Learning to reason via instruction in argumentation

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Learning and Insrrucdon Vol. 337-350, Printed m Great Britain. All rights reserved.

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LEARN ING TO REASON VIA INSTRUCTION IN ARGUMENTATION JAMES F. VOSS and MARY L. MEANS University of Pittsburgh,

U.S.A.

Abstract In this paper we argue that argumentation, defined as the generation and evaluation of arguments, is at the core of reasoning and that instruction in argumentation is therefore critical to the development of reasoning skill. Argumentation and its relation to informal reasoning is discussed, followed by consideration of factors that influence argumentation performance, with an account of an expert student reasoner provided. Instruction in argumentation is then considered, with suggestions presented based upon our attempts at such instruction.

Introduction This paper is concerned with argumentation and how instruction may enhance argumentation skill. Argumentation, defined as the generation and evaluation of arguments, is assumed to be a fundamental tool of reasoning, and skill in argumentation is therefore regarded as basic to a person’s reasoning ability. The paper is divided into three sections. The first is concerned with the nature of argumentation and how individuals generate and evaluate arguments. The second presents a discussion of and some findings concerning argumentation skill. The third provides some classroom-based suggestions pertaining to instruction in argumentation.

Arguments,

Argumentation,

and Reasoning

Argument Structure The term argument has been used in at least two ways, as a conflict between two or more individuals and as a structure of discourse, the usage emphasized in this paper Address for correspondence: J. F. Voss, 634 LRDC, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, U.S.A. 331

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claim

C-Cl&l

C

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Initial

R, -

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Claim that is tJw contradictton of C

Reason (premise) suppwting C

Rl & -

Reason (premise) supporting C Reason (pmmiee) supporUng C. ~apporiWC.

IA

1B

Figure 1. Diagram of the minimal components of an argument and of a counterargument.

(Brockriede, 1977; O’Keefe, 1977; Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1958). Figure 1A presents a diagram of the basic components of an argument, namely, a claim and a supporting reason or premise. A claim is an assertion that is set forth as being true (Fisher, 1988) while the reason provides support for the assertion. This paper is concerned with informal arguments (cf. Voss, Perkins, & Segal 1991), that is, arguments involving plausibility or ‘probable truth,” as opposed to the arguments of formal logic (cf. McBurney & Mills, 1951). The most common form of informal argument, called the enthymeme by Aristotle (Cooper, 1960) is the structure of Figure 1A. As an example, “A %-mph speed limit should be made law in all states” may be a claim, supported by “A 55-mph speed limit (is an act that) reduces traffic fatalities.” Enthymemes have an implicit premise, or essentially what Toulmin (1958) termed a warrant, that relates the conclusion and supporting reason, as for the above argument, “An act that reduces traffic fatalities should be made law in all states.” However, it is misleading to think that enthymeme evaluation involves making the implicit premise explicit and evaluating the resulting argument according to the rules of the syllogism. This is because the contents of an enthymeme are critical to its evaluation, with the evaluation typically influenced by an individual’s attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and/or values. Thus, as Delia (1970) and Hample (1980) suggest, the enthymeme provides a basis for studying cognitive processes.

Reasoning and Argumentation

The argument structure of Figure 1A is assumed to be the form of discourse by which reasoning usually takes place. To illustrate, reasoning is usually defined as an inferential process by which a person, beginning with some given information or premise, makes an inference which enables.that individual to reach a conclusion or provide some new (inferred) information that was not given (e.g., Halpern, 1984). Such an inferential structure constitutes an argument. Furthermore, the legitimacy of the inference is based

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upon the extent to which it can be justified, and we would argue that the evaluation of legitimacy involves use of the same criteria that are employed in the evaluation of an informal argument. The idea to study reasoning, especially informal reasoning in relation to argumentation is consistent with four related trends in the contemporary literature. First, there is growing acknowledgment that human thinking resembles the processes emphasized by classical rhetoric more than the processes suggested by logic. Billig (1985, 1987) for example, has argued for a rhetoric-based approach to the study of attitude and to social psychology in general. Moreover, such a view is to some extent likely due to a renewed interest in the field of rhetoric (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969 (orig. 1958); Toulmin, 1958). Second, there is an increase of interest in informal reasoning, apart from the issue of argumentation, with such reasoning being studied, for example, in contexts including law (Lawrence, 1991), mathematics (Schoenfeld, 1991), physics (Clement, 1991), and international relations (Voss, 1991). Thirdly, there has been an increase in the study of argumentation per se, in the context of decision tasks (Perkins, Allen, & Hafner, 1983) in mother-daughter relations (Hofer, Fleischmann, & Pikowsky, 1991), in development (Stein & Miller, 1991), and in relation to attitude (Zammuner, 1987). Fourth, at a theoretical level, there has been an interest in non-deductive processes as found for example in the model of induction of Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett, and Thagard (1986).

Argumentation

Evaluation

Informal arguments are evaluated on the basis of soundness, which consists of three criteria: (1) the acceptability of the reason; (2) the relevance or support the reason provides for the claim; (3) the extent to which reasons supporting the contradiction of the claim, that is, counterarguments, are taken into account (Angel& 1964; Salmon, 1984). Reason acceptability is the extent to which a supporting reason per se is regarded as acceptable. In general, reasons consensually agreed upon are generally most acceptable, although in many cases, such as with controversial subject matter, consensuality may be virtually impossible to realize. For example, if the reason “Abortion is the taking of a life,” is used to support a claim involving abortion, the reason is likely to be regarded as more acceptable by a person advocating a pro-life position than a person advocating a pro-choice position. As to the relation of reason acceptability and soundness, results indicate that if a reason is unacceptable, the argument including that reason is judged as weak or unacceptable. For reasons that are rated at a reasonable level of acceptability, there is a correlation of about .5 of reason acceptability and argument strength (Voss, Engstler-Schooler, Fincher-Kiefer, & Ney, 1989). The second criterion of soundness is that the reason must be relevant to and provide support for the claim. An interesting question then is what is there about reasons that enable them to be judged as providing relatively strong or weak support, even when they are “relevant?” While the question of “good reasons” is basic in the study of rhetoric (Booth, 1974, 1979; Fisher, 1988; Wallace, 1963), we will only provide an example indicating the importance of values to what constitutes a strong argument. For the claim

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that all states should have a 55mph speed limit, the supporting reason “A 55mph speed limit reduces gasoline consumption” was judged as producing a weaker argument than when the supporting reason was “A 55-mph speed limit reduces traffic fatalities.” Thus, even though both reasons were quite acceptable, relevant, and have statistical backing, the two arguments were perceived as having different strength, presumably because of a value difference (Voss et al., 1989). Thus, a person’s beliefs, values, attitudes, and knowledge can each play a role in judgments of argument strength (cf. Feather, 1965; Selltiz & Cook, 1966). The third criterion of soundness, the extent to which reasons supporting the contradiction of the claim (counterarguments) are taken into account, raises two points. First, Fig. 1B presents a diagram of a counterargument and, as shown, it consists of an argument that has as its claim the contradiction of the initial claim. Thus, although claims are generally thought to have supporting and opposing or contra (con) reasons, this is an oversimplification. A con reason is in fact a supportive reason, supporting the contradiction of the original claim. This difference of pro and con reasons then suggests that processing pro reasons should be easier than con reasons. Supporting results for this hypothesis were obtained by V&s, Fincher-Kiefer, Wiley, and Silfies (in press). Secondly, our data suggest that individuals generally do not think of counterarguments unless they are explicitly presented, although this observation may not hold when a perSon is in a heated debate. On the other hand, the presence of a counterargument does influence the judged strength of a given argument. With one exception, the stronger the counterargument that is presented, the lower the perceived strength of a given argument (Voss et al., 1989). The exception is that a weak argument is judged as stronger in the presence of a weak counterargument (what we have called the “faculty meeting effect”). Thus, with respect to the evaluation of informal arguments, we have demonstrated that indeed each of the three criteria of soundness that have been presumed to influence the judged strength of arguments do in fact have that effect. But in addition, we have found that one’s attitudes, beliefs and values also play a substantial role in such judgments (cf. Waly & Cook, 1965).

Argument Generation We have recently conducted a series of experiments on the question of argument generation (Voss, Engstler-Schooler, Kennet, & Wolfe, 1990), with social issues again being the subject of inquiry. The research typically involved providing a claim and asking individuals to generate all the reasons they could think of that provide support for or opposition to the claim. Consistent with the results of Hoch (1984, 1985), we found that individuals characteristically generate relatively few reasons, perhaps four or five, with more pro reasons generated when an individual is in agreement with the claim and more con reasons when the individual’s attitude is in opposition to the claim. Furthermore, ratings of argument strength provided by the individual also were greater when the individual agreed with the claim. With respect to the relatively small number of reasons generated, we found that for

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a given claim, the individuals of the study cumulatively generated approximately thirty different reasons (pro and con combined). This finding suggested that a given individual probably had knowledge of a number of reasons that he or she did not generate. By using relatively strong cueing procedures, individuals generated approximately nine reasons (pro and con combined) per claim. In addition, by asking individuals to generate pro and con reasons on two separate occasions, it was found that only about one-third of the reasons were repeated on the two occasions, and those tended to be for the arguments rated as stronger. These results taken with other findings on reason generation (Feather, 1970; Hoch, 1984,1985) suggest that individuals have relatively few strong reasons that support or oppose a claim, the remaining being weaker and fluctuating over time.

Argumentation

Skill

The issues discussed to this point provide an idea of the characteristics one may expect to find in a highly competent reasoner. Considering reasoning only in relation to argumentation per se, a good reasoner should be able to generate arguments, providing supportive reasons to the claims that are made. A good reasoner should be able to consider arguments counter to his or her argument and be able to refute them or to re-evaluate one’s own position in reference to them. A good reasoner should use qualifiers that restrict the range of an argument. A good reasoner should be able to provide backing to an argument and to elaborate upon and develop an argument structure consisting of a number of inter-related arguments. A good reasoner should be able to persuade via the strength of the arguments provided. A good reasoner should be able to use various types of arguments such as argument from consequence, argument by definition, and others. A good reasoner should be able to evaluate arguments, using the previously mentioned three criteria. Pushing the issue one step farther, the question is what are the factors that can make a student a good reasoner, that enable the student to have the argumentation skills outlined above. For present purposes we want to consider three hypotheses: Informal reasoning skill is a function of: (1) general academic ability, (2) age (experience), and (3) subject matter knowledge. These three hypotheses are examined in relation to four studies conducted on informal reasoning.

Some Empirical Findings The Role of Ability, Knowledge,

and Age

Voss, Blais, Means, Greene, and Ahwesh (1986) studied informal reasoning in the domain of economics, subjects being adults who had not attended college, adults who had attended college but had not taken economics, and adults who had attended college and taken some economics courses. Individuals were given three questions on economics, and the answers were analyzed via a number of reasoning measures involving argument development, justification, use of qualifiers, and other factors. The basic results were

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that individuals who had attended college performed considerably better than those who had not attended, and whether or not individuals had taken economics in college made virtually no difference in performance. While one could say that having a college education may produce better informal reasoning, it also is possible that a selection factor had operated and the college students had greater ability. In addition, the failure of experience in economics to yield a performance difference suggests that even though knowledge in economics was germane to the questions, individuals without an economics background had sufficient knowledge to perform. This study thus provides some possible evidence for ability, and knowledge, weakly measured, did not yield a difference. Age as a factor was not relevant. Perkins (1985) conducted a study in which high school, undergraduate, and graduate students participated, as well as non-students with a high school diploma. The individuals were asked questions involving everyday issues such as whether Massachusetts should have a 5c return on bottles, or whether the violence on television had a significant impact upon people. The responses were analyzed in relation to measures such as comparing the two sides of the argument. The results indicated that while performance increased from, for example, the first to the fourth year of high school or the first to the fourth year of college, and while college students performed better than high school students, there was nevertheless surprisingly little improvement, leading the author to conclude that the study provided no evidence indicating that schooling improves informal reasoning. Moreover, the single best predictor of informal reasoning performance was I.Q. The results then suggest ability as important, with experience via schooling not showing much of an effect. Moreover, a selection factor may have been operating in producing the non-too-extensive superiority in performance for the students with more schooling. We have conducted two developmental studies involving children ranging in age from approximately 11 to 17 (Means, 1988; Means & Voss, 1991). Both studies were designed to study informal reasoning performance among children of different age and ability levels, with one (Means, 1988) investigating reasoning in relation to everyday problems and the other investigating reasoning within the context of health related problems such as alcohol and drug usage. In the former, tasks were administered to gifted, average, and lower ability students of grades five, seven, nine, and eleven. In one task, students provided solutions to a set of everyday problems such as “Some people say if someone breaks a promise, then you should have nothing more to do with that person. What do you think about this?” The second task had two problems, each followed by four responses or solutions that students evaluated. In the third task, students were presented with three problem sets, each consisting of three problems varying in difficulty levels. The students rank ordered the solutions for their quality. In the latter two tasks students justified their rankings. Seven reasoning measures were employed, with analyses indicating significant effects of ability level, primarily with gifted students performing better than the other two groups. There were minimal performance differences obtained across grades, and no significant interaction of ability and grade. As an example, to the “broken promise” question, a gifted student may say, “What I would do would depend on the type of promise it was and it would also depend on my relationship with the person who broke the promise.” Gifted students thus tended to qualify, and they also engaged in greater argumentation development by generating more arguments, reasons, and

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counterarguments and their refutation than did students at the middle and lower ability levels. Gifted students also had a clearer understanding of what constitutes a good solution to a problem and what constitutes a relatively difficult or easy problem. In the other study, each student again was in one of the same aforementioned ability levels, while the age levels were approximately 13, 15, and 17. In the first of three tasks, students were presented with four controversial propositions such as “The use of marijuana should be legalized.” Students then rated their relative agreement or disagreement on a ten-point rating scale. They subsequently were asked to generate reasons in support of and in opposition to the proposition. In the second task, subjects were presented with a proposition followed by two reasons, each of which varied in strength of support and truth-value. Students were asked to rate .the strength of the reasons presented and provide justifications for their ratings. The third task consisted of twenty multiple choice questions of varying difficulty levels that were designed to assess the students’ knowledge of the topic area under investigation. The results indicated that older and gifted children knew significantly more about drugs and alcohol than their counterparts and in general, they outperformed their counterparts on the reasoning measures. For example, when asked to provide justifications for their ratings, gifted and/or older children tended to generate a greater number of claims, supportive reasons, qualifiers and metastatements than younger and lower ability level children. While in this study the high ability children had high knowledge, there were some non-gifted individuals who were knowledgeable, and they did not perform well in reasoning. Thus, knowledge was no guarantee of good reasoning performance. However, there also was one case in which a person had low knowledge and high reasoning skills, and this person performed well in reasoning performance. The studies described thus far, while not conclusive with respect to the role of ability, age (experience), and domain knowledge, nevertheless tentatively suggest that general ability is a major characteristic of good reasoners while age (experience) has not been shown to be potent factor. Domain knowledge, at least according to the present data, may be important when the issues in a given domain are discussed at a level that requires a person to be informed. For example, in the solving of ill-structured problems in social science, argument development, which involved the use of knowledge, was much more extensive among social science experts than among chemists, the two groups presumably have comparable ability and education level (Voss, Greene, Post, & Penner, 1983). On the other hand, the previously described economics study (Voss et al., 1986) possibly required a level of economics knowledge that college-educated individuals were able to acquire without advanced training in economics. Furthermore, the results of the Means and Voss (1991) study suggest that a person may have a reasonable amount of knowledge but not be able to develop complex arguments. While a list of argumentation-related skills were previously described, the studies cited above suggested that superior reasoning in an argumentative context is related to three characteristics of what perhaps may be regarded as mental style or strategy. Better reasoners tend to be analytic, flexible, and they are more inclined to use metacognitive mechanisms. Skilled reasoners actively analyze arguments; they dissect them and/or restructure them. For example, when generating pro or con reasons for a claim such as “Alcohol use is beneficial to your health,” skilled reasoners tend to actively reframe or “unpack” the

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argument by generating statements such as, “Well, it depends on whether your talking about mental or physical health.” Less skilled reasoners are more likely to accept a claim as it is presented without attempting any restructuring of it. Flexibility refers to the ability to generate different types of arguments, as by analogy, by definition, by past precedent, and the most frequent, by consequence. Flexibility is demonstrated by skilled reasoners via suspension of one’s own position and generating arguments opposed to their position, and weighing them or refuting them. On the other hand, less skilled reasoners state reasons that frequently are vague, irrelevant, and/or personal, and they are more likely to misinterpret and/or distort a given claim. Skilled reasoners are more likely to make goal-related statements about their reasoning, make comments about their progress or the lack thereof, and provide statements of evaluation regarding their performance. Such tendencies portray the better reasoner as one active and involved in the task and aware of the performance. Less skilled reasoners seem to be more focused upon a relatively narrow task representation, having little apparent ability to monitor their performance, except perhaps in the most global sense.

The Expert Reasoner

In an effort to examine more directly how reasoning and argumentation skills may be utilized in the classroom and to determine whether the above three style-type factors would be concomitantly observed, we asked a college freshman who had been a gifted high school student to participate in a “think aloud” experiment. The task was one of indicating how Joe would go about developing a paper if he were presented with a vague open-ended topic such as “earthquakes.” In general, what was striking about Joe’s protocol is that much of his initial pre-writing effort involved the utilization of argumentation skills. Indeed, Joe’s central goal was to initially move from topic to thesis by developing a claim about earthquakes. The initial claim that Joe invented was relatively general and took the form of a research question, namely, “Could earthquakes be controlled by exploding small nuclear devices in a fault? Would that have any effect on the occurrence of earthquakes?” Joe’s protocol suggested that his movement from the topic to the working thesis was a result of active search processes coupled with evaluative criteria. Joe related that he initially lets the topic “roll around in his head” for a while, and that during this time he activates relevant knowledge and “looks” for something interesting to write about and, when he thinks of what may be a good issue he senses a feeling of elation, The research question Joe selected apparently resulted from the application of several criteria, including rejection of the commonplace. Instead, he was drawn toward bizarre linkages and obscure and/or uncommon ideas, especially those for which he had relatively little knowledge. The development of a research “question” was critical to Joe because it established the basis for the next pre-writing step, which was the development of an argument structure consisting of reasons in support of or in opposition to the initial claim. As Joe stated, “First, I’d probably break it (his research question) down into parts . . . would it deter the earthquake or would it cause a disastrous earthquake . . . Then I’d switch

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to a more, like a statement form, what the likely reasons, why a nuclear device would cause each of these two things to happen . . .” In this stage, Joe amended his initial research question from “Could earthquakes be controlled?” to “Would it help to deter or control an earthquake or would it cause an earthquake if . . .” The question was refined and expanded, but more importantly, Joe began to generate “hypothetical” reasons for why the implantation of nuclear devices would either deter or cause an earthquake. Joe generated hypothetical reasons such as “by doing this (releasing nuclear devices) on a small level, fairly frequently, it would release the built up tension in the fault line so it would periodically avert a disastrous scale earthquake and just have small ones . . . tremors . . . four or five.” Joe thus developed a relatively abstract argument representation before he conducted any formal research and well before he began to write. This argument template allowed him, in turn, to be goal directed as he began the next step, in which he stated “Now I’d probably start bringing in the factual information (via a library search) and once I found or very likely did not find proof of these reasons, or if I found additional reasons, then I’d probably go back and revise what I’ve done through step one . . .” Joe thus viewed this structure as malleable, as something he can deviate from and change substantially if necessary. Thus, while the structure is critical in that it directs the search, at the same time it is expendable. According to Joe, the library search would aid him in “collating and interrelating” the information. Factual information would lead to the acceptance or rejection of hypothetical reasons already generated or the generation of new reasons. When asked what type of thesis might evolve from his amended research question, Joe generated the following: “It is possible to prevent earthquakes in Southern California and safeguard nuclear power plants by using the atom itself to defuse fault tensions.” This form of the thesis thus represents only the “deter” side of the argument structure he initially created. In summary, the above protocol indicates that Joe was analytic, flexible, and employed metacognitive monitoring processes. He generated and evaluated reasons, and, he engaged in what the philosopher Peirce (1931-58) referred to as abduction, essentially the ability to state hypotheses, to make good “guesses.”

Instructional

Observations

Why Teach Argumentation? A number of issues pertaining to the nature of argumentation have been considered, including advocating that skill in argumentation is fundamental to reasoning. Accordingly, we would argue that the teaching of argumentation is of potential benefit because it not only (presumably) will enhance the one’s reasoning skills but it will also aid in the acquisition of subject matter. Earlier in this paper, we suggested that argumentation essentially represents a discourse conduit through which reasoning flows. Given this assumption, there are three reasons why it is important to encourage the development of informal reasoning. First, as we and other investigators have observed, school age children, in general,

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lack proficiency in reasoning skills (Perkins, 1985; Resnick & Resnick, in press). Second, informal reasoning is an integral part of education, a skill which is used widely across a number of subject domains. Finally, our examination of a number of programs designed to provide instruction in “critical thinking” and related skills, whether experiencing reasonable success or the lack thereof, quite generally lack a systematic theoretical framework (cf. Segal, Chipman, & Glaser, 1985). Instead, most programs, with some exceptions consist of an enumeration of presumed skills with the intention of designing means to develop those skills via instructional channels. Our view is that skill in argumentation while having many facets, can nevertheless be taught within a coherent theoretical framework. With respect to the learning of subject matter, it is quite conceivable that instruction in argumentation produces a better understanding of arguments as they are found in particular subject matter domains, whether the arguments are stated in a text or in a teacher’s exposition. Instruction in argumentation should also facilitate a student’s ability to organize subject matter and to question subject matter. Finally, the student may via argumentation develop the ability to “play with” information, a potentially important instructional goal because it can enhance student understanding and application of subject matter. This point has been made by Hatano (1982) who was able to delineate the sashimi maker who was able to follow rules and make excellent sashimi from the maker who tried out variations and new ideas and developed a better understanding of the process.

Argumentation: What to Teach Knowledge about the processes and products of successful reasoners coupled with knowledge about the unacceptable products of less successful reasoners provides some instructional guidance regarding “what to teach” (cf. Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983). Over the past year one investigator in our laboratory has been working informally with a team of ninth grade history teachers in an effort to enhance the development of reasoning skills in a World Civilization History class. What follows is a preliminary report of this experience. The teaching of argumentation in this context took place via a combination of formal lecture and course-driven writing assignments that were accompanied by pre-writing exercises. Presented below is a series of factors shown by this experience to be important in argumentation instruction. (1) Knowledge about the structure and nomenclature of arguments. For students to acquire argumentation skill, they need to become familiar with terms such as argument, counterargument, claim, thesis, reason, and qualifier. They need to become familiar with the nature of argument structure. Indeed, some students we have worked with had difficulty isolating, even from their own written work, the reasons that support their claims. Some students were even unaware that they included reasons opposing their claim. At a more sophisticated level, students should be able to identify various types of argument such as argumen.t from consequences. Indeed, Aristotle, in his book The Rhetoric (trans. Cooper, 1960), enumerated approximately 26 lines of argument or types of reasons people can use to support a claim. Among these are argument from

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consequence, comparison, definition, authority, and past precedent, and our findings have shown that successful reasoners are considerably more likely to generate a variety of different types of reasons than are less successful reasoners (Means, 1988). There are at least two major advantages associated with teaching students some of the types of argument found in classical rhetoric. One is that when students have at their disposal (in hand-out form, for example) a list of such classes of reasons, the list functions as a prompt (Corbett, 1971). Thus, when students are “stuck” or unable to generate reasons, accessing a list of types of reasons may facilitate the production of additional arguments, the list serving as a cue that is used to search mentally for additional information pertaining to the issue at hand. Also, the use of different reasons can add variability and strength to the overall argument. (2) Knowledge about argument evaluation. Both for the purpose of generating and of evaluating arguments, students need to be aware of the importance of reason acceptability and of the relevance and/or support a reason has for a claim. Students generate unacceptable reasons, and, without knowing, seem to be unaware that unacceptable reasons are those which (1) do not have truth-value or (2) do not support the given thesis. On the other hand, students should be able to tell why a given reason is acceptable and how it provides support. For the claim “People should not smoke,” a factual reason is “Because smoking causes cancer,” while a non-factual reason is “Because smoking can interfere with rights of others.” We have found that less skilled reasoners rarely generate non-factual reasons of this type (Means, 1988). Students thus need to know that, in most cases, fully acceptable reasons may be either non-factual as well as factual, that, in some cases, non-factual reasons may even be more appropriate and powerful than factual. (3) Knowledge of the purpose of argumentation. We have found that both students and teachers often fail to understand, and in the latter case also may fail to clarify, the relationship between the argument structure and the assignment. Thus, the purpose of a social studies paper for example may be to: defend or refute an existing position, to present the pros and cons of an existing position, or to support and/or develop one’s own position. (4) Students need to know the characteristics of a good argument. Better reasoners, in providing well-formed arguments, are more proficient with respect to generating a number of argument components. Having some knowledge about what constitutes “a well-developed” argument represents a powerful tool in that such knowledge can be used both as a means of generating argument components as well as a yardstick against which to measure or evaluate a finished product. Instruction providing examples or models of good arguments can be helpful in this regard. (5) Enhancing argumentation skill via writing. We have found that writing a history paper represents an assignment for which many students feel inadequate and unprepared. The chore of paper writing can be simplified and made less aversive if such a task is broken down into a set of goal-directed activities aimed at the builditrg of a well-developed argument. The following steps may be regarded as basic: (1) the development of a thesis, (2) the generation and evaluation of reasons that can be used to support that thesis, (3) the strengthening of such reasons, and (4) the grouping of these reasons into categories. Success in each of these steps, as indicated in Joe’s protocol, calls for argument-based thought.

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Some Undiscussed Issues

As summarized in this paper, our research has focussed upon the processes involved when individuals generate and evaluate arguments, upon how individuals vary in their performance of argumentation tasks, upon what students may need to know to develop argumentation skill, and we concluded with a few suggestions regarding how that skill may be developed. There are, however, other issues that yet require consideration. First, the data we have cited rather strongly suggests that reasoning skill, when viewed in relation to argumentation and informal reasoning, seems to be primarily a charact.eristic of the more intelligent and gifted, and indeed, it seems to be in less abundance among those of average, much less below average ability. This point not only requires further study, it needs to be considered in relation to the analysis of Perkins and Salomon (1989) regarding whether intelligence is a general academic skill or whether perhaps domain-relatedness is more critical. The facility with which the gifted can perform everyday reasoning tasks is noteworthy and suggests that indeed it may be related to general intellectual ability, but as we noted, a given amount of knowledge may be needed in a domain to enable a person to use reasoning skill, depending upon the issue at hand. On the other hand, knowledge does not in itself apparently provide for the operation of more sophisticated reasoning. Given that intellectual ability level seems to be the variable most highly correlated with informal reasoning, a question, which Perkins (1985) notes, is how teachable is informal reasoning skill? We would hope that with appropriate instruction and with student involvement it can be taught, but probably the most important question to answer in order to facilitate such learning is what is constraining reasoning performance in those that are less facile. Acknowledgements-The

research reported in this paper was supported by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the United States Department of Education, via an award to the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh of the Center for the Study of Learning. The material presented in this paper is not necessarily endorsed by any of these organizations. Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. James F. Voss, 634 LRDC, 3939 O’Hara St., University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.

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