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We report a study of a class of 28 sixth graders engaged in an extended computer-supported argumentive discourse activity. Participants collaborated with a same-side peer in arguing against successive pairs of peers on the opposing side of an issue. Meta-level awareness was facilitated by conducting the dialogs via instant messaging software, which made available a transcript of the dialog that was used in additional reflective activities. In the course of dialogs on 3 successive topics, participants showed significant gains in meta-level communications about the discourse, reflecting at least implicit understanding of its goals, as well as in the strategic moves that constituted the discourse. The latter advances remained evident when the social support of a same-side partner was withdrawn.

The aim of this study was to examine how students used evidence in argumentation while they engaged in argumentive and reflective activities in the context of a designed learning environment. A web-based learning environment, SOCRATES, was developed, which included a rich data base on the topic of Climate Change. Sixteen 11 th graders, working with a partner, engaged in electronic argumentive dialogs with classmates who held an opposing view on the topic and in some evidence-focused reflective activities, based on transcriptions of their dialogs.Another sixteen 11 th graders, who studied the data base in the learning environment for the same amount of time as experimental-condition students but did not engage in an argumentive discourse activity, served as a comparison condition. Students who engaged in an evidencefocused dialogic intervention increased the use of evidence in their dialogs, used more evidence that functioned to weaken opponents' claims and used more accurate evidence. Significant gains in evidence use and in meta-level communication about evidence were observed after students engaged in reflective activities. We frame our discussion of these findings in terms of their implications for promoting use of evidence in argumentation, and in relation to the development of epistemological understanding in science.

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We report on a study of the effect of meta-level awareness on the use of evidence in discourse. The participants were 66 pre-service teachers who were engaged in a dialogic activity. Meta-level awareness regarding the use of evidence in discourse was heightened by having same-side peers collaborating in arguing on the computer against successive pairs of peers on the opposing side of an issue on the topic of Climate Change and by engaging in explicit reflective activities on the use of evidence. Participants showed significant advances both in their skill of producing evidence-based arguments and counterarguments and regarding the accuracy of the evidence used. Advances were also observed at the meta-level, reflecting at least implicit understanding that using evidence is an important goal of argumentation. Another group of pre-service teachers, who studied about the role of evidence in science in the context of regular curriculum and served as a control condition, did not exhibit comparable advances in the use of evidence in argumentation. Educational implications are discussed.

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This study investigates whether university students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge about controversial socioscientific issues (SSIs) can predict the different types of arguments that students construct. Two hundred forty‐three university students were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments—social, ethical, economic, scientific, ecological—as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a scenario on a SSI. Participants’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge were assessed separately. Results showed that students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge predicted the quantity, quality, and diversity of the different types of arguments the students constructed. In particular, students who held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge and exhibited relatively more robust prior knowledge scores, produced arguments of greater quantity, better quality, and higher diversity than students with less sophisticated epistemic beliefs and low prior knowledge scores. Educational implications are discussed.

Wie das Argumentieren die Entwicklung eines epistemologischen Verständnisses in wissenschaftlichen und sozialen Bereichen fördern kann Zusammenfassung. Diese Arbeit untersucht, ob eine Intervention zur Veränderung des Argumentationsverhaltens die Entwicklung eines evaluativen epistemologischen Verständnisses fördern kann. Studierende wurden randomisiert einer von zwei Interventionsbedingungen zugewiesen, die sich entweder mit einem sozialen oder ein wissenschaftlichen Thema beschäftigten. Die epistemologischen Überzeugungen wurden vor und nach der Intervention anhand eines sozialen und eines wissenschaftlichen Themas ermittelt. Zusätzlich wurden die Ansichten der Studierenden über ihre eigenen Wissensprozesse sowie über die von Wissenschaftlern erhoben. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass dialogische Argumentationsaktivitäten die Entwicklung eines evaluativen domänenspezifischen epistemologischen Verständnisses unterstützte. Weitere qualitative Analysen zeigten, dass die Teilnehmer je nach Interventionsbedingung die Evidenz im Prozess des Wissenserwerbs unterschiedlich bewerten. Dies unterstützt die Ansicht, dass es verschiedene Herausforderungen bei der Entwicklung eines epistemologischen Verständnisses in den Domänen gibt. Die Erkenntnisse dieser Studie haben wichtige pädagogische Implikationen und weisen darauf hin, dass argumentative Aktivitäten ein vielversprechender Weg sind, um die Entwicklung eines angemessenen epistemologischen Verständnisses zu unterstützen.