thus far in educational research, focusing on how different scholars have framed and fostered argumentative dialogue, assessed its gains, and applied it in different learning contexts. In total, 143 studies from the broad literature on educational dialogue and argumentation were analysed, including all educational levels (from primary to university). The following patterns for studying how dialogue fosters LTA emerged: whole-class 'low structure' framing with a goal of dialogue, small-group 'high structure' framing with varied argumentative goals, and studies with one-to-one dialectic framing with a goal of persuasive deliberation. The affordances and limitations of these different instructional approaches to LTA research and practice are discussed. We conclude with a discussion of complementarity of the approaches that emerged from our analysis in terms of the pedagogical methods and conditions that promote productive and/or constructive classroom interactions. Keywords Argumentation. Dialogue. Review. Learning to argue. Patterns. Instructional approach Over the past 20 years, a broad and diverse research literature has emerged to address how students learn to argue through dialogue in educational contexts. This field has sprung, in part, from a proliferation of research into the benefits of argumentation for learning (see Andriessen and Baker 2014; Asterhan and Schwarz 2016), which is based on the view that argumentation Educational Psychology Review
... Relevance as a characteristic of discourse participation implies more than that contributions are on the topic and coherent. In skilled argumentive dialogue, an important role is played by structural relevance, i.e., how the argument components logically interrelate (Macagno, 2016). Another aspect of relevance refers to consistency with pragmatic function, i.e., the purpose of the dialogue and the different forms it may take throughout interaction (Macagno, 2016(Macagno, , 2019. ...
... In skilled argumentive dialogue, an important role is played by structural relevance, i.e., how the argument components logically interrelate (Macagno, 2016). Another aspect of relevance refers to consistency with pragmatic function, i.e., the purpose of the dialogue and the different forms it may take throughout interaction (Macagno, 2016(Macagno, , 2019. In skill development terms, the structural form of relevant participation is captured in strategic and metacognitive skills, whereas pragmatic relevance is expressed in terms of metastrategic and epistemological awareness. ...
Philosophers, psychologists, and educators all acknowledge the need to support individuals to develop argument skills. Less clear is how to do so. Here, we examine a particular program, the “Argue with Me” dialogue-based pedagogical approach, having this objective. Reviewing approximately 30 studies that have used the “Argue with Me” (AWM) method with students of different backgrounds and educational levels—primary, middle, high school, and university—across five different countries, we examine its strengths and limitations in terms of what develops and how this development occurs. Dense engagement in goal-based activities involving extended dialogic practice and reflection is shown to be effective in fostering argument skills and dispositions. Studies examining the mechanisms of such development identify the role of meta-level understanding regarding the purpose of argument. This understanding is epistemological in nature and supports the development of dialogic skills at the strategic level. In addition to examining the AWM method as a means for supporting the development of argument skills, this review examines how empirical research employing the method in varying contexts provides insights into the nature of argument skills and their development, as well as the relations between argument skills and other skills or forms of understanding. For instance, we examine how studies employing the AWM method answer questions such as “How general or content-specific are argument skills?” or “How do dialogic argument and individual written or spoken argument connect as they develop?” We address these questions by examining evidence regarding the transfer of gains across topics, domains, and individual vs. dialogic modes of expression. Finally, the pedagogical implications of the “Argue with Me” approach are discussed, especially with regard to its potential both as a stand-alone method for developing argument skills and integrated into traditional literacy and social studies curricula.
... Attempted but unsuccessful connection of evidence to claim The success rate of quitting smoking is very low so the government should not ban cigarettes Sometimes, a student merely inserted mention of a piece of evidence without connecting it to a specific claim or to any identifiable argument being made, in which case the evidence-based unit was coded as non-functional (Hemberger et al., 2017), as shown in Table 4. Functional use of evidence involves interpretation of evidence so that the relevant argumentive and cause-effect relation between evidence and claim are brought to light (Macagno, 2016). Since our focus here is on students' successful use of evidence to justify claims, only functional evidence-based units were included in the present analysis. ...
... This finding was particularly encouraging given the accumulation of research indicating a strong tendency across age groups to substitute mechanism explanation for empirical evidence when supporting a causal claim (Ahn, Kalish, Medin, & Gelman, 1995;Brem & Rips, 2000;Kuhn, 1991;Kuhn & Pearsall, 1998Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975). Our present results favoring the younger group suggest that skills in using evidence are highly amenable to intervention, and that extended practice of coordinating claims with evidence afforded by peer dialogs, in which participants more frequently than in individual writing draw on evidence to weaken an opposing side (Kuhn & Moore, 2015;Macagno, 2016;Mayweg-Paus & Macagno, 2016), constitutes a productive path to promoting construction of evidence-based counterarguments in both individual and dialogic arguments. Our results also show that skills with evidence use to justify claims might not necessarily develop with age, as 7th and 9th grade controls showed comparable performance in this regard. ...
This study investigates the possibility that solitary dialog, in which individuals construct in writing a hypothetical dialogic argument, may more fully reveal individual skill achievement in argument than do conventional argumentive essays. A sample of 54 11-12-year-old Chinese students individually composed such written dialogs, subsequent to their participation in a four-month dialog-based argument curriculum that previously reported gains in both dialogic and essay assessments. Also partaking in the constructed dialog task reported on here were two non-intervention control groups from the same school; one the same age (n=50) as and the other two years older (n=52) than the intervention group. As well as outperforming their agemates, the intervention group’s performance on the constructed dialog task showed they had achieved skill equal to that of the older group in counterargument and were superior to them in using evidence to justify claims. The possibility is considered that the my-side bias reported in typical argumentive essays is due to limited understanding of the purpose of essay writing, rather than lack of skills per se.
... Or, dans cet exemple, les données et la preuve correspondent au même objet, à savoir des observations de l'orbite de Mars autour du Soleil ; la différence réside dans la fonction qui est assignée à ces observations : absence de fonction dans le cas des « données », fonction de support pour valider ou invalider une théorie dans le cas de la « preuve ». Cette idée d'une simple différence de fonction est mise en avant par d'autres auteurs qui traitent de la question de la preuve (Aikenhead, 2005, Macagno, 2016. Ainsi, contrairement à la définition proposée par Lederman et al., la preuve ne correspond pas à des données investies d'une interprétation supplémentaire. ...
... Comme indiqué ci-dessus, le modèle de Toulmin décrit le produit fini de l'argumentation (un argument) et non le processus de l'argumentation. Cette distinction entre produit et processus a été soulignée par plusieurs auteurs (Duschl & Osborne, 2002, Jiménez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2007, Kuhn et al., 2016, Macagno, 2016. Au sujet de l'argumentation comme processus, un point généralement mis en avant et parfois présenté comme une critique contre le modèle de Toulmin est l'idée que l'argumentation est un processus dialogique (ex : Simonneaux & Simonneaux, 2005, pp. ...
... However, despite this urgency and the fact that an interest in the role of the consistency requirement in argumentation goes back to the classics, this norm appears to be insufficiently focused on in recent learning to argue research, even in a context in which a great amount of contemporary research has been devoted to improving both students' argumentative skills and single-discipline learning by means of argumentation (Müller Mirza and Perret-Clermont 2009). While a great deal of attention has been paid to the role of evidence (Asterhan and Schwarz 2016;Macagno 2016;Osborne, Erduran and Simon 2004;Rapanta, Garcia-Mila and Gilabert 2013), less manifest interest has been demonstrated in enabling students to evaluate the internal consistency of their respective stances in the argumentation. Ambiguity arises even in the usage of the term consistency: coherence is better known than consistency, and both terms can be used in a sense much broader than "to be non-contradictory". ...
... Ambiguity arises even in the usage of the term consistency: coherence is better known than consistency, and both terms can be used in a sense much broader than "to be non-contradictory". In particular, by coherence what is sometimes meant is connectedness, which refers to the link among the ideas presented (Schwarz and De Groot 2007), or relevance, which similarly refers to the cohesion of an argument, to the inferential connection between a statement and the conclusion it is aimed to support (Macagno 2016;Walton and Macagno 2016). Thus, improving students' argumentative coherence would result in helping them to examine and assess the logic of the connections between reasons and positions (e.g., Reznitskaya and Wilkinson 2017a), but without any specific mention of the requirement to be non-contradictory. ...
In this paper, the role played in learning to argue by an essential and yet under-researched epistemic and argumentative norm is discussed, namely, the consistency requirement. An argumentative intervention is presented, that is designed to enhance the understanding of this norm among high school students, to enable them to recognize contradictions in the process of argumentation and to familiarize them with the argumentative strategies related to the reductio ad absurdum. There follows a description of how the designed intervention was implemented in two Italian high schools, which served as an exploratory case study, and the results obtained are discussed.
... Developing argument skills has become an active area of research among philosophers (Macagno, 2016) as well as psychologists and educational researchers (for recent reviews, see Schwarz, 2016, andRapanta, Garcia-Mila, &Gilabert, 2013). Research on argument skills has tended to fall into two categories that have been referred to as learning to argue and arguing to learn (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016). ...
... Developing skill in the coordination of claims and evidence is thus basic to the developmental progression we have observed in argumentative writing (Kuhn et al., 2016a(Kuhn et al., , 2016b, and a number of recent studies besides our own have focused on the use of evidence as an indicator of argument skill (Iordanou & Constantinou, 2014, 2015Macagno, 2016;Villarroel, Felton, & Garcia-Mila, 2016). Early origins of skill in coordinating claim and evidence are also a current focus of attention among developmental psychologists, who propose that both prior beliefs and new evidence influence claims to varying degrees, with explanatory activity capable of limiting as well as benefitting learning (Johnston, Johnson, Koven, & Keil, 2016;Legare & Lombrozo, 2014;Tentori, Chater, & Crupi, 2016;Walker, Lombrozo, Williams, Rafferty, & Gopnik, 2017). ...
Central to argument are evidence-based claims, requiring coordination of a claim with evidence bearing on it. We advocate a dialogic approach to developing argument skills and in the work reported here examine the further scaffold of prompts that exemplify functions of evidence in relation to a claim. This scaffold was successful in accelerating the prevalence of evidence-based claims in essays of low-performing middle-schoolers, compared to participants in the same year-long dialog-based intervention who received no or a limited form of evidence prompts, and compared to previous samples engaged in a non-dialogic curriculum. An experimental group achieved a proportion of evidence-based claims above 50% by the end of the year, transferring their newly developing skill from one topic to another. Use of different types of evidence emerged in a sequence corresponding to the cognitive demands they posed. Students first used Support-own evidence. They used Weaken-other evidence increasingly over time, but the two evidence types inconsistent with their position (Support-other and Weaken-own) showed lesser and later gains. Supporting a dialogic approach, qualitative data showed evidence use occurred most readily in dialogs, then in individual writing on the same topic, and to a more limited extent in essays on a new, unstudied topic.
... Araucaria (Reed and Rowe 2004), Carneades (Gordon et al. 2007), ArguMed (Verheij 2005), Rationale ( van Gelder 2007), etc.) provide users with the function of using different kinds of argument structures, especially distinguishing linked and convergent structures. In particular, it has been recently shown that argument diagramming can serve as educational tools (see Macagno (2016), for example). ...
The aim of this paper is to critically review the traditional typology of argument macrostructures, particularly, the dichotomy between linked and convergent structure. We have found an argument structure that does not fall under one of those five traditional categories: basic, serial, divergent, linked and convergent. We show that the new argument structure, which we call the recursive structure, is not rare-earth, but ubiquitous in real argumentation. Then, we propose and justify a new approach to diagramming arguments of the structure. The new argument structure is really new because arguments of the new structure are analyzed and evaluated differently from those of the other structures, especially from hybrid arguments considered in the literature. In light of the new argument structure, we present a hypothesis why assumptions and exceptions of a defeasible argument play different roles in dialectical settings.
... These systems engage users in dialogues, understanding their preferences and constraints, and offering recommendations that align with their individual needs. Nevertheless, one important aspect emphasised by several scholars of argumentation theory lies in the assessment of the quality and effectiveness of the arguments (Macagno 2016(Macagno , 2022. Since this aspect was not widely investigated in CoRS, we introduce a novel methodology for evaluating the quality of argumentation dialogues in recommendation scenarios within the framework of what we call argumentative conversational recommender systems (A-CoRS). ...
Conversational recommender systems aim at recommending the most relevant information for users based on textual or spoken dialogues, through which users can communicate their preferences to the system more efficiently. Argumentative conversational recommender systems represent a kind of deliberation dialogue in which participants share their specific beliefs in the respective representations of the common ground, to act towards a common goal. The goal of such systems is to present appropriate supporting arguments to their recommendations to show the interlocutor that a specific item corresponds to their manifested interests. Here, we present a cross-disciplinary argumentation-based conversational recommender model based on cognitive pragmatics. We also present a dialogue simulator to investigate the quality of the theoretical background. We produced a set of synthetic dialogues based on a computational model implementing the linguistic theory and we collected human evaluations about the plausibility and efficiency of these dialogues. Our results show that the synthetic dialogues obtain high scores concerning their naturalness and the selection of the supporting arguments.
... One such focus has been on argumentation, a frequent form of oppositional talk enacted in education and credited with being a crucial element in developing critical thinking skills (Macagno, 2016). Hüttner and Smit investigated both the frequency and quality of oral argumentation episodes in CLIL economics and could establish a clear distinction between those argumentations aimed at accessing new knowledge ("learning-focussed") and those presenting a prepared display of student knowledge ("expertise-focussed"). ...
... La investigación evidenció que la estructuración de los argumentos de los docentes en formación mejoró de forma gradual manifestándose en una interacción más amplia entre los participantes y el aumento de las relaciones entre los diferentes argumentos. Macagno (2016), en un contexto estadounidense, estudia la capacidad argumentativa de los estudiantes analizando su desempeño en el desarrollo de actividades relacionadas con la prohibición del cigarrillo. Reporta que el propósito de la investigación era describir, siguiendo el modelo de Toulmin, el uso de la evidencia por parte de los estudiantes. ...
Introduction: The purpose of this review paper is to report on the most representative models of argumentation used in the field of science education, as well as a description of their scope and contributions in the last two decades. Methodology: The research is based on a qualitative exploratory study with selection and categorization of research studies aimed at secondary science education and higher education teachers’ training using five databases to search for information. Following the approaches defined by the PRISMA methodology as well as inclusion and exclusion criteria, a systematic review of the selected documents is carried out. Results and Discussion: Supported on these criteria, the discussion drives coherently to the predominant argumentation models in science education and their scope for teaching proposals in future research studies. Conclusions: The paper points at some trends towards the exploration of argumentation models other than Toulmin’s, which continues being predominant nowadays, closer to language contemporary text and discourse analysis models.
... La inclusión progresiva de evidencia genuina indica una mayor conciencia a meta-nivel de la necesidad de usar evidencia robusta y relevante para fortalecer el propio punto de vista, así mismo da cuenta de una mayor apropiación conceptual de las temáticas abordadas, reflejada en la manera como el estudiante evalúa e interpreta la información disponible, la integra en su conocimiento previo y la coordina como evidencia dentro de su argumento (Macagno y Mayweg-Paus, 2016). Estas ganancias son un indicio de la posible interiorización de las dinámicas de la argumentación dialógica por parte de los estudiantes (Leitão, 2007a;Kuhn et al., 2013;Macagno, 2016). ...
Idiographic research that focuses on the use of evidence in argumentative productions by high school students, who participated in a pedagogical design based on argumentation to develop critical-reflective thinking. It was analyzed discursively 112 productions of 28 cases, chosen through intentional sampling. Dialectical (type, nature) and pragmatic (function) aspects of the evidence were examined. The results show progressive sophistication in the use of evidence, that is, passing from pseudo-evidence to genuine evidence; the presence of evidence to support or anticipate counter-arguments. These findings imply rethinking learning environments in order to introduce pedagogical actions that foster the use of evidence in argumentative production and epistemic monitoring as central competencies on the construction of scientific knowledge.
KEYWORDS
argumentation; evidence; cognitive development; education
... The evidence aspect has an increase in value of 53.97, this significant increase is due to the pretest students only making arguments without being supported by data or information used as evidence. Relevant evidence is directly connected to the claim and supports the claim (Macagno, 2016). Evidence is a data that supports claims, evidence obtained by students comes from direct investigations, research that has been conducted, or books that provide data (McNeill & Martin, 2011). ...
In the scientific education, improving the argumentation skills in socioscientific issues was very important to educate young people as an active society. The aim of this research was to evaluate the implementation impact of problem based learning to the students skils of evidence based argumentation of socioscientific issues.Total of 21 students of Grade XII MIPA of senior high school at surakarta city were used as the sample in the learning process with biotechnology topic. The times taken for the learning activity were 4 week with 4 times of class meeting every week. Pre-test and post-test were applied to 21 students in order to measure of students skills in constructing the argument of socioscientific issues. . The differences between pre-test and post-test scores for each aspects of evidence-based argument, in sequence, are as follows: 61,11 and 92,06 for claims; 30,16 and 84,13 for evidence; and 28,97 and 78,17 for connection claim to evidence. Statistically test for Wilcoxon rank test score for evidence based argument resulted p-value (0,00) which was < 0,05. This means that score of evidence based argument was improved significantly. In the case of qualitative data used, observation during learning process, learning transcipt, result of students works within learning activity as well as interview activity showed that PBL learning had improved the skill of evidence-based argument of science students.
... La investigación evidenció que la estructuración de los argumentos de los docentes en formación mejoró de forma gradual manifestándose en una interacción más amplia entre los participantes y el aumento de las relaciones entre los diferentes argumentos. Macagno (2016), en un contexto estadounidense, estudia la capacidad argumentativa de los estudiantes analizando su desempeño en el desarrollo de actividades relacionadas con la prohibición del cigarrillo. Reporta que el propósito de la investigación era describir, siguiendo el modelo de Toulmin, el uso de la evidencia por parte de los estudiantes. ...
Introducción: Este artículo de revisión tiene como propósito reportar los modelos de argumentación más representativos empleados en el campo de la enseñanza de las ciencias, así como una descripción de sus alcances y contribuciones en este campo en las últimas dos décadas. Metodología: La investigación se basó en un estudio exploratorio de corte cualitativo en el que se seleccionaron y categorizaron investigaciones dirigidas a la formación escolar y de profesores en formación empleando cinco bases de datos para la búsqueda de información. Siguiendo los planteamientos definidos por la metodología PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis), así como criterios de inclusión y exclusión, se realiza una revisión sistemática de los documentos seleccionados. Resultados y Discusión: A partir de ello, se traza una discusión sobre los modelos de argumentación predominantes en la formación en ciencias y se precisa el alcance de estas propuestas didácticas para investigaciones futuras. Conclusiones: Se evidencian algunas tendencias hacia la exploración de otros modelos argumentativos diferentes del modelo estructural de Toulmin, que continúa predominando actualmente, acercándose a modelos de análisis textual y discursivo, más contemporáneos desde el estudio del lenguaje.
... A2 dialogic space foster learners to think 'intersubjectively,' i.e., taking into consideration the others' viewpoints. Argument moves are considered high-dialogical moves because, for an argument to make sense, it always needs to include a different or contrary perspective, which is the core of argumentative reasoning (Kuhn, 1991;Kuhn et al., 2016a;Macagno, 2016). ...
Dialogue and argumentation are two processes that complement and mutually influence each other. However, this essential relationship is not sufficiently acknowledged by current educational research. This neglected relation is also mirrored by the lack of sufficient dialogue between two fields that are defined by the dialogical approach to education and argumentation, namely dialogic pedagogy and educational argumentation. In this Special Issue, we argue that dialogue pedagogies and argumentation theory and practice should communicate more, bridging their somehow different perspectives for the common goal of engaging learners in productive and constructive discussions.
... This could not have been because they knew of nothing else to bring to bear, as their quite different dialog performance confirmed. Similar results have been reported by Mayweg-Paus and Macagno (2016). Thus, while essay writing continues to be a staple of the school curriculum, it may be dialog that offers the most productive path to its development. ...
Social studies educators who applaud discourse-based approaches may benefit by adding research on argumentation to their conceptual toolkit. We make the case here for its value, in particular emphasizing that argumentation skill needs to develop, suggesting an apprenticeship model of this development and highlighting evidence supporting it.
... In general, this study suggests that a lot of effort is still needed to promote students' competence in formulating strong arguments. This finding is aligned with previous studies (Knight & Mcneill, 2015;Macagno, 2016;Sadler & Donnelly, 2006;Sandoval & Millwood, 2005). Competence in argumentation is not a taken for granted competence. ...
The purpose of this study is to develop a framework for analyzing classroom argumentation that includes a process of rebutting. A most commonly used framework to analyze argument in science education is Toulmin’s Argumentation Pattern. It is useful for analyzing argumentation but it cannot represent the complexity of students’ rebuttals during argumentations in the lessons. The study was conducted in three science stream classes of grade twelve students. The number of students in each class ranged from 39 to 40 students with a total of 119 students. The topics of the lessons were three biology contents that are closely related to socio-scientific issues, i.e., genetics, evolution, and biotechnology. Analyses of students’ rebuttals show that the newly developed Rebuttal Analysis Framework generated a better picture of classroom argumentation. In terms of the level of students’ argumentation, this study shows that argumentation-oriented lessons do not necessarily lead to the improvement of students’ argumentation competence. The study also identifies four types of argumentation changes, namely inert, contrary, under two positions, and impartial.
... In implementing the Toulmin's model to design the game, a dialogue kind of assessment scheme was generally recommended (Goldstein et al., 2009;Kuhn et al., 2013;Macagno, 2016;Rapanta et al., 2013). The interactive process involved students' production and evaluation of critical thinking arguments from different stances. ...
Critical thinking is one of the important higher-order skills very much treasured in education, but hard to be measured using paper-pencil tests. In line with recent recommendation to measure high-order thinking skills with interactive tasks (vs. static one set of questions), in this study we developed an interactive and automated game-based assessment of critical thinking, using the Toulmin Model. In two real-life simulation stories, through interactive tasks in progressing scenes in the stories, students chose and rated evidence and conflicting reasons as supportive or non-supportive arguments in making the eventual decision. Critical thinking scores were awarded on choosing the appropriate evidence and reasons. The psychometric quality of the game was evaluated with 185 Chinese senior secondary students. Results showed that (i) reliabilities as measured by Cronbach’s α of the whole scale and subdomains were reasonable; (ii) parallel form reliability was high; (iii) its correlation and convergent validity with the popular Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment were comparable to those in other studies; (iv) it was generally not related to academic performance; and (v) the game was interesting and engaging. We also noted that students hesitated to query others and they were weak in applying critical thinking to problem-solving, which were in congruent with previous research showing students rarely used critical thinking to solve complex, real-world problems. In sum, we demonstrated successfully the use of interactive simulation tasks in measuring critical thinking. With the advancement of technology, our study suggested the possibility of assessing hard-to-measure important complex higher-order competence with dynamic games.
... A rapidly expanding body of work now exists on argumentation and, most recently in particular, the role of evidence in argumentation-studies that highlight the complexities of different forms of evidence and the distinct roles they play in relation to a claim (Duncan, Chinn, & Barzilai, 2018;Hemberger et al., 2017;Iordanou & Constantinou, 2015;Jiménez-Aleixandre & Puig, 2012;Macagno, 2016;Macagno & Walton, 2018;McNeill & Berland, 2017;Miralda-Banda, Garcia-Mila, & Felton, 2019;Monteira & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016;Sampson & Clark, 2008;Shi, 2019Shi, , 2020Villarroel, Felton, & Garcia-Mila, 2016). These studies point to overall weakness in key skills of recognizing the critical role of and effectively using evidence to both support and weaken claims, both in individual written and verbal argument and in dialogic argumentation with others. ...
Schooling traditionally affords students more experience in learning and practicing procedures than in identifying what a situation calls for. When asked to choose appropriate numerical data to support their causal claims, college students perform surprisingly poorly. In one case we describe, almost all chose limited, inconclusive data as sufficient evidence, despite having available the more comprehensive data needed to support their claim, and despite their established competence to employ such data for this purpose. Our objective in highlighting this weakness is to make a case that choosing one's evidence warrants the status of an important metacognitive intellectual skill and educational objective, one central to but that extends well beyond the domains of scientific and mathematical reasoning and hence warrants greater attention both in and beyond the science curriculum. People may choose evidence to justify their assertions in an ill-considered way, with potential adverse effects in both private and public communication.
... A rapidly expanding body of work now exists on argumentation and, most recently in particular, the role of evidence in argumentation-studies that highlight the complexities of different forms of evidence and the distinct roles they play in relation to a claim (Duncan, Chinn, & Barzilai, 2018;Hemberger et al., 2017;Iordanou & Constantinou, 2015;Jiménez-Aleixandre & Puig, 2012;Macagno, 2016;Macagno & Walton, 2018;McNeill & Berland, 2017;Miralda-Banda, Garcia-Mila, & Felton, 2019;Monteira & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016;Sampson & Clark, 2008;Shi, 2019Shi, , 2020Villarroel, Felton, & Garcia-Mila, 2016). These studies point to overall weakness in key skills of recognizing the critical role of and effectively using evidence to both support and weaken claims, both in individual written and verbal argument and in dialogic argumentation with others. ...
Schooling traditionally affords students more experience in learning and practicing procedures than in identifying what a situation calls for. When asked to choose appropriate numerical data to support their causal claims, college students perform surprisingly poorly. In one case we describe, almost all chose limited, inconclusive data as sufficient evidence, despite having available the more comprehensive data needed to support their claim and despite their established competence to employ such data for this purpose. Our objective in highlighting this weakness is to make a case that choosing one’s evidence warrants the status of an important metacognitive intellectual skill and educational objective, one central to but that extends well beyond the domains of scientific and mathematical reasoning and hence warrants greater attention both in and beyond the science curriculum. People may choose evidence to justify their assertions in an ill-considered way, with potential adverse effects in both private and public communication.
... In the present work, we employ visual aids (charts and graphs) that promote this mastery as they allow students to visually represent roles of multiple factors. Such representations enable them to achieve a multivariable understanding they then use to predict outcomes based on multiple variables, in so doing exercising another core learning objective of the interventiondrawing on evidence as a source of inferences, an equally essential skill that has as an epistemological dimension appreciation of the role of evidence in supporting, weakening, and resolving claims, rather than reliance only on non-reflective intuitions or prior beliefs (Duncan, Chinn, & Barzilai, 2018;Hemberger, Kuhn, Matos, & Shi, 2017;Iordanou & Constantinou, 2015;Macagno, 2016;Matos, 2021;McNeill & Berland, 2017;Miralda-Banda, Garcia-Mila, & Felton, 2019;Shi, 2020;Lee and Wilkerson, 2018). ...
The potential of individualization to transform learning that new technology makes possible has generated wide interest. We ask here whether individualization has been exploited to its maximum advantage. We explore its potential to provide individualized scaffolding at the meta-level of students’ reflection on their own thinking as they engaged in inquiry activity to support their reasoning about a multivariable causal system – a capability central to scientific thinking and higher-order thinking more broadly. In Study 1, middle-school pairs’ self-paced inquiry was individually guided by an adult who prompted them to question their assertions and strategies. Study 2 investigated how such scaffolding might be automated to provide individualization at scale. Delayed posttests for both studies involving new scenarios showed that gains in both inquiry and multivariable causal inference skills transferred to new content. Delayed far-transfer assessments showed that the intervention achieved its learning goals most effectively when an adult worked with a pair of students, compared to students working as a whole class (Study 1); students also learned effectively with an automated agent, but only when a human adult was also involved (Study 2). Implications are considered for developing and deploying technology that individualizes and supports self-directed, reflective meta-level thinking and learning, while remaining mindful of human social context.
... Relevance is an important concept for disciplines such as philosophy (Grice 1975), cognitive science (Giora 1985(Giora , 1997, education (Erduran 2008;Macagno 2016;Macagno et al. 2015;Nussbaum and Edwards 2011;Rapanta et al. 2013), logic (Epstein 1979), argumentation theory , linguistics Carston 2004), linguistics and artificial intelligence (Hobbs 1979;Lascarides and Asher 1993), discourse analysis (Taboada 2009), and applied argumentation theory (Walton 2003b;Walton and Macagno 2019). Although there was a significant body of literature on relevance logic that has been influential in formal logic (Anderson and Belnap 1975), this development does not appear to have much effect on the pragmatic approaches to relevance developed in the last decades in informal logic and linguistics, where relevance is seen as a concept employed in communicative contexts of argument use. ...
Together with the volume “Inquiries in philosophical pragmatics: Linguistic and theoretical issues,” this book provides a journey through the more recent developments of pragmatics, considering both its philosophical and linguistic nature. This first volume is devoted to the theoretical models developed from a philosophical perspective, including both the newest advances of the classical theories and approaches, and pioneering and interdisciplinary ideas proposed to face the challenges of the fields and areas of practice and analysis. The topics investigated, which include implicatures, reference, presupposition, speech acts, metaphor, relevance, and common ground, represent the core of the state of the art in philosophical pragmatics. Research on these matters have been continuously changing the way that we can look at them. This book serves as a collection of works from the most eminent authors who represent the theoretical developments of the approaches that defined this field, together with the new philosophical insights coming from more applied disciplines such as argumentation, discourse analysis, or linguistics. The combination of these two perspectives provides a unique outline of the current research in pragmatics.
... Relevance is an important concept for disciplines such as philosophy (Grice 1975), cognitive science (Giora 1985(Giora , 1997Sperber and Wilson 1995), education (Erduran 2008;Macagno 2016;Macagno et al. 2015;Nussbaum and Edwards 2011;Rapanta et al. 2013), logic (Epstein 1979), argumentation theory (Walton 2004), linguistics (Blakemore 2002;Carston 2004), linguistics and artificial intelligence (Hobbs 1979;Lascarides and Asher 1993), discourse analysis (Taboada 2009), and applied argumentation theory (Walton 2003b;Walton and Macagno 2017). Although there was a significant body of literature on relevance logic that has been influential in formal logic (Anderson and Belnap 1975), this development does not appear to have much effect on the pragmatic approaches to relevance developed in the last decades in informal logic and linguistics, where relevance is seen as a concept employed in communicative contexts of argument use. ...
In this paper some lessons are learned regarding how to extend and deepen the theory of Macagno (Assessing relevance. Lingua 210–211:42–64, 2018) on assessing dialectical relevance by using the notion of argument distance. An argument is defined as dialectically relevant if it is an appropriate move in a multiagent dialogue exchange. Three examples are studied where a criticism of relevance is made against an argument, and the problem posed is how a response to this type of criticism should be judged to be justified or not, based on the evidence. Based on these examples, an algorithm is presented that helps the user to determine argument distance in a given case as a means of helping to judge whether a criticism that an argument is not relevant is justified or not.
... Learners think that what has been delivered at the beginning of the test and especially during group discussions verbally through debates already represent the real answers about the two themes, so it is not necessary to rewrite the answers during the argumentation test after treatment. This means that students do not get enough motivation during the final test to improve their explanation of the socioscientific issues discussed during learning [22]. This also can be a driver of a decrease in the percentage of argumentation quality in students after giving treatment with the SWH approach. ...
This study aims to explore the complexity of macro arguments and the rebuttal of students in oral and written argumentation using socio-scientific issues regarding genetics (mutation and evolution) through the scientific writing heuristic (SWH) approach. The research method conducted was a mixed method with 38 subjects in a science class at one of the public schools in West Java, Indonesia. The socio-scientific issue raised is the use of genetically modified organisms (transgenic organisms). Oral argumentation categorized from level 1 (L1) to infinite level (Ln), and written argumentation level categorized from level 1 (which only contains claims) to level 5 (the claim is accompanied by evidence in the form of correct data and relates to the context and content of mutation and evolution). The results showed that the students' macro argument level improved on oral argumentation with achievement at level 5 of 45%. The opposite occurs in written arguments, which is a decrease in level after intervention from previously in the range of level 3 to level 2. This is due to the representation of the evidence needed to support the standpoint through oral arguments so that students no longer repeat writing the evidence is in the form of written arguments.
... Tout d'abord, l'approche de Toulmin se focalise principalement sur l'argumentation en tant que produit, c'est-à-dire qu'il étudie les arguments individuels qui constituent ce qu'on pourrait appeler en français (le mot n'existant pas en langue anglaise) l'« argumentaire ». L'argumentaire, produit, est à distinguer de l'argumentation vue comme un processus (Greco-Morasso, Miserez-Caperos & Perret-Clermont, 2015 ;Macagno, 2015 ;Henderson et al., 2018). ...
... Classification is based on the function of an utterance in relation to the utterance immediately preceding it. A rationale for employing this scheme is the anticipation that it is this relational function that is key to the coordinated action central to group process (Kuhn et al. 2013;Macagno 2016). ...
The discourse of small groups of 3–4 adults enrolled in a graduate business course was audio-recorded as they participated in a computer-supported simulation in which the group represented a firm and worked over a series of eight sessions in making a series of decisions. Discourse transcripts were analyzed using a coding scheme that classified utterances expressed during group interaction as types of topic-talk (constituting a part of the activity itself) vs. meta-talk (reflecting on the activity). Supporting our hypothesis regarding the importance of meta-level discourse about group process in a group’s achieving coordinated action and a successful outcome, analysis suggested that discourse about the group’s process, but not discourse about individuals’ actions, was associated with superior group outcomes.
... Cognitive psychologists wish to assess the quality of people's argumentation (e.g., [8][9][10]) as part of the long tradition of rationality focused research on reasoning, judgment, and decision-making [11,12]. Educational psychologists who want to improve argument skills [13,14] must know what counts as good argument. Social psychologists studying persuasion are interested in the many factors that influence persuasive success other than the intrinsic quality of the argument [1]. ...
The idea of resolving dispute through the exchange of arguments and reasons has been central to society for millennia. We exchange arguments as a way of getting at the truth in contexts as diverse as science, the court room, and our everyday lives. In democracies, political decisions should be negotiated through argument, not deception, or even worse, brute force. If argument is to lead to the truth or to good decisions, then some arguments must be better than others and ‘argument strength’ must have some meaningful connection with truth. Can argument strength be measured in a way that tracks an objective relationship with truth and not just mere persuasiveness? This article describes recent developments in providing such measures.
... • Arguments that do not express criticality are considered of low quality (Golder & Coirier, 1994;Kuhn, 2010), even though they are strongly supported (maximum score of uncritical dialogues: 4); • Argumentative texts of high quality cannot present low levels of relevance and textuality (Macagno, 2016): even if a text is highly accountable and critical (with several backings, arguments, and rebuttals), the presence of irrelevant elements lowers the score to medium; • A text of medium argumentative quality needs to manifest both dialogicity and accountability with an acceptable degree of relevance. Therefore, if accountability is not expressed through the use of evidence ("force" score: 1), the text needs to show a high level of justification ("lines of argument" score: 4), presupposing the elements constituting dialogicity (total score: 5). ...
The definition and the assessment of the quality of argumentative texts has become an increasingly crucial issue in education, classroom discourse, and argumentation theory. The different methods developed and used in the literature are all characterized by specific perspectives that fail to capture the complexity of the subject matter, which remains ill-defined and not systematically investigated. This paper addresses this problem by building on the four main dimensions of argument quality resulting from the definition of argument and the literature in classroom discourse: dialogicity, accountability, relevance, and textuality (DART). We use and develop the insights from the literature in education and argumentation by integrating the frameworks that capture both the textual and the argumentative nature of argumentative texts. This theoretical background will be used to propose a method for translating the DART dimensions into specific and clear proxies and evaluation criteria.
... In education, the importance of the goal-directed dimension -which we specify as the interactional dimension of the units of discourse -and the need of identifying such pragmatic differences among the moves has been acknowledged as crucial for assessing the quality of students' writing and argumentation (Ferretti et al., 2009;Macagno, 2016), and improving the accessibility of information in written texts (McCrudden & Schraw, 2007). Nussbaum distinguished different types of interactional goals of questions, differentiating between teacher questions (moves aimed at seeking information that is presumed to be held by students), wonderment questions (moves requesting an explanation or the discovery of an explanation), clarifying question (requesting the definition or the explanation of the meaning of terms) (Nussbaum, 2003), and requests of support (assessing the acceptability of a claim) (Nussbaum, 2003(Nussbaum, , 2011Nussbaum & Edwards, 2011). ...
Relevance is one of the crucial criteria for assessing the quality of argumentation in education. In argumentation and education, relevance has never been analyzed or coded. While several theories have included in their analysis some indicators of cohesion or clarity, this characteristic of dialogue and discourse has never been addressed as a distinct phenomenon. This paper builds on the existing studies in linguistic and philosophy to advance criteria for assessing relevance, which in turn can be used for developing a coding scheme for evaluating dialogue moves. Relevance is analyzed starting from the pragmatic principle that dialogue moves are instruments for pursuing a common dialogical goal. Starting from a classification of the possible types of dialogue moves, defined based on the possible dialogue that they propose or continue, five criteria of relevance are illustrated, capturing both pragmatic and topical coherence. Such criteria are shown to provide guidance for distinguishing not only relevant from irrelevant moves, but also the degrees of strength of relevance. The theoretical framework and the assessment criteria will be illustrated through a corpus of classroom interactions collected in Portuguese middle-grade schools.
... Argumentation has come to be recognized as a key component of science instruction (Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000;Duschl & Osborne, 2002;Ford, 2012;Jiménez-Aleixandre, Rodríguez, & Duschl, 2000;Sandoval, 2014), as well as in education in other disciplinary fields (Felton, Crowell, & Liu, 2015;Nussbaum, 2008;Wiley & Voss, 1999;Wissinger & De La Paz, 2016;Wolfe, 2011). The increasing focus on argumentation as a core higher-order cognitive skill across the curriculum has led to investigations of how students understand and use evidence as a crucial component of argumentation (Duncan, Chinn, & Barzilai, 2018;Iordanou & Constantinou, 2015;Kelly & Takao, 2002;Iordanou, Kuhn, Matos, Shi, & Hemberger, 2019;Kuhn & Moore, 2015;Macagno, 2016;Manz & Renga, 2017;McNeill & Berland, 2016;Rinehart, Duncan, & Chinn, 2014;Sandoval & Millwood, 2005;Villarroel, Felton, & Garcia-Mila, 2016). ...
... In the context of social sciences that were studied in AME, the evaluation encompasses typically either a refutation of the claim itself (known as a counterclaim) or of the supporting evidence provided (known as a rebuttal). Using argumentation at school level aligns well with the aim of fostering critical thinking among students (Macagno, 2016) and more generally as a means towards an "enculturation into the scientific culture" (Jiménez-Aleixandre & Erduran, 2008, p. 4). ...
... In both uses of argumentation as a pedagogical practice, learning is intentional, and not an incidental outcome (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1989). As a result, the learning outcomes of argumentation are commonly manifested as reasoning structures within the dialogue, also known as arguments-as-products (Macagno 2016). The type of outcome of argumentative reasoning resulting from engaging in an argumentation practice depends on the type of learning goal pursued through it. ...
Argumentation in educational contexts has been proposed as a dialogic practice that stimulates and promotes students' critical thinking. However, the way critical thinking relates to argumentation is still not clear in the literature. This essay proposes the exploration of the concept of criticality, as manifested in students' and teachers' contributions within argumentative interactions , as the basis for the redefinition of "pedagogical dialogue" as a dialogue oriented towards critical argumentation. The main characteristics of this type of dialogue are described, shedding light on the connection between argumentation and critical thinking. These characteristics are illustrated through examples drawn from classroom interactions. Résumé: L'argumentation dans les contextes éducatifs a été proposée comme une pratique dialogique qui stimule et favorise la pensée critique des étudiants. Cependant, la relation entre la pensée critique et l'argumen-tation n'est pas encore claire dans la littérature. Cet essai propose d'explorer le concept de la pensée critique, tel qu'il ressort des interactions argumentatives des élèves et des enseignants, et d'employer cette exploration comme base de la redéfinition du «dialogue pédagog-ique» en tant que dialogue orienté vers une argumentation critique. On décrit les principales caractéristiques de ce type de dialogue, et on met en lumière le lien qui existe entre l'argumentation et la pensée critique. Ces caractéristiques sont illustrées par des exemples tirés d'interactions en classe
... Having identified this epistemic problem as a legitimate target for interactional resolution, the participants engage in repairing the knowledge element in question, aiming to construct knowledge structures shared by all participants. Hohenstein, 2009, p. 40-41) For our purposes, the focus of reasoning in university classrooms lies on tackling epistemic problems related to the knowledge structures of the respective academic discipline, and thereby on the ways in which arguments are logically put together and supported in a manner appropriate to the respective disciplinary conventions (Jim enez- Aleixandre & Erduran, 2008;Macagno, 2016). The expressed or assumed need of a participant to clarify knowledge elements prompts episodes of disciplinary reasoning that open an analytical window on the required disciplinary propositions and their logical relationships. ...
English as a foreign language is no longer the sole object of specialized language classes, but increasingly a medium of university‐level instruction in a range of content areas. This leads to a complex interaction between new academic content and the means of expressing this expertise through appropriate disciplinary language uses. Conceptually, this study focuses on oral disciplinary–reasoning episodes, in which knowledge structures are explicitly developed. These episodes exemplify diverse ways whereby disciplinary meaning making is co‐constructed in English‐medium instruction (EMI), with one specific type being language‐related episodes which clarify specific items of terminology. Drawing on INTE‐R‐LICA, an international and interdisciplinary project, the database under investigation covers 671 minutes (67,605 words) of classroom discourse from a Spanish business administration degree programme. Findings suggest a structural diversity within these episodes, which are jointly constructed, and involve a rich variety of discursive strategies to effectuate meaning making. Our results indicate that an understanding of the crucial role of language in this disciplinary meaning‐making process is essential for the TESOL profession to remain relevant in the current English language teaching educational landscape. In addition to providing expert input into the potential of a language‐sensitive EMI pedagogy, TESOL teacher education will need to foster both language and content teachers’ awareness of the disciplinary nature of classroom discourse and its role in developing subject expertise among their students.
... The distinct pragmatic approaches to relevance developed in the last decades have provided fundamental insights into this concept, representing it in terms of inferences, ratio between cognitive effects and processing effort, or coherence with a discourse topic or communicative purpose. However, for the purposes of analyzing discourse and assessing dialogical or argumentation skills in different contexts (Erduran, 2008;Macagno, 2016;Macagno, Mayweg-Paus, & Kuhn, 2015;Nussbaum & Edwards, 2011;Rapanta, Garcia-Mila, & Gilabert, 2013), relevance needs to be reconstructed and assessed based on some objective, quasi-logical criteria that can be translated into a coding scheme, and can be suited to capturing different communicative goals. ...
This paper advances an approach to relevance grounded on patterns of material inference called argumentation schemes, which can account for the reconstruction and the evaluation of relevance relations. In order to account for relevance in different types of dialogical contexts, pursuing also non-cognitive goals, and measuring the scalar strength of relevance, communicative acts are conceived as dialogue moves, whose coherence with the previous ones or the context is represented as the conclusion of steps of material inferences. Such inferences are described using argumentation schemes and are evaluated by considering 1) their defeasibility, and 2) the acceptability of the implicit premises on which they are based. The assessment of both the relevance of an utterance and the strength thereof depends on the evaluation of three interrelated factors: 1) number of inferential steps required; 2) the types of argumentation schemes involved; and 3) the implicit premises required.
... When an argument changes the original issue, so that the claim made in the argument is not the original one that is supposed to be proved or disproved, the problem with the argument is one of relevance (Macagno 2008(Macagno , 2016Walton 2003a;Walton and Macagno 2016). The rhetorical straw man is an attack on an indirect report, an interpretation of a viewpoint, which needs, by its very nature, to be related somehow to an original viewpoint. ...
This chapter is focused on rhetorical strategies based on indirect reporting and distortion of a party’s viewpoint. We begin by clarifying the role of the notion of argumentative relevance for assessing when a viewpoint is correctly reported or manipulated. We will describe relevance as a sequential concept referring to the number of premises and intermediate arguments to connect a move (the interpretation of a move in this case) to the issue or claim discussed or to be proved (the original move in this case). A formal model of dialogue for evaluating misreports and the corresponding strategies (straw man fallacy) is constructed, providing a normative dialectical framework that can guide an analyst in the tasks of detecting, representing, criticizing and justifying a distortion of a viewpoint. We will outline five straw man rhetorical techniques that can be used both for helping us identify and understand the straw man as a fallacy and for illustrating how fallacious arguments of this type can be used to cleverly persuade a target audience.
... To this purpose, we need to develop further the concept of reasoning from best interpretation and show how the defeasibility of presumptions can be represented and supported or rebutted based on the argumentative structure of conversation. For this reason, we will investigate how the defeasibility of an interpretation depends on its contribution to the conversation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, p. 54), concept that is usually referred to as "relevance" (Macagno 2016a;Walton and Macagno 2016). We will claim that "relevance" can refer to either the contribution to the dialogical purpose, or to the common ground, and for this reason it can be conceived in terms of presumptions, more specifically in terms of either specific pragmatic or linguistic presumptions, or mutual ones. ...
In this chapter, an argumentative approach to ambiguity and commitment attribution is advanced in order to address the problem of establishing the speaker’s commitments in case of ambiguity of his utterance. The goal is to analyze how a doubtful or potentially doubtful interpretation of an utterance can be supported dialectically by providing a dialectical mechanism for establishing which interpretation is the best one. Distinct types of ambiguity are distinguished by pointing out the subtle line between what is directly conveyed and what is left implicit. Our challenge is to develop an argumentative model for representing how it is possible to choose an interpretation over another and justify it in cases of ambiguity. The model that we propose is grounded on the notion of presumption. When an interpretation is challenged, the parties to the discussion need to support their interpretation based on reasons. We conceive these reasons as conclusions of a type of argument called “from best explanation,” which is based on the presumptions available in a given context. An interpretation can be based on various types of evidence leading to an interpretive conclusion through more general or specific presumptions. An interpretation is assessed by evaluating the defeasibility conditions of the presumptions on which it is based.
Is it important to hear positions opposing one’s own from others who genuinely believe them? We examine whether the thinking of those who engage in discourse with peers who hold an opposing view benefit by hearing arguments favoring the opposing position expressed by individuals known to hold this position. We report on 131 young adolescents who were given access to identical relevant evidence, and engaged in dialogs on gas vs solar energy, in preparation for a whole class debate. In the (randomly assigned) experimental classroom, electronic dialogs were conducted with a series of peers who held an opposing view; in the control classroom, dialogs were confined to same-side peers. Differences in prevalence and types of functional evidence-based argumentive idea units in individual final essays on the topic favored the experimental group. Also, differences by condition in participants’ choice of evidence to access during the preceding dialogs reflected differences in patterns of inquiry. Differences appeared as well in post-intervention essays on a non-discourse topic, suggesting the superior group had made gains in understanding argumentation itself. Extension of the study longitudinally to a second year with a new topic showed continued gains and condition differences, supporting this interpretation, with the experimental group surpassing the control group. Potential generalization to adults’ discourse on topics involving higher affect and commitment is considered.
Less than it is an individual ability or skill, critical thinking is a dialogic practice people engage in and commit to, initially interactively and then in interiorized form with the other only implicit. An argument depends for its meaning on how others respond (Gergen, 2015). In advancing arguments, well-practiced thinkers anticipate their defeasibility as a consequence of others’ objections, in addition envisioning their own potential rebuttals. Whether in external or interiorized form, the dialogic process creates something new, while itself undergoing development.
This perspective may be useful in sharpening definition of the construct of critical thinking and in so doing help to bring together the largely separate strands of work examining it as a theoretical construct, a measurable skill, and an educational objective. Implications for education follow. How might critical thinking as a shared practice be engaged in within educational settings in ways that will best support its development? One step is to privilege frequent practice of direct peer-to-peer discourse. A second is to take advantage of the leveraging power of dialog as a bridge to individual argument – one affording students’ argumentive writing a well-envisioned audience and purpose. Illustrations of this bridging power are presented. Finally, implications for assessment of critical thinking are noted and a case made for the value of people’s committing to a high standard of critical thinking as a shared and interactive practice.
The purpose of this study were to study the effects of argument-based inquiry learning unit on human body systems and health Issues on the students ‘scientific reasoning ability. The participants were 50 eighth grade students studying at a public school in Bangkok, Thailand. This research design was a quasi-experimental research consisting of two groups a pretest and posttest. The research instruments were a seven argument-based inquiry learning lesson plans on human body systems and health issues. There was also a reasoning ability test and achievement test. The data were statistically analyzed by mean, standard deviation and a t-test for the independent sample. The research results found as the followings: The students who learned using an argument-based inquiry learning unit on human body systems and health issues had an average score on scientific reasoning ability. The experimental group had an average score of 7.48 from the full fifteen points, averaging 1.39, a mean of 49.87, which was higher than the pre-test mean score at a .05 level of significance. But not half the score. The experimental group had a significantly higher mean score on scientific reasoning ability after the control group than before the control group at the .05 level of significance.
While extant research on CLIL suggests positive impacts on lexical proficiency and on spoken language, the crucial question of the effect of CLIL on advanced learners, both in terms of language proficiency and content knowledge, has received less attention. Of particular interest here is the nexus between these in the area of spoken subject-specific language use, where the potential of CLIL as providing an additional language learning focus is particularly promising, yet under-researched. We argue here that the ability to negotiate a factual position appropriately is a key element of subject specific language use, relating to both content (through presenting and supporting claims based on an understanding of the underlying ideas) and to foreign language ability (by using formulations acceptable within the subject-specific use of the L2). As a theoretical framework for understanding these negotiations of generally opposing standpoints, we use argumentation theory.
The study was conducted in upper-secondary CLIL classes on European economics and politics in Austria. The classroom data consists of 16 hours of video-recorded classroom data, comprising different classroom events, i.e. teacher-whole class interactions, group work, and role plays. From these data, episodes of argumentation were extracted and analysed. Two types of argumentation patterns emerge, with one focused more on the joint construction and learning of new subject-specific content and language knowledge, and the other one on the enactment of such knowledge in interactions. Findings show that students’ engagement in these argumentations gives clear evidence of their subject-specific language proficiency in both prepared and unprepared oral production. As the type of classroom event has an effect on the specific argumentation patterns, the need for exposing students to a diversity of educational practice is underlined.
Welchen Einfluss haben dialogische Lernsituationen auf den Gebrauch von Evidenz bei adoleszenten Schülerinnen und Schülern?
Zusammenfassung. Diese Studie untersucht wie sich argumentativer Diskurs und individuelles Argumentieren in Bezug auf den Gebrauch von Evidenz unterscheiden. In einem 1 × 2 Cross-over Design diskutierten 37 Mittelstufenschülerinnen und –Schüler ein gesellschaftliches Thema mit ihrem Partner, entweder bevor oder nachdem sie einen kurzen Aufsatz zu ihrer eigenen Meinung verfassten. Als Hintergrundinformationen erhielten sie eine Sammlung qualitativ unterschiedlicher Evidenzen zu dem Themenbereich. Die Dialoge und Aufsätze wurden untersucht in Hinblick auf a) die Art der Evidenz und b) auf welche Weise diese genutzt wurde. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich die Schülerinnen und Schüler in den Aufsätzen häufiger auf die ihnen gemeinsam vorliegenden Evidenzen beziehen (geteilte Evidenz). In den Dialogen nutzen sie Evidenz hingegen häufiger, um den gegenteiligen Standpunkt zu adressieren und zeigen dabei eine klarere Argumentationslinie. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf eine höhere Effizienz der Dialoge im Vergleich zum individuellen Schreiben hin. Gleichzeitig gibt die Studie erste Hinweise für die Gestaltung von Curricula, die Schülerinnen und Schüler dazu anregen Evidenz in ihrer Argumentation einzusetzen.
This article explores the concepts of critical questions (from D. N. Walton, 199670.
Walton , D. N. 1996 . Argument schemes for presumptive reasoning , Mahwah, NJ : Erlbaum . View all references) and integrative and refutational argument stratagems as an approach for teaching argumentation and critical thinking. A study was conducted for 6 months in 3 sections of a 7th-grade social studies classroom in which 30 students discussed and wrote about current events. One section served as a comparison group. Over time the experimental group made more arguments that integrated both sides of each issue. Collectively, the experimental group also successfully constructed salient critical questions, particularly in regard to weighing values and designing practical creative solutions. In-depth analysis of 1 student showed how conceptual structures and argument practices improved incrementally over time and how the appropriation of stratagems may have been facilitated by the dialectical nature of the intervention (e.g., using critical questions and stratagems successfully in discourse). The theoretical and practical importance of Walton's dialogue theory, and the critical question approach to argumentation, are discussed.
This paper is aimed at combining the advances in argumentation theory with the models used in the field of education to address the issue of improving students’ argumentative behavior by interacting with an expert. The concept of deeper or more sophisticated argumentative strategy is theoretically defined and used to advance two new coding schemes, based on the advances in the argumentation studies and aimed at capturing the dialectical, or structural, behavior, and the argumentative content of each dialogue unit. These coding schemes are then applied for a qualitative analysis of a study designed to investigate how students’ argumentative behavior can be influenced by the interaction with an expert, who used specific types of attacks to the interlocutors’ positions. The twofold coding shows at which dialogical level expert–peer interactions can directly and more stably affect students’ argumentative behavior, and what effects such more sophisticated strategies can have on the discussion and the analysis of disagreements. In particular, this paper shows how a specific type of deep-level attack, the underminer, can open dialogues of a different level, focused on unveiling and debating background beliefs underlying a specific position.
The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same
position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst to them (because dialog took place electronically), the opponent was a more capable (“expert”) adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the “expert” showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer
dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen’s d ¼ 1.12). In particular, the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general and advanced forms of counterargument (undermining) that challenges the deeper premises or reasoning on which an argument is based. Implications with respect to mechanisms of change in the development of argumentation skills are considered.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether providing students with continuous written instructional support or fading written instructional support (scaffolds) better prepares students to construct scientific explanations when they are no longer provided with support. This article investigated the influence of scaffolding on 331 seventh-grade students' writing of scientific explanations during an 8-week, project-based chemistry unit in which the construction of scientific explanations is a key learning goal. The unit makes an instructional model for explanation explicit to students through a focal lesson and reinforces that model through subsequent written support for each investigation. Students received 1 of 2 treatments in terms of the type of written support: continuous, involving detailed support for every investigation, or faded, involving less support over time. The analyses showed significant learning gains for students for all components of scientific explanation (i.e., claim, evidence, and reasoning). However, on posttest items lacking scaffolds, the faded group gave stronger explanations in terms of their reasoning compared to the continuous group. Fading written scaffolds better equipped students to write explanations when they were not provided with support.
The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst to them (since dialog took place electronically) the opponent was a more capable (“expert”) adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the “expert” showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen's d = 1.12). In particular the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general as well as an advanced form of counterargument (undermining) that challenges the deeper premises or reasoning on which an argument is based. Implications with respect to mechanisms of change in the development of argumentation skills are considered.
This book analyzes the uses of emotive language and redefinitions from pragmatic, dialectical, epistemic, and rhetorical perspectives, investigating the relationship between emotions, persuasion, and meaning, and focusing on the implicit dimension of the use of a word and its dialectical effects. It offers a method for evaluating the persuasive and manipulative uses of emotive language in ordinary and political discourse. Through the analysis of political speeches (including President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize address) and legal arguments, the book offers a systematic study of emotive language in argumentation, rhetoric, communication, political science, and public speaking.
The primary objective of this paper is to provide a review of research on argumentation in science education based on publications from 1998 to 2014 in three science education journals. In recent years, the teaching and learning argumentation (i.e. the coordination of evidence and theory to support or refute an explanatory conclusion, model or prediction) has emerged as a significant educational goal. Argumentation is a critically important discourse process in science and it should be taught and learned in the science classroom as part of scientific inquiry and literacy. Argumentation stresses the evidence-based justification of knowledge claims, and it underpins reasoning across STEM domains. Our aim in this study was to investigate how argumentation has been positioned within the publications of three top academic journals: Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, and Journal of Research in Science Teaching. A methodology for content analysis of the journals is described using quantitative and qualitative techniques.
One of the contributions of our analysis is the illustration that researchers studying argumentation from a linguistic perspective have been emphasizing related concepts in different ways. While the emphasis has been on discourse and discussion across all journals, the related concepts of talk, conversation, dialogue and negotiation were observed to a lesser extent. Likewise, the fine-level analysis of the key epistemic concepts such as reasoning, evidence and inquiry indicates variation in coverage.
The findings can provide evidence-based indicators for where more emphasis needs to be placed in future research on argumentation, and in particular they can provide guidelines for journals in soliciting articles that target underemphasized aspects of argumentation in science education.
We report on an extended effort to introduce and evaluate argumentation as a stand-alone component of the middle-school curriculum. The dialogic-focused curriculum continued over two school years and from a research perspective benefitted from the availability of a closely-matched comparison group who participated in a parallel but non-dialogic curriculum. Following previous reports of success of the curriculum in developing both dialogic and individual argument skills, we report on results for a new cohort of middle-school students that focus on gains occurring after the first year, specifically in the use of evidence to support and to weaken claims. After two years of twice-weekly participation, students were more likely to support claims with evidence, relative to a comparison group. They continued to show difficulty, however, in using evidence to weaken claims. In addition, participants were more likely to draw on evidence from their own knowledge when debating peers than when writing an individual essay.
S cience is fundamentally about explaining phenomena by determining how or why they occur and the conditions and consequences of the ob-served phenomena. For example, ecologists may try to explain why spe-cies diversity is decreasing in an ecosystem, or astronomers may try to explain the phases of the Moon based on the relative positions of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. When scientists explain phenomena and construct new claims, they provide evidence and reasons to justify them or to convince other scientists of the validity of the claims. To be scientifically literate citizens, students need to engage in similar inquiry. They need to understand and evaluate explanations that appear in newspapers, in magazines, and on the news to determine their credibility and validity. For example, a newspaper article may claim that stem cell research is important for human health and for treating diseases. Students need to be able to criti-cally read that article by evaluating the evidence and reasoning presented in it. That capability allows students to make informed decisions.
Fallacies of relevance, a major category of informal fallacies, include two that could be called pure fallacies of relevance-the wrong conclusion (ignoratio elenchi, wrong conclusion, missing the point) fallacy and the red herring digression, diversion) fallacy. The problem is how to classify examples of these fallacies so that they clearly fall into the one category or the other, on some rational system of classification. In this paper, the argument diagramming software system, Araucaria. is used to analyze the argumentation in some selected textbook examples of pure fallacies of relevance. A system of classification of these fallacies is proposed, and criteria for determining whether an example should be classified as wrong conclusion or red herring are formulated. A key difference cited is that in a case where the red herring fallacy has been committed, even if the argument may go to a wrong conclusion, there is evidence of the use ofa deceptive tactic of diversion. Textual evidence must indicate that the arguer deliberately interjects a distracting controversy to lead the respondent away from the real issue to be disputed.
Drawing on sociological and philosophical studies of science, science educators have begun to view argumentation as a central scientific practice that students should learn. In this article, we extend recent work to understand the structure of students' arguments to include judgments about their quality through content analyses of high school students' written explanations for 2 problems of natural selection. In these analyses, we aim to explicate the relations between students' conceptual understanding of specific domains and their epistemic understanding of scientific practices of argumentation as they try to learn science through inquiry. We present a method that assesses the warrant of explanatory claims, the sufficiency of the evidence explicitly cited for claims, and students' rhetorical use of specific inscriptions in their arguments. Students were attentive to the need to cite data, yet they often failed to cite sufficient evidence for claims. Students' references to specific inscriptions in their arguments often failed to articulate how specific data related to particular claims. We discuss these patterns of data citation in terms of what they suggest about students' epistemological ideas about explanation and consequent implications for inquiry-oriented, science education reforms.
Argue with Me offers a promising answer to teachers unsure how best to take advantage of new technology and the ease with which students seem able to use it. The flexible curriculum the book presents, geared to 6th-12th graders, is a result of years of research engaging students in argument as a way to develop thinking and writing skills. Argue with Me includes lesson plans, videos, applicable Common Core standards, auxiliary materials ready for copying, topic suggestions -- everything a teacher might need to use the curriculum. The book also provides a summary of the research evidence and illustrations documenting students' gains.
Over the last decade, researchers have developed sophisticated online learning environments to support students engaging in dialogic argumentation. This review examines five categories of analytic frameworks for measuring participant interactions within these environments focusing on (1) formal argumentation structure, (2) conceptual quality, (3) nature and function of contributions within the dialogue, (4) epistemic nature of reasoning, and (5) argumentation sequences and interaction patterns. Ultimately, the review underscores the diversity of theoretical perspectives represented within this research, the nature of dialogic interaction within these environments, the importance of clearly specifying theoretical and environmental commitments throughout the process of developing or adopting an analytic framework, and the role of analytic frameworks in the future development of online learning environments for argumentation. Keywords Online learning environments . Dialogic argumentation . Analytic frameworks While research on technology-enhanced learning environments often focuses on human– computer interactions, technology-enhanced learning environments also provide powerful affordances for scaffolding human–human interactions. Over the last decade, sophisticated online learning environments have been developed to support students engaging in dialogic argumentation. Dialogic argumentation focuses on the interactions of individuals or groups attempting to convince one another of the acceptability and validity of alternative ideas.
The skills involved in argument as a social discourse activity presumably develop during the childhood and adolescent years, but little is known about the course of that development. As an initial step in examining this development, a coding system was developed for the purpose of analyzing multiple dialogues between peers on the topic of capital punishment. A comparison of the dialogues of young adolescents and those of young adults showed the teens to be more preoccupied with producing the dialogue and less able to behave strategically with respect to the goals of argumentive discourse. Teens also did not exhibit the strategic skill that adults did of adapting discourse to the requirements of particular argumentive contexts (agreeing vs. disagreeing dialogues).
The research reported in this paper focussed on the design of learning environments that support the teaching and learning of argumentation in a scientific context. The research took place over two years between 1999 and 2001 in junior high schools in the greater London area. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first developmental phase, working with a group of 12 science teachers, the main emphasis was to develop sets of materials and strategies to support argumentation in the classroom and to assess teachers‘ development with teaching argumentation. Data were collected by videoing and audio recording the teachers attempts to implement these lessons at the beginning and end of the year. During this phase, analytical tools for evaluating the quality of argumentation were developed based on Toulmin‘s argument pattern. Analysis of the data shows that there was significant development in the majority of teachers use of argumentation across the year. Results indicate that the pattern of use of argumentation is teacher specific, as is the nature of the change. In the second phase of the project, teachers taught the experimental groups a minimum of nine lessons which involved socioscientific or scientific argumentation. In addition, these teachers taught similar lessons to a control group at the beginning and end of the year. Here the emphasis lay on assessing the progression in student capabilities with argumentation. Hence data were collected from several lessons of two groups of students engaging in argumentation. Using a framework for evaluating the nature of the discourse and its quality, the findings show that there was an improvement in the quality of students‘ argumentation. In addition, the research offers methodological developments for work in this field.
Reactions of the imido complex Ti(NBut)Cl2(py)3 (py = pyridine) with 1,3,5-trialkyl-1,3,5-triazacyclo- hexanes (R3tach) produce the corresponding imido complexes TiCl2(NBut)(R3tach) (R = Et, But). The new complexes have been characterized by n.m.r. spectroscopy and, for the R = Bu t case, by X-ray diffraction studies. The absence of a C3v axis of symmetry for the new complexes allowed complete and unequivocal assignment of their ¹H n.m.r. spectra by consideration of proton{proton coupling and nuclear Overhauser effects.
The object of this research was to provide an explicit test of the hypothesis that engagement in thinking about a topic enhances the quality of reasoning about that topic. Engagement took the form of a series of dyadic discussions of the topic of capital punishment. At both age levels examined--early adolescence and young adulthood-this dyadic interaction significantly enhanced quality of reasoning, relative to a more minimal, single-occasion dyadic engagement or a control condition limited to repeated elicitation of the participant's own opinions and arguments. The range of different arguments increased from pretest to posttest, suggesting a process of social transmission of new knowledge. In addition, however, 10 different types of qualitative improvement in the form of reasoning appeared in both age groups. Primary among them were a shift from 1 -sided to 2-sided arguments, arguments based within a framework of alternatives, and metacognitive awareness of coexistence of multiple views. Process analysis of the dialogues provided evidence of a variety of different forms of interaction contributing to change.
Linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs) have become increasingly prominent in psycholinguistics and related areas. However, many researchers do not seem to appreciate how random effects structures affect the generalizability of an analysis. Here, we argue that researchers using LMEMs for confirmatory hypothesis testing should minimally adhere to the standards that have been in place for many decades. Through theoretical arguments and Monte Carlo simulation, we show that LMEMs generalize best when they include the maximal random effects structure justified by the design. The generalization performance of LMEMs including data-driven random effects structures strongly depends upon modeling criteria and sample size, yielding reasonable results on moderately-sized samples when conservative criteria are used, but with little or no power advantage over maximal models. Finally, random-intercepts-only LMEMs used on within-subjects and/or within-items data from populations where subjects and/or items vary in their sensitivity to experimental manipulations always generalize worse than separate F1 and F2 tests, and in many cases, even worse than F1 alone. Maximal LMEMs should be the ‘gold standard’ for confirmatory hypothesis testing in psycholinguistics and beyond.
What does it take to argue well? The goal of this series of studies was to better understand the cognitive skills entailed in argument, and their course of development, isolated from the verbal and social demands that argumentive discourse also entails. Findings indicated that young adolescents are less able than adults to coordinate attention to both positions in an argument, an age-related pattern that parallels one found in discourse. Contributing to this weakness was inattention to the opposing position (in both constrained and unconstrained formats), but not ability to address the opposing position when explicitly asked to do so. In addition to implementing the necessary dual focus, results point to the importance of developing epistemological understanding of the relevance of the opposing position to argument, as well as of the goals of argument more generally. The results also reflect the close parallels between dialogic and non-dialogic argument. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Informal reasoning fallacies are violations of critical discussion norms. As epistemological understanding of knowledge justification appears to underlie the informal reasoning skills of argument construction and evaluation, it was hypothesized that adolescents with greater epistemological sophistication would be more able to identify informal reasoning fallacies. It was hypothesized that 11th graders would be more epistemologically sophisticated than 7th or 9th graders and, thus, would more likely identify fallacies. Students responded to questions regarding argument scenarios that did or did not contain fallacies. More 11th graders identified fallacies. Epistemological level predicted only identification of one type of fallacy that might be described as epistemological in nature. Cognitive ability also seemed to contribute to the increased ability with grade to identify fallacies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The national science standards, along with prominent researchers, call for increased focus on scientific argumentation in the classroom. Over the past decade, researchers have developed sophisticated online science learning environments to support these opportunities for scientific argumentation. Assessing the quality of dialogic argumentation, however, has proven challenging. Existing analytic frameworks assess dialogic argumentation in terms of the nature of students' discourse, formal argumentation structure, interactions, and epistemic forms of reasoning. Few frameworks, however, connect these assessments to conceptual quality. We present an analytic framework for assessing argumentation in online science learning environments that relates levels of opposition with discourse moves, use of grounds, and conceptual quality. We then apply the proposed framework to students' dialogic argumentation within a representative online science learning environment to investigate the framework's potential affordances as well as to assess issues of reliability and appropriateness. The results suggest that the framework offers significant affordances and that it also offers high interrater reliability for trained coders. The applicability of the framework for offline contexts and future extensions of the framework are discussed in light of these results. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 293–321, 2008
During the last decade, argumentation has attracted growing attention as a means to elicit processes (linguistic, logical, dialogical, psychological, etc.) that can sustain or provoke reasoning and learning. Constituting an important dimension of daily life and of professional activities, argumentation plays a special role in democracies and is at the heart of philosophical reasoning and scientific inquiry. Argumentation, as such, requires specific intellectual and social skills. Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is an important competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation can be used to foster learning in philosophy, history, sciences and in many other domains.
However, learning argumentation and learning by arguing, at school, still raise theoretical and methodological questions such as: How do learning processes develop in argumentation? How to design effective argumentative activities? How can the argumentative efforts of pupils can be sustained? What are the psychological issues involved when arguing with others? How to evaluate and analyze the learners’ productions?
Argumentation and Education answers these and other questions by providing both theoretical backgrounds, in psychology, education and theory of argumentation, and concrete examples of experiments and results in school contexts in a range of domains. It reports on existing innovative practices in education settings at various levels.
This article focuses on the capacity of students to develop and assess arguments during a high school genetics instructional sequence. The research focused on the locating distinction in argumentation discourse between “doing science” vs. “doing school” or “doing the lesson” (Bloome, Puro, & Theodorou, 1989). Participants in this classroom case study were high school (9th grade) students in Galicia (Spain). Students were observed, videotaped, and audiotaped while working in groups over six class sessions. Toulmin's argument pattern was used as a tool for the analysis of students' conversation and other frames were used for analyzing other dimensions of students' dialogue; (e.g., epistemic operations, use of analogies, appeal to consistency, and causal relations). Instances of “doing science” and instances of “doing the lesson” are identified and discussed as moments when the classroom discourse is dominated either by talking science or displaying the roles of students. The different arguments constructed and co-constructed by students, the elements of the arguments, and the sequence are also discussed, showing a dominance of claims and a lesser frequence of justifications or warrants. Implications for developing effective contexts to promote argumentation and science dialogue in the classroom are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed84:757–792, 2000.
Linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs) have become increasingly prominent in psycholin-guistics and related areas. However, many researchers do not seem to appreciate how random effects structures affect the generalizability of an analysis. Here, we argue that researchers using LMEMs for confirmatory hypothesis testing should minimally adhere to the standards that have been in place for many decades. Through theoretical arguments and Monte Carlo simulation, we show that LMEMs generalize best when they include the maximal random effects structure justified by the design. The generalization performance of LMEMs including data-driven random effects structures strongly depends upon modeling criteria and sample size, yielding reasonable results on moderately-sized samples when conservative criteria are used, but with little or no power advantage over maximal models. Finally, random-intercepts-only LMEMs used on within-subjects and/or within-items data from populations where subjects and/or items vary in their sensitivity to experimental manipulations always generalize worse than separate F 1 and F 2 tests, and in many cases, even worse than F 1 alone. Maximal LMEMs should be the 'gold standard' for confirmatory hypothesis testing in psycholinguistics and beyond.
Students of argumentation rarely acknowledge that the term “argument” has two importantly different senses. This essay attempts to show the importance of distinguishing these senses, taking as a focus for analysis Wayne Brockriede's recent discussions of the concept of argument. It is argued that Brackriede's view suffers from a failure to heed the distinction noted, and that this failure signals important developments in the study of argument.
Among the maxims that govern conversation and which can be exploited in order to generate 'implicatures', H.P. Grice includes the maxim 'Be relevant' (R). The present paper is an attempt to clarify the way in which maxim R operates. Two broad types of relevance are distinguished, a 'pragmatic' and a 'semantic' one, as well as a number of subtypes. It is argued that the generation of implicatures via R relies on the rather precise identification of the types of relevance allegedly missing in a conversational exchange. An abductive rather than deductive model for the derivation of implicatures via R is sketched, based upon a presumed hierarchical order of the various types of relevance.
Informal Logic is an introductory guidebook to the basic principles of constructing sound arguments and criticizing bad ones. Non-technical in approach, it is based on 186 examples, which Douglas Walton, a leading authority in the field of informal logic, discusses and evaluates in clear, illustrative detail. Walton explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical responses. Among the many subjects covered are: forms of valid argument, defeasible arguments, relevance, appeals to emotion, personal attack, straw man argument, jumping to a conclusion, uses and abuses of expert opinion, problems in drawing conclusions from polls and statistics, loaded terms, equivocation, arguments from analogy, and techniques of posing, replying to, and criticizing questions. This new edition takes into account many new developments in the field of argumentation study that have occurred since 1989, many created by the author. Drawing on these developments, Walton includes and analyzes 36 new topical examples and also brings in recent work on argumentation schemes. Ideally suited for use in courses in informal logic and introduction to philosophy, this book will also be valuable to students of pragmatics, rhetoric, and speech communication.
Basing its arguments in current perspectives on the nature of the scientific enterprise, which see argument and argumentative practice as a core activity of scientists, this article develops the case for the inclusion and central role of argument in science education. Beginning with a review of the nature of argument, it discusses the function and purpose of dialogic argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge and the interpretation of empirical data. The case is then advanced that any education about science, rather than education in science, must give the role of argument a high priority if it is to give a fair account of the social practice of science, and develop a knowledge and understanding of the evaluative criteria used to establish scientific theories. Such knowledge is essential to enhance the public understanding of science and improve scientific literacy. The existing literature, and work that has attempted to use argument within science education, is reviewed to show that classroom practice does provide the opportunity to develop young people's ability to construct argument. Furthermore, the case is advanced that the lack of opportunities for the practice of argument within science classrooms, and lack of teacher's pedagogical skills in organizing argumentative discourse within the classroom are significant impediments to progress in the field.
In attempting to define intelligence in real-world contexts, psychologists have focused primarily on the kinds of thinking that people do in work-related environments. In this article, however, Deanna Kuhn describes another form of thinking that should be central to efforts to describe real-world intelligence: thinking as argument. It is in argument, the author maintains, that we find the most significant way in which higher order thinking and reasoning figure in the lives of most people. Kuhn describes her research, which examines the extent to which a process of reasoned argument underlies the beliefs people hold and the opinions they espouse about important social issues. Her results indicate that argumentive reasoning ability does not differ systematically as a function of sex or age (from adolescence through the late sixties), but is strongly related to education level. Kuhn believes that social contexts, such as the classroom, are the most promising arena for practicing and developing argumentive th...
Presenting the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners, this book informs by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. (Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed.) Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton demonstrates the reasonable nature of arguments under the right dialogue conditions by using critical questions to evaluate them.
This study investigated how varying the lexical encodings of technical terms in multiple texts influences learners' dyadic processing of scientific-related information. Fifty-seven pairs of college students read journalistic texts on depression. Each partner in a dyad received one text; for half of the dyads the partner's text contained different lexical encodings of the same concepts; for the other half the lexical encodings and texts were identical. They then read a case report on first signs of depression. Communicating via a chat room, each dyad had to write a causal diagnosis and suggest a treatment. Results showed that dyads in the different-encoding condition explicitly elaborated the meaning of technical terms more often, produced more differentiated answers, and acquired more knowledge. It is concluded that deliberately switching different words for the same underlying content, and engaging students in discussion of that content, influences learners' discourse and promotes scientific/conceptual understanding.
This article focuses on the capacity of students to develop and assess
arguments during a high school genetics instructional sequence. The
research focused on the locating distinction in argumentation discourse
between doing science vs. doing school or doing the lesson (Bloome,
Puro, & Theodorou, 1989). Participants in this classroom case study
were high school (9th grade) students in Galicia (Spain). Students were
observed, videotaped, and audiotaped while working in groups over six
class sessions. Toulmin's argument pattern was used as a tool for the
analysis of students' conversation and other frames were used for
analyzing other dimensions of students' dialogue; (e.g., epistemic
operations, use of analogies, appeal to consistency, and causal
relations). Instances of doing science and instances of doing the lesson
are identified and discussed as moments when the classroom discourse is
dominated either by talking science or displaying the roles of students.
The different arguments constructed and co-constructed by students, the
elements of the arguments, and the sequence are also discussed, showing
a dominance of claims and a lesser frequence of justifications or
warrants. Implications for developing effective contexts to promote
argumentation and science dialogue in the classroom are discussed.
The research reported in this paper concerns the development of children's skills of interpreting and evaluating evidence in science. Previous studies have shown that school teaching often places limited emphasis on the development of these skills, which are necessary for children to engage in scientific debate and decision-making. The research, undertaken in the United Kingdom, involved four collaborative decision-making activities to stimulate group discussion, each carried out with five groups of four children (10 11 years old). The research shows how the children evaluated evidence for possible choices and judged whether their evidence was sufficient to support a particular conclusion or the rejection of alternative conclusions. A mapping technique was developed to analyse the discussions and identify different ``levels'' of argumentation. The authors conclude that suitable collaborative activities that focus on the discussion of evidence can be developed to exercise children's ability to argue effectively in making decisions.
The shift from preoperational thought to operativity entails the construction of the idea of necessity. The concrete operativity tasks, particularly conservation, are analyzed from this perspective. The Genevans always assigned a significant role to the child's interaction with others as a critical factor in the transition to operativity. The results from a broad class of conservation training studies that are based upon various kinds of social interaction are also analyzed from the perspective of their efficacy, fidelity to necessity, and implications for school instruction.
Earlier research [Discourse Process. 23 (2/3) (2002) 135] on argumentation suggests that adults use advanced discourse strategies more consistently, more frequently, and more flexibly than do adolescents. The present study examines the development of argumentation skills during adolescence. Forty-eight seventh and eighth graders were assigned to one of two conditions. Both groups engaged in pretest and posttest measures of strategy use on two topics (capital punishment and abortion) and then engaged in five weekly dialogues on the main topic only (capital punishment). Control group participants engaged in dialogue only while experimental group participants engaged in a combination of dialogue and paired reflection on dialogues. Experimental group participants showed greater advances in argumentative discourse than control group participants. Results suggest that change in adolescents does indeed progress in the direction of adult discourse and that a combination of practice and reflection is more effective in promoting change than practice alone. The implications of these findings for a developmental model of argumentative discourse are discussed.
Our studies of naturally occurring human dialogue have led to the recognition of a class of regularities which characterize important aspects of communication. People appear to interact according to established patterns which span several turns in a dialogue and which recur frequently. These patterns appear to be organized around the goals which the dialogue serves for each participant. Many things which are said later in a dialogue can only be interpreted as pursuit of these goals, established by earlier dialogue.
These patterns have been represented by a set of knowledge structures called Dialogue-Games, capturing shared, conventional knowledge that people have about communication and how it can be used to achieve goals. A Dialogue-Game has Parameters, which represent those elements that vary across instances of a particular pattern—the particular dialogue participants and the content topic. The states of the world which must be in effect for a particular Dialogue-Game to be employed successfully are represented by Specifications of these Parameters. Finally, the expected sequence of intermediate states that occur during instances of a particular conventional pattern are represented by the Components of the corresponding Dialogue-Game.
Representations for several Dialogue-Games are presented here, based on our analyses of different kinds of naturally occurring dialogue. A process model is discussed, showing Dialogue-Game identification, pursuit, and termination as part of the comprehension of dialogue utterances. This Dialogue-Game model captures some of the important functional aspects of language, especially indirect uses to achieve implicit communication.
This article examines the effects of participation in oral argumentation on the development of individual reasoning as expressed in persuasive essays. Engagement in oral argumentation is the essential feature of a classroom discussion method called collaborative reasoning. A premise of this method is that reasoning is fundamentally dialogical and, hence, the development of reasoning is best nurtured in supportive dialogical settings such as group discussion. Students from 3 classrooms participated in collaborative reasoning discussions for a period of 5 weeks. Then, these students and students from 3 comparable classrooms who had not engaged in collaborative reasoning wrote persuasive essays. The essays of collaborative reasoning students contained a significantly greater number of relevant arguments, counter-arguments, rebuttals, formal argument devices, and uses of text information.
The Skills of Argument presents a comprehensive empirical study of informal reasoning as argument, involving subjects across the life span. Subjects ranging in age from adolescence to late adulthood were asked to describe their views on social problems that people have occasion to think and talk about in everyday life, such as crime and unemployment. In addition to providing supporting evidence for their theories, subjects were asked to contemplate alternative theories and counterarguments and to evaluate new evidence on the topics. This is the first major study of informal reasoning across the life span. Highlighting the importance of argumentive reasoning in everyday thought, the book offers a theoretical framework for conceptualizing and studying thinking as argument. The findings address issues of major importance to cognitive and developmental psychologists, as well as educators concerned with improving the quality of people's thinking. The work is also relevant to philosophers, political scientists, and linguists interested in informal reasoning and argumentive discourse.
This article presents the results of two experiments addressing the relation of reasoning skill to student grade, ability, and knowledge levels. In the first experiment, three levels of students within each of four grades-5, 7, 9, or 1 1-were designated as intellectually gifted, average, or below average. They were given three tasks involving everyday problems for which they provided solutions and justifications. The second experiment included the measurement of domain knowledge with grade and ability level. Measures of informal reasoning showed a substantial relation between ability level and performance, with knowledge significantly related to performance measures, such as number and type of reasons generated, but not to measures involving soundness or acceptability of arguments, which were explained by ability level. Grade was related only to an increase in personal and broadly defined social reasons; other effects were "washed out" by knowledge. The findings were interpreted in terms of a two-component model of informal reasoning, a knowledgeexperiential component and an informal reasoning skill component based on the acquisition of argumentation-based language structures termed conventions of reasoning. Consideration of the relation of reasoning to learning and to instruction emphasized the importance of teaching informal reasoning skill.
Conducted 2 studies to examine the effects of peer interaction on individual problem solving. In Study 1, 30 7–8 yr olds played a microcomputer version of Mastermind (a peg game requiring logic). The research design entailed an initial individual session, followed by either a paired or individual training session and an individual posttest. All paired sessions were videotaped. The frequencies with which an individual S made proposals, drew inferences, or countered his/her partner's proposals were found to be highly correlated with that S's individual posttest performance. Also, the number of instances in which a pair of Ss countered each other's proposals and went on to defend their differing positions was highly positively correlated with their pooled posttest performance. In Study 2, 40 7–8 yr olds participated in the same Mastermind sequence as in the 1st study. Results indicate that members of pairs showing high levels of task-related argumentation were not more capable at pretest. However, the level of pre- to posttest improvement was greater for these Ss than for those with lower levels of task-related argumentation. Overall results suggest that the experience of working together in pairs on problems can significantly facilitate subsequent individual problem-solving performance. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Many strategies used to induce the occurrence of desirable science‐related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors involve the use of persuasive messages. Science educators need to become acquainted with persuasion in the context of social influence and learning theory to be able to evaluate its usefulness in the science education milieu. Persuasion is the conscious attempt to bring about a jointly developed mental state common to both source and receiver through the use of symbolic cues, and it can be distinguished from other forms of social influence. Propaganda is a type of persuasion directed toward a mass audience. Coercion relies on reinforcement control, whereas persuasion is prompted by information. Brainwashing involves coercive techniques used to obtain cooperation and compliance. Persuasion and instruction are much alike; both require conscious cognitive activity by the recipient and involve communication which includes giving arguments and evidence for the purpose of getting someone to do something or to believe something.
Persuasion research is anchored in learning theory. Early efforts were based on information processing. Studies following an information process approach focused on the effect of the variables harbored within the question “Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect?” on belief and attitude change. Cognitive processing and social exchange approaches to persuasion represent extensions to information process. Cognitive processing is concerned specifically with how people personally process the arguments presented in a persuasive message. Social exchange emphasizes the interchange that takes place between the message source and recipient. These approaches seem to be fruitful areas for future persuasion research in science education.
Science educators' unfamiliarity with persuasion research stems from the fact that it is largely reported in the social psychology literature and has not been integrated into a framework familiar to educators.
Basing its arguments in current perspectives on the nature of the scientific enterprise, which see argument and argumentative practice as a core activity of scientists, this article develops the case for the inclusion and central role of argument in science education. Beginning with a review of the nature of argument, it discusses the function and purpose of dialogic argument in the social construction of scientific knowledge and the interpretation of empirical data. The case is then advanced that any education about science, rather than education in science, must give the role of argument a high priority if it is to give a fair account of the social practice of science, and develop a knowledge and understanding of the evaluative criteria used to establish scientific theories. Such knowledge is essential to enhance the public understanding of science and improve scientific literacy. The existing literature, and work that has attempted to use argument within science education, is reviewed to show that classroom practice does provide the opportunity to develop young people's ability to construct argument. Furthermore, the case is advanced that the lack of opportunities for the practice of argument within science classrooms, and lack of teacher's pedagogical skills in organizing argumentative discourse within the classroom are significant impediments to progress in the field. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed84:287–312, 2000.