Education Commons^™

A Systematic Review Of Argumentation Related To The Engineering-Designed World, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Ashley R. Strong, Christina Marie Hartman, Jared Garlick, Karen H. Washburn, Angela L. Minichiello, Sandra Weingart, Jorge Acosta-Feliz

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Background

Across academic disciplines, researchers have found that argumentation‐based pedagogies increase learners' achievement and engagement. Engineering educational researchers and teachers of engineering may benefit from knowledge regarding how argumentation related to engineering has been practiced and studied.

Purpose/Hypothesis

Drawing from terms and concepts used in national standards for K‐12 education and accreditation requirements for undergraduate engineering education, this study was designed to identify how arguments and argumentation related to the engineering‐designed world were operationalized in relevant literature.

Methodology

Specified search terms and inclusion criteria were used to identify 117 empirical studies related to engineering argumentation and educational research. A qualitative …

Development And Implementation Of A Biochemistry Argumentation Task To Promote Scientific Literacy Among Undergraduate Students, Lukas Hall

Honors Theses

Science education reform efforts at the postsecondary level have been lacking regardless of meaningful reform at the K-12 level. Of these reforms, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) serve to reframe effective science teaching and learning as three-dimensional (3D). That is, 3D instruction integrates core disciplinary ideas, cross-cutting concepts, and science practices to support students’ science learning. There have been calls to extend this 3D model to the postsecondary level. The purpose of this study was to design, implement, and evaluate a 3D task in a university-level biochemistry course. The task was implemented as a homework assignment to 107 students …

Mission To Planet Markle: Problem-Based Learning For Teaching Elementary Students Difficult Content And Practices, Melanie Peffer, Maggie Renken, Patrick Enderle, Jonathan Cohen

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Young children can struggle to learn difficult disciplinary content and important skills for practicing science. Problem-based learning (PBL) may be useful for addressing such difficulties, yet evidence to support its usefulness in elementary school-aged children is limited. We considered the role of a PBL unit in improving students’ genetics content understanding and their skills specific to creating arguments with coordinated claims, evidence, and reasoning. First- through fifth-grade students participated in a six-week PBL unit about evolution and genetics. Students worked in mixed age groups and were charged with illustrating a fictitious alien species, called markles, based on a series of …

Effects Of Elaborative Interrogation After Reading Belief-Inconsistent Arguments And Need For Cognition On Argumentation And Topic Beliefs, Ruomeng Zhao

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Constructing quality argumentation to justify one’s own beliefs on a topic is important both for a thorough topic understanding and the development of argumentation writing skills. Also, one’s change or retention of topic beliefs should be based on quality argumentation, such that the belief can be considered rational. The purpose of this study was to test whether a cognitive strategy, elaborative interrogation, can improve the understanding of belief-inconsistent arguments on a controversial topic and then improve argumentation quality, as well as result in reflective belief change. Elaborative interrogation is a cognitive strategy which prompts individuals to answer “why” questions on …

Effects Of Persuasion And Discussion Goals On Writing, Cognitive Load, And Learning In Science., Perry Klein, J. S. Eharhardt

Education Publications

Argument writing is challenging for elementary students. Previous experimental research has focused on scaffolding rhetorical goals, leaving content goals relatively unexplored. In a randomized experiment, 73 students in Grades 5, 6, and 7 wrote persuasive texts about difficult-to-classify vertebrates. Each student received one of three sets of writing prompts: a persuasive goal only (control); persuasive goal + rhetorical subgoal prompts; or persuasive goal + content subgoal prompts. Rhetorical subgoals increased text quality, variety of rhetorical moves, number of complex propositions, and classification knowledge. Content subgoals increased the number of simple propositions in text. A path analysis indicated that content subgoal …

What Is Meant By Argumentative Competence? An Integrative Review Of Methods Of Analysis And Assessment In Education, Chrysi Rapanta, Merce Garcia-Mila, Sandra Gilabert

All Works

The need to enhance argument skills through education has become increasingly evident during the past 20 years. This need has resulted in an ongoing discussion that focuses on students' and teachers' argumentation and its support. However, apart from the extended competence-based discourse, no clear and homogeneous definition exists for argumentative competence and its constituent skills. To respond to this deficiency, we conducted an integrative literature review focusing on the methods of argument analysis and assessment that have been proposed thus far in the field of education. Specifically, we constructed an interpretative framework to organize the information contained in 97 reviewed …

The Effect Of Argumentative Task Goal On The Quality Of Argumentative Discourse, Merce Garcia-Mila, Sandra Gilabert, Sibel Erduran, Mark Felton

Faculty Publications

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 …

Examining Transfer Effects From Dialogic Discussions To New Tasks And Contexts, Alina Reznitskaya, Monica Glina, Brian Carolan, Olivier Michaud, Jon Rogers, Lavina Sequeira

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

This study investigated whether students who engage in inquiry dialogue with others improve their performance on various tasks measuring argumentation development. The study used an educational environment called Philosophy for Children (P4C) to examine specific theoretical assumptions regarding the role dialogic interaction plays in the development of individual argumentation. Using quasi-experimental research design, we randomly assigned 12 fifth-grade classrooms to two treatment conditions: P4C and Regular Instruction (REG). To document treatment fidelity, we analyzed 36 systematically selected discussion transcripts focusing on various features of classroom discourse. To evaluate transfer performance, we administered 3 post-intervention measures, including an interview, a persuasive …

Arguing Towards Truth: The Case Of The Periodic Table, Mark Weinstein

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

Recently Erik Scerri has published an influential philosophical history of the development of the Periodic Table. Following Scerri's account, I will explore the main thread of the arguments responsible for the remarkable advancement of scientific understanding that the Periodic Table represents. I will argue that the history of disputation at crucial junctures in the debate shows sensitivity to the aspects of truth that are captured by my model of truth in inquiry. The availability of a clear and explicit model of truth in inquiry is of crucial importance as a response to post-modernist and other relativistic accounts of inquiry. It …

Deliberation Versus Dispute: The Impact Of Argumentative Discourse Goals On Learning And Reasoning In The Science Classroom, Mark Felton, Merce Garcia-Mila, Sandra Gilabert

Faculty Publications

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.

Measuring Argumentative Reasoning: What's Behind The Numbers?, Alina Reznitskaya, Li Jen Kuo, Monica Glina, Richard C. Anderson

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

The aim of this paper is to develop a more thorough, empirically-based understanding of the differences in measurement of written argumentation when alternative scoring frameworks are employed. Reflective compositions of 127 elementary school children were analyzed using analytic and holistic scales. The scales were derived from Argument Schema Theory, an explicit model of argumentation development. We investigated the relationships among the different scales, as well as their relative reliability and efficiency. The scores derived using analytic and holistic methods have adequate reliability. Although less efficient, analytic scoring allows for gathering more sensitive and detailed information about the differences in student …

Developing On-Line Tools To Support Learners In Problem-Solving Activities, Gwyn Brickell, B. Harper, Brian Ferry

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

In recent years, research has focused on understanding how learners can benefit from tools that can assist in the development of informal reasoning skills when constructing arguments in collaborative learning with web-based learning environments. A common approach taken by each of these systems is to use support mechanisms (scaffolding) to facilitate student learning through the development of improved reasoning and argumentation skills. The authors of this paper have been developing computer-based learning environments for the past ten years, and have developed several award winning CD-ROM packages that feature a range of cognitive tools designed to assist learning. The development of …

Towards An Account Of Argumentation In Science, Mark Weinstein

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

In this article it is argued that a complex model that includes Toulmin's functional account of argument, the pragma-dialectical stage analysis of argumentation offered by the Amsterdam School, and criteria developed in critical thinking theory, can be used to account for the normativity and field-dependence of argumentation in science. A pragma-dialectical interpretation of the four main elements of Toulmin's model, and a revised account of the double role of warrants, illuminates the domain specificity of scientific argumentation and the restrictions to which the confrontation and opening stages of scientific critical discussions are subjected. In regard to the argumentation stage, examples …