Development of argumentative discourse based on learning demand / Evolución del discurso argumentativo en función de la demanda de aprendizaje

Abstract

This study is part of a larger project focused on the development of argumentative competence and its effect on knowledge construction. It aims to analyse and compare the changes in the evolution of the claims and the quality of the written arguments used by university students in two learning scenarios: a first scenario where students participated in a debate with the aim of convincing; and a second scenario where the debate was aimed at achieving an agreement by consensus. The participants were 77 first-year university students in Education and Speech Therapy. A quasi-experimental design was adopted with repeated measures, in which students from the two groups wrote two argumentative texts (initial and final) for each type of debate. The results indicate that the initial claims evolved towards more moderate positions at the end of the process; and the quality of the arguments that students wrote in their texts varied significantly depending on the type of demand and the time of writing (initial or final).     

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.     

Who Benefits From a Foundational Logic Course? Effects on Undergraduate Course Performance

Being able to understand and evaluate arguments in different modalities and in different disciplines is thought to be a key component of students’ academic success in college. However, many students do not receive explicit instruction in the basic concepts and rules of argumentation. Using a difference-in-differences approach with a multicohort longitudinal data set of almost 15,000 undergraduates beginning in health and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related fields at a research university, we examined changes in relative performance of students after enrolling in an introductory logic course. We find that students improved their grade point average (GPA) after taking the course, especially if they begin college with low academic achievement (Cohen’s d?=?0.18). Our results are consistent with the idea that acquiring foundational skills, in particular general skills in argumentation, prepares STEM students for future learning.     

高校设备管理的几点思考

阐明了做好高校设备管理的重要性．设备在教学、科研中的重要作用．从购置、验收、日常管理等三个方面提出一些观点．做好高校设备管理．积极主动地为高校教学科研服务。     

Perceptions of chemistry: Why is the common perception of chemistry,the most visual of sciences,so distorted?

Chemistry has evolved from a science dominated by mathematics into a science highly dependent on spatial-visual intelligence. Yet the chemical content of introductory courses remains taught essentially the same as 40–50 years ago. Chemistry, today, is recognized by chemists as the molecular science. Yet, school chemistry is alienated from that perception. Thanks to the computer, young people are more comfortable with visual imaging than their instructors were at the same age. Thus the time is rife to reinvigorate chemistry education by means of the visual-spatial approach, an approach wholly in conformance with the way modern chemistry is thought about and practiced.     

谈议论文写作中的逆反思维方式

议论文写作要出新意,经常使用逆反思维,它属于一种创新的思雏方式。逆反思维的表现形式有两种,一是否定已成为事实而又证明是错误的结论;一是在认识事物中,从反面去认识它,从而拓宽思维空间,狭路宽走,于阔处行文。议论文不光要有说理性,还要有很强的可读性,运用逆反思维写作议论文。可使文章起伏曲折,引人入胜。逆反思维在议论文写作的定题、点题、标题中均有所运用。     

化学实验教学与思维品质的培养

本文叙述了我在化学教学中,以多种类型的实验,注意培养学生思维的严密性、广阔性、深刻性、创造性和敏捷性,从而说明了实验教学在化学教学过程中的作用和地位。     

浅谈高代教学中提高学生抽象思维与逻辑推理能力的几个环节

《高等代数》是大学数学专业重要的基础课程．由于这门课程大部分内容属基础理论与基本知识．理论性强又高度抽象．不容易理解，因此，学生是否具有良好的抽象思维与逻辑推理能力是学好这门课程的关键，本文论述了如何在教学过程中培养学生的抽象思维与逻辑推理能力的几个环节。     

略论类比推理

类比推理是一种被广泛使用的逻辑推理,并且是一种极富创新精神的思维方式。在知识经济时代,类比推理将会发挥越来越重要的作用。因此,笔者对国内有关类比推理的研究作了扼要的述评,明确了类比推理的定义以及它与归纳、演绎推理的关系,指出类比推理不是纯逻辑的思维,它不仅是逻辑学研究的范畴,还是哲学、心理学等学科研究的对象,其影响和应用的广度、深度都是传统类比推理所不及的。     

Résumés Français

This article reports the results of the first systematic, though only exploratory, study that assesses the effectiveness of the Philosophy for Children (commonly known as P4C) programme in promoting children's critical thinking in Hong Kong. Forty-two Secondary 1 students volunteered for this study, from whom 28 students were randomly selected and randomly assigned to 2 groups of 14 each: one receiving P4C lessons and the other receiving English lessons. The students who were taught P4C were found to show a greater improvement in the reasoning test performance than those who were not, to be capable of doing philosophy, and to have a positive attitude towards doing philosophy in the classroom. It was also found that P4C played a major role in developing the students' critical thinking, and that 10 crucial factors contributed to the success of the P4C programme.     

文化因素对大学英语议论文写作的影响———基于非英语专业本科生的实证研究

汉语思维模式极易在英语议论文写作时构成干扰因素,产生负面影响,以至造成文章汉语思维,英文表达.文章对165名非英语专业大学一年级本科生所写的英语议论文的文化影响进行了统计和分析.在统计中发现学生在词汇、句法和语篇层面都受到文化因素的影响,从而认为议论文写作教学不仅要重视词汇和语法,更应该强调思维模式上的差异.     

化学实验教学与学生创新意识的培养

化学实验是学习和研究化学的重要手段．通过化学实验,可以培养学生的创新意识,让学生在学习中亲身经历从实验中发现问题到解决问题的过程,展示学生的聪明才智、独特个性．从而激发学生的学习兴趣,培养学生的主动性、独立性和独特性等．     

Constructing scientific explanations through premise–reasoning–outcome (PRO): an exploratory study to scaffold students in structuring written explanations

This paper reports on the design and enactment of an instructional strategy aimed to support students in constructing scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, a new instructional framework called premise–reasoning–outcome (PRO) was conceptualized, developed, and tested over two years in four upper secondary (9th–10th grade) physics and chemistry classrooms. This strategy was conceptualized based on the understanding of the structure of a scientific explanation, which comprises three primary components: (a) premise – accepted knowledge that provides the basis of the explanation, (b) reasoning – logical sequences that follow from the premise, and (c) outcome – the phenomenon to be explained. A study was carried out to examine how the PRO strategy influenced students’ written explanations using multiple data sources (e.g. students’ writing, lesson observations, focus group discussions). Analysis of students’ writing indicates that explanations with a PRO structure were graded better by the teachers. In addition, students reported that the PRO strategy provided a useful organizational structure for writing scientific explanations, although they had some difficulties in identifying and using the structure. With the PRO as a new instructional tool, comparison with other explanation frameworks as well as implications for educational research and practice are discussed.     

Students’ reasons for preferring teleological explanations

The teleological bias, a major learning obstacle, involves explaining biological phenomena in terms of purposes and goals. To probe the teleological bias, researchers have used acceptance judgement tasks and preference judgement tasks. In the present study, such tasks were used with German high school students (N?=?353) for 10 phenomena from human biology, that were explained both teleologically and causally. A sub-sample (n?=?26) was interviewed about the reasons for their preferences. The results showed that the students favoured teleological explanations over causal explanations. Although the students explained their preference judgements etiologically (i.e. teleologically and causally), they also referred to a wide range of non-etiological criteria (i.e. familiarity, complexity, relevance and five more criteria). When elaborating on their preference for causal explanations, the students often focused not on the causality of the phenomenon, but on mechanisms whose complexity they found attractive. When explaining their preference for teleological explanations, they often focused not teleologically on purposes and goals, but rather on functions, which they found familiar and relevant. Generally, students’ preference judgements rarely allowed for making inferences about causal reasoning and teleological reasoning, an issue that is controversial in the literature. Given that students were largely unaware of causality and teleology, their attention must be directed towards distinguishing between etiological and non-etiological reasoning. Implications for educational practice as well as for future research are discussed.