To What Extent Students' Epistemic Beliefs Influence Their Engagement in Argumentative Discourse and Attitudinal Change (original) (raw)
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The goal of this study was to explore how students debate with their peers within a designed context using a digital dialogue game, and whether their epistemic beliefs are significant to the outcomes. Epistemic beliefs are known to colour student interactions within argumentative discourse, leading some students to hold back from interactions. By designing an online small group activity based around an issue both important and controversial to the students, with multiple viewpoints in each group and with the scaffolding provided by a dialogue game, it was examined whether these epistemic effects were still evident within their argumentative discourse. Furthermore, the study examined whether the activity design improves students' willingness to argue with each other, and their openness to attitudinal change. A pretest, posttest design was used with students who were assigned to groups of four or five and asked to argue on a controversial topic. Their aim was to explore various perspectives and to debate the pros and cons of the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). While previous research has shown that some epistemic beliefs lead to less critical engagement with peers, the results presented here demonstrate that activity design is also an important factor in successful engagement within argumentative discourse.
The role of students’ epistemic beliefs for their argumentation performance in higher education
Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 2022
Students’ argumentation performance can be influenced by their epistemic beliefs, however, in the context of argumentative essay writing and argumentative peer feedback in online setting this has not been clearly investigated. This study explores relationship between students’ epistemic beliefs and argumentation performance regarding essay writing and peer feedback. In total, 101 undergraduate students filled out the epistemic beliefs survey and wrote an argumentative essay. Then, they provided two sets of feedback on the essays of their peers and finally submitted their revised essays. Students’ beliefs about the Internet-specific justification of knowledge did not play a significant role in their argumentation performance in essay writing, while it was related to their constructive peer feedback performance. Students’ beliefs about the nature of scientific knowledge were significantly related to their argumentative essay writing and peer feedback performance. In terms of uptake of peer feedback, no significant role was found for epistemic beliefs.
Whereas much attention has been given to the cognitive and epistemic dimensions of argumentation, the socio-relational, socio-emotional and motivational aspects of it have been largely neglected. I will put forward the claim that research on argumentation, learning and education can benefit from considering these dimensions, and that it may uncover some of the reasons behind the difficulty to elicit productive argumentation among students. In the first part, I will describe how ‘productive argumentation’ is commonly defined as an activity that is co-constructive and critical at the same time. We call it co-constructive, critical argumentation (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2009b). In the second part, I will try to uncover why it is not easy to elicit this particular type of productive discourse among students, and why they often resort to discourse that is void of either criticism or of co-construction, even when specifically instructed to engage in argumentation. In part three, different attitudes towards conflict resolution are described, each resulting in a distinctively different type of discourse, namely consensus seeking and adversarial argumentative discourse. Short protocols will illustrate the difference between them and how they are likely to inhibit learning. Finally, in part four I will present an assessment scheme that attempts to capture key elements of the epistemic as well as the interpersonal dimensions of argumentative discourse. This chapter concludes with outlining several ways in which the presented conceptualizations and the coding scheme may be used to offer new insights into the social and cognitive processes of learning through peer argumentation. The overall goal of the current paper is to suggest a conceptual framework and a quantitative assessment procedure to capture the differences between different types of argumentative discourse so as to enable empirical research into the antecedents of these different types of argumentative discourse and to further explore their relation with learning.
The effects of online peer feedback and epistemic beliefs on students' argumentation-based learning
Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 2019
Although the importance of students’ argumentative peer feedback for learning is undeniable, there is a need for further empirical evidence on whether and how it is related to various aspects of argumentation-based learning namely argumentative essay writing, domain-specific learning, and attitudinal change while considering their epistemic beliefs which are known to be related to argumentation. In this study, a pre-test–post-test design was conducted with 42 higher education students who were asked to write an argumentative essay on the GMOs, engage in argumentative feedback, and revise their essay. The results showed that argumentative peer feedback improves students’ argumentative essay writing and domain-specific learning. Furthermore, argumentative peer feedback caused attitudinal change. However, findings did not prove any impact of students’ epistemic beliefs on argumentation-based learning. This is against broadly shared theoretical assumption that argumentation-based learning is related to students’ epistemic beliefs. We discuss these results and provide an agenda for future work.
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.
Developing Epistemological Understanding in Scientific and Social Domains through Argumentation
Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 2016
Wie das Argumentieren die Entwicklung eines epistemologischen Verständnisses in wissenschaftlichen und sozialen Bereichen fördern kann Zusammenfassung. Diese Arbeit untersucht, ob eine Intervention zur Veränderung des Argumentationsverhaltens die Entwicklung eines evaluativen epistemologischen Verständnisses fördern kann. Studierende wurden randomisiert einer von zwei Interventionsbedingungen zugewiesen, die sich entweder mit einem sozialen oder ein wissenschaftlichen Thema beschäftigten. Die epistemologischen Überzeugungen wurden vor und nach der Intervention anhand eines sozialen und eines wissenschaftlichen Themas ermittelt. Zusätzlich wurden die Ansichten der Studierenden über ihre eigenen Wissensprozesse sowie über die von Wissenschaftlern erhoben. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass dialogische Argumentationsaktivitäten die Entwicklung eines evaluativen domänenspezifischen epistemologischen Verständnisses unterstützte. Weitere qualitative Analysen zeigten, dass die Teilnehmer je nach ...