Learning to Argue From Others’ Erroneous Arguments – Fostering Argumentation Competence Through Learning From Advocatory Errors

Abstract

Argumentation competence is an essential skill to be acquired in university education. However, there is a lack of advanced argumentation competence even for graduate students. To foster argumentation competence, typical interventions focus on examplebased learning. Another approach is learning from advocatory errors. The combination of both approaches is presenting examples of erroneous arguments. Drawing on the concept of case-based learning, we developed a learning intervention that presents examples of argumentation errors in story-based designs, i.e., the erroneous examples are embedded in a story featuring the argumentation between two persons in an authentic setting. In this contribution, we report the results of two studies. In a first study, we compared an experimental condition receiving a story-based learning intervention with a control condition without a learning intervention. We found that learning from advocatory errors in a story-based design fosters students' argumentation competence. In a second study, we compared two forms of instructional support (elaboration vs. testing prompts) against a control condition without instructional support. There was a significant increase in argumentation competence in both conditions with instructional support but not in the control condition. The results also support the cautious conclusion that elaboration prompts seem to be more effective than testing prompts. Overall, the results from both studies indicate that the story-based design is apt to foster students' argumentation competence. We also considered the impact of prior argumentation competence and found in both studies that the present level of argumentation competence is a factor determining the argumentation competence after learning.

Scientific Controversies and Epistemological Sensitization - Effects of an Intervention on Psychology Students’ Epistemological Beliefs and Argumentation Skills

“…Especially, domain-specific epistemological beliefs seem to be important for the application of advanced argumentation strategies (Iordanou et al, 2016). A recent study by Klopp and Stark (2020) revealed that undergraduate psychology students have rather low scientific argumentation skills (cf., Astleitner et al, 2003). As summarized by Klopp and Stark (2020), students make typical argumentation errors, some of which also relate to epistemological issues, e.g., not giving any justification or evidence for a claim or deficits in the acknowledgment of different perspectives on a certain topic (cf., Fischer et al, 2014).…”

Assessing the Quality of Arguments in Students’ Mathematical Problem Solving

“…This statement is in line with Sitzman et al (2015), who stated that prior knowledge has a very important role in the correction of errors. It also affects argumentation skills (Klopp & Stark, 2020). Accordingly, students will likely be unable to analyze errors if they lack the appropriate prior knowledge.…”

Profiles of epistemological beliefs, knowledge about explanation norms, and explanation skills: Changes after an intervention

“…(Oser, 2007). Wagner et al (2014cf., Klein, Wagner, Klopp, & Stark, 2017;Klopp & Stark, 2020) showed that learning from advocatory errors effectively fostered student teachers' skills to explain authentic school situations using scientific theories.…”