Contents of Volume 29 2001

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 29 2001     

Argumentation Skills as Prerequisites for Collaborative Learning among Finnish,French, and English Secondary School Students

Argumentation skills of secondary school students were evaluated in Finland (n?=?290), France (n?=?54), and England (n?=?41). The data were collected from 4 tasks comprising 7 variables. The results indicated that most of the students had correctly justified arguments and conclusions, and composed clear claims and relevant arguments. However, many students had difficulties in recognising the main claim and arguments for it in an expository text, and in commenting analytically on an argumentative text. Thus the students possessed the prerequisites for argumentative reasoning and writing but need further practice in analytical and critical reading.     

Exploring early adolescents’ evaluation of academic and commercial online resources related to health

This study assessed the ability of 426 students (ages 12–13) to critically evaluate two types of online locations on health issues: an academic resource and a commercial resource. The results indicated limited evaluation abilities, especially for the commercial resource, and only a small, partial association with prior stance and offline reading ability. Only about half (51.4%) of the students questioned the credibility of the commercial online resource and only about 19% of the students showed an ability to fully recognize commercial bias. Wide variation existed in students’ ability to evaluate online information, as approximately one-fourth of the students performed poorly when evaluating the overall credibility of both online resources and one-fourth performed well. Logistic regression models showed that offline reading skills accounted for only 8.8% of the variance for the academic online resource and 15.1% of that for the commercial resource. No association appeared between evaluation and background knowledge, although an association with prior stance was observed for each online resource. The results are discussed in light of previous research and the need to pay greater attention to the critical evaluation of online resources during classroom instruction.     

Learning of argumentation skills in networked and face-to-face environments

In a teaching experiment 16 face-to-face and 11 e-mailFinnish university students studied academic debatingin an argumentation course. The 19 students of thecontrol group did not engage in the course. The courseinvolved two lectures, exercises with argumentativetexts, and face-to-face or e-mail seminar discussionsbased on these texts. Free debate, role play,problem-solving and panel discussion were the devicesused in organizing the course. The level of thestudents' argumentation skills were measured in apretest before the course and in a post-test after it.The results were compared between and within thegroups. The results indicated that during the e-mailstudies the students learned to identify and chooserelevant grounds, while the face-to-face studentsimproved in putting forward counterargumentation. Thecontrol group did not improve in these skills. Thestudy suggests that argumentation skills can bepromoted by short-term e-mail and face-to-faceteaching, and that practising argumentation indifferent learning environments develops differentkinds of argumentation skills.     

University Applicants’ Critical Thinking Skills: The Case of the Finnish Educational Sciences

This study investigates the quality of the critical thinking skills of applicants (n?=?77) seeking entry to the faculty of educational sciences in a Finnish university and how these skills are associated with the applicant’s age, previous higher education experience, and matriculation and entrance examination scores. The data consist of the applicants’ responses to problem-solving tasks and their matriculation and entrance examination scores. Critical thinking skills were measured with comparison and argumentation tasks. The results indicate that comparison of the texts and analysis of the arguments they contained were more difficult tasks than putting forward arguments both for and against of one’s personal standpoint. In addition, previous experience of higher education predicted participants’ comparison skills and their matriculation examination grades predicted their argumentation skills. The feasibility of using critical comparison tasks in the entrance examination tests is discussed.     

Commenting on Written Arguments as a Part of Argumentation Skills — comparison between students engaged in traditional vs on‐line study

The use of computer‐mediated communication (CMC) has increased in the area of education. This article reports a study whose aim was to improve the argumentation and scientific thinking skills of university students through argumentative on‐line studying. The research problems dealt on the one hand with learning outcomes in terms of subject content and on the other hand with argumentation skills. The results were compared between on‐line students and students who studied in a traditional way. The results indicated that the traditional group got better learning outcomes than the on‐line students who, by contrast, succeeded better in the tasks of argumentation skills. The findings suggest that the argumentative on‐line studying method would be suitable when trying to improve argumentation skills.     

Electronic Mail as a Pedagogical Delivery System: An Analysis of the Learning of Argumentation

The article reports a study in which 31 volunteered Finnish undergraduate students practiced argumentation by electronic mail (e-mail). Generally argumentation refers to grounding of stated claims. The study seeks to clarify the feasibility of e-mail study environment for practicing argumentation and compares a tutor-led seminar mode and self-directed student discussion mode, using e-mail as the study tool in both modes. The data consisted of the students' 441 e-mail messages. The content analysis of the data focused on the level and development of argumentation and counterargumentation in the messages. The results indicated that the messages' level of argumentation improved during the experiment and was higher in those messages that included counterargumentation targeted against others' standpoints. In addition, the students engaged in the student-led mode of e-mail study presented more and higher-level counterargumentation compared to the students engaged in the tutor-led mode. The results suggested that e-mail is a feasible study tool in practicing academic argumentation and that, given that this is an important aim in higher education, students' self-direction and debating should be encouraged.     

Quality of Students' Argumentation by E-mail

Three male and eight female Finnish students practised argumentation in two e-mail study groups as part of an academic debating course during spring 1998. The course involved two lectures, argumentative texts with exercises and e-mail discussions relating to the texts. The discussions were organised around free debate and role play. The data consisted of the 326 e-mail messages sent by the students during the course. The data analyses focused on (1) the interactivity and argumentativeness of the students' messages, (2) the types of roles that the students assumed during the interaction, and (3) the effects of the method of working and gender on the quality of interaction. The results indicated that 78% of the messages were interactive (i.e. they included one or more references to a fellow student's message). In general, the students expressed elaborative neutrality and grounded disagreement towards each other's arguments. The roles most commonly adopted during the discussions were those of participation and support. The students produced more grounded disagreement and more often assumed attacking and problematising roles during role play than during free debate. In contrast, supportive and participatory roles and replies showing agreement were more common during free debate. Women showed agreement more often than men, while counter-attacking and participatory roles and elaborative neutrality were more common among men. The results suggest that the use of role play in the teaching of argumentation can lead to more focused and higher-level argumentative discussion.