Should Britain leave the EU? An exploration of online argument through a Toulmin perspective

The paper shows how a framework adapted from Toulmin (1958) was valuable in exploring the force of online argument in an educational setting. In past research of online discussions there has been a focus on interaction patterns at the expense of exploring questions of content. In seeking to address this imbalance, we used Toulmin’s key terms of claim, data, warrant, rebuttal and backing in an analysis of an educational network for young learners (13-18) in which a debate on whether Britain should leave the EU was carried out. Drawing on these key terms, a framework was constructed in order to categorise messages as: claims with no force; insufficient argument; constructed argument; forceful argument. This framework was used to unpack the claims and warrants put forward in the course of the debate. The paper shows that Toulmin’s approach can be adapted to provide a feasible and useful framework for assessing the force of argument within forums. However, it is recognised that there are also challenges and limitations in using such an approach

A Habermasian perspective on joint meaning making online : what does it offer and what are the difficulties?

This paper is an exploration of the relevance of Habermas’s social theory for understanding meaning making in the context of shared online interaction. It describes some of the key ideas within Habermas’s work, noting the central importance it gives to the idea of communicative action - a special kind of discourse in which there is ‘no other force than that of the better argument’ and no other motive other than ‘the cooperative search for truth’. The paper then turns to the referencing of Habermas by educationalists in general and by supporters of online discussion in particular. It argues that a Habermasian perspective on meaning making is one in which participants strive for ‘genuine consensus’ by interrogating their own beliefs while actively engaging with opposing points of view. The value of this approach is that it introduces a concern for validity or truth into discussion of knowledge building and discriminates between emancipatory and strategic goals. While critics would argue that genuine consensus is not achievable, from Habermas we can better understand the importance of striving for such consensus

How Design Science Research Helps Improve Learning Efficiency in Online Conversations

In this design science research paper, we report on our constructing and evaluating an attention-guidance system that we integrated into a computer-supported collaborative learning system. Drawing on social constructivist literature, our proposed design focuses on attracting, retaining, and, if necessary, reacquiring users’ attention on task-relevant information in online collaborative literature processing. The investigation involved an experiment across two sections of students in a human-computer interaction course. Results show that the new design allowed users to consistently reflect and evaluate the content of a text as they capitalized on one another’s reasoning to resolve misconceptions. Moreover, we found that the new system increased users’ perceptions of learning. However, the difference in knowledge gain scores was marginally significant and represented a medium effect size. Interestingly, we found that the attention-guidance system supported more efficient learning. Finally, we discovered that task-oriented reading of text, revisions of incomplete or incorrect ideas, and perceptions of learning mediated the relationship between software system and learning efficiency. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications

Online Groups in Educational Settings: An Opportunity for Argumentation

The aim of this paper is to explore how students and teachers used posts in five groups on Facebook and how argumentation emerged as a communicative activity. For understanding such argumentative process, this study is framed in the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), with a methodological perspective that enables the participants to act as co-authors of the intervention design. We draw our data from the posts inside five groups of teacher-students on Facebook, from February/2013 to June/2014, which were analysed qualitatively, considering discursive and linguistic aspects of the posts. Our findings pointed out that in situation in which collaboration occurred among students, there was a transition from authoritative discourse to internally persuasive discourse in the posts with argumentative indicators

What Students' Arguments Can Tell Us: Using Argumentation Schemes in Science Education

The role of argumentation in science education has been stressed by a growing literature that emphasized the problem of constructing students ' knowledge taking into account their previous belief

Construcción de argumentos durante la producción de textos digitales

Este artículo es el producto de una investigación que tuvo dentro de sus objetivos fortalecer el pensamiento crítico durante la escritura de textos digitales en ambientes de aprendizaje apoyados por herramientas de la web 2.0 en estudiantes de educación media, cuyos resultados concernientes a la habilidad de construcción de argumentos durante la producción de textos digitales están consignados igualmente en el presente escrito. El enfoque asumido en el estudio fue mixto y en él participaron treinta y dos estudiantes de grado once, quienes durante once sesiones elaboraron producciones escritas digitales que evidenciaran procesos de argumentación. Los resultados mostraron que es posible fortalecer la construcción de argumentos en las prácticas de escritura digital

The Playground of Ideas: A design-based research investigation into dialogic thinking with six- and seven-year-old children in England

The aim of this study was to design and research an intervention to develop the dialogic thinking skills of children in Key Stage 1. Dialogic thinking was conceptualised by drawing on strands of research from critical thinking and dialogic theory, together with argumentation and Philosophy with Children (PwC). The study took a Buberian stance to dialogue as oscillating between dialogic and non-dialogic relationships. The research methodology was design-based research (DBR) in order develop and trial an intervention within authentic settings and with practitioners as research collaborators. Following initial field and scoping work, the Playground of Ideas intervention was designed. It is a picture-based intervention that is used with PwC questions to explicitly teach children dialogic thinking skills. It was then trialled in a local context and an extended context with 10 classes across England. Revisions were made to improve the design following these iterations, and the intervention was evaluated. Children took a non-verbal reasoning test individually and groups of three, and their pre- and post-test scores were compared. The group tests were also video recorded and analysed to identify changes in the children’s talk. Children’s reasoning scores in both tests increased following the intervention, and also there was a great variation in children’s dialogue patterns to problem-solve and the roles that they took within the dialogue also showed greater variation: initiator, corroborator and questioner roles were distributed among the group members. This indicates that children were not positioning themselves or others ‘as’ a particular role, and that this resulted in a variety of strategies. A further outcome from this iteration was to use these insights to generate a new means by which teachers can assess if children are developing dialogic thinking in small group settings. This was theorised as oscillating asymmetry in peer relationships by building on Buber’s concepts.ESR