Argumentation as core curriculum

Kuhn, D., & Moore, M. (2015). Argumentation as core curriculum. Learning: Research and Practice, 1(1), 66-78. doi: 10.1080/23735082.2015.994254

Background

American education policy makers and students and parents felt that schools did not develop higher-order thinking skills that students needed due to the increasing importance placed on high-stakes testing.

Aims

The aim of the study was to examine the additional gains of introducing argumentation as a stand-alone component of the middle-school curriculum for two years instead of one year.

Sample

The participants were 93 sixth graders who were predominantly African-American or Hispanic from the Harlem neighbourhood of New York City.

Method

Students had already been randomly assigned to three classes. The equivalence of the classes was ensured on major demographic variables of gender, ethnicity, and standardized test scores. Two class periods per week were devoted to argumentation for the school year. The comparison class was taught by a regular teacher who adopted his own approach to argumentation for two years. His approach comprised whole-class, teacher-led discussion of the topics and frequent individual written essays on each topic. The first experimental class (n = 31) received two years of the experimental dialogic-focused curriculum; the second experimental class (n = 31) received one year of the experimental dialogic-focused curriculum followed by one year of the comparison-class curriculum. In the experimental curriculum, each topic cycle comprised preparation by groups of students on the same side, dialogues between opposing pairs of students, whole-class debate, a debrief, and a final individual essay assignment. The curriculum focused on helping students develop counterarguments for other students’ claims and coordinate their evidence. A post-test, consisting of two tasks (dialogic and essay), was administered to all classes. For the dialogic task, students were paired with those who held an opposing position. Each partner wrote an initial argument and the other partner responded to the position, and the cycle continued. For the essay, students were asked to write on a given topic during a class period.

Findings

Students from the first experimental class tended to support claims with evidence compared to the second experimental and the comparison classes for both dialogic and essay tasks. However, they showed difficulty using evidence to weaken an opposing claim and tended to use evidence provided instead of finding their own. There were no significant differences between the second experimental and comparison class in their use of evidence.

Implications

The authors recommended that teachers use dialogue to help students develop their argument skills and that argument be part of the core curriculum in schools.

Original article retrieved from Taylor and Francis.