Effect of argumentative goals in the quality of argumentative dialogue and written argumentation / Efecto de la consigna argumentativa en la calidad del diálogo argumentativo y de la argumentación escrita (original) (raw)
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The effect of argumentative task goal on the quality of argumentative discourse
In argumentative discourse, there are two kinds of activity–dispute and deliberation–that depend on the argumentative task goal. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these tasks goals on the quality of argumentative discourse. Sixty-five junior high school students were organized into dyads to discuss sources of energy. Dyads were formed by members who had differing viewpoints and were distributed to one of two conditions: 31 dyads were asked to discuss with the goal to persuade the partner, and 34 were asked to reach consensus. Argumentation was analyzed using a schema based on Toulmin (1958). Eleven different argumentative structures resulted from the combination of Toulmin's basic elements. Students in the consensus group scored significantly higher than students in the persuasion group in 5/6 argumentative structures that included rebuttals. The major implication of the present work is that, similar to Mercer's (2000) claim about types of classroom conversation, not all classroom argumentation tasks promote scientific reasoning equally. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 97:497–523, 2013
Argumentation and education: notes for a debate / Argumentación y educación: apuntes para un debate
Infancia y Aprendizaje, 2015
The objective of the present article is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to analyse the relationship between argumentation and education with a special emphasis on the difficulties that occur when defining and assessing argumentative skills. These difficulties are related to the thinking patterns underlying the argumentation models and, at the same time, are reflected in the educational models used to train and to assess students' argumentative skills. On the other hand, this article presents and discusses common and distinctive aspects of the papers selected for this monograph.
This study is part of a larger project focused on the development of argumentative competence and its effect on knowledge construction. It aims to analyse and compare the changes in the evolution of the claims and the quality of the written arguments used by university students in two learning scenarios: a first scenario where students participated in a debate with the aim of convincing; and a second scenario where the debate was aimed at achiev- ing an agreement by consensus. The participants were 77 first-year university students in Education and Speech Therapy. A quasi-experimental design was adopted with repeated measures, in which students from the two groups wrote two argumentative texts (initial and final) for each type of debate. The results indicate that the initial claims evolved towards more moderate positions at the end of the process; and the quality of the arguments that students wrote in their texts varied significantly depending on the type of demand and the time of writing (initial or final). To cite this article: Maribel Cano & Montserrat Castelló (2016) Development of argumentative discourse based on learning demand / Evolución del discurso argumentativo en función de la demanda de aprendizaje, Infancia y Aprendizaje, 39:1, 84-118,
The Impact of Structured Discussion on Students' Attitudes and Dispositions toward Argumentation
Argumentation skills are highly valued in both education and business. As a process, participating in argumentation helps a person to develop their meta-cognitive and higher-order thinking abilities. This paper reports on empirical results on middle-school students' changes in attitudes towards argumentation as part of an ongoing design-based research study. Past attempts by researchers to foster students' argumentation skills have met with mixed results. General Web-based discussion boards often do not provide the structures and process scaffolds to help students acquire the target skill. In this study, a web-based structured argumentation board with sentence openers as scaffolds was designed to support students' engagement with argumentation over a four week long intervention. Two questionnaires, a pre-post and a post-then-pre, were designed to measure students' attitudes towards argumentation. The two questionnaires were used to identify any treatment dependent &q...
Argumentation Theory in Education Studies: Coding and Improving Students’ Argumentative Strategies.
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
High school students’ perceptions of argumentation
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010
This study investigated students' perceptions of argumentation by using Argumentation Perception Test. The sample was 245 high school students. The results showed that while practical activities were found as the most used activity in argumentative discourse, role play was the least one. Most students were found to feel themselves enthusiastic for participating in an argumentation discourse. Students' perceptions' of argumentation were based on knowledge, classroom activities, understanding, nature of science, actions by teachers and students, and classroom management. This study contributes to the evidence base for understanding the connection between students' argumentation perceptions and their improved engagement in argumentative discourse.
Researchers in science education have converged on the view that argumentation can be an effective intervention for promoting knowledge construction in science classrooms. However, the impact of such interventions may be mediated by individuals' task goals while arguing. In argumentative discourse, one can distinguish two overlapping but distinct kinds of activity: dispute and deliberation. In dispute the goal is to defend a conclusion by undermining alternatives, whereas in deliberation the goal is to arrive at a conclusion by contrasting alternatives. In this study, we examine the impact of these discourse goals on both content learning and argument quality in science.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2013
This article reports the outcomes of a project in which teachers' sought to develop their ability to use instructional practices associated with argumentation in the teaching of science-in particular, the use of more dialogic approach based on small group work and the consideration of ideas, evidence, and argument. The project worked with four secondary school science departments over 2 years with the aim of developing a more dialogic approach to the teaching of science as a common instructional practice within the school. To achieve this goal, two lead teachers in each school worked to improve the use of argumentation as an instructional practice by embedding activities in the school science curriculum and to develop their colleague's expertise across the curriculum for 11-to 16-yearold students. This research sought to identify: (a) whether such an approach using minimal support and professional development could lead to measurable difference in student outcomes, and (b) what changes in teachers' practice were achieved (reported elsewhere). To assess the effects on student learning and engagement, data were collected of students' conceptual understanding, reasoning, and attitudes toward science from both the experimental schools and a comparison sample using a set of standard instruments. Results show that few significant changes were found in students compared to the comparison sample. In this article, we report the findings and discuss what we argue are salient implications for teacher professional development and teacher learning. ß 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50: 2013
Researching argumentation in educational contexts: New methods, new directions
2008
The ability to engage in reasoned discussion is a skill that is needed in many different workplace and community contexts. The capacity to argue effectively can enhance an individual’s democratic participation in contemporary society through, for example, online communication with political representatives, or participation in the political blogosphere. Yet studies have shown that many citizens’ argumentation skills are ‘only of the most elementary sort’ (Kuhn 1991, 264). This is despite the fact that both the process (argumentation) and the product (argument) of putting forward and negotiating ideas and perspectives is a fundamental aim of education. Educational argumentation, and the methods and tools of analysis for investigating it, are the focus of this special edition. In combination, the papers present an array of different means by which educational argumentation is currently being researched by key scholars in the field. The methods discussed have been shaped by a number of...