Counterargumentation at the primary level: An intervention study investigating the argumentative writing of second language learners

An empirical study on the scaffolding Chinese university students’ English argumentative writing based on toulmin model

“…In terms of the output of the number of argumentative elements, as shown in the descriptive statistics in Table 4 and Table 5 , the number of argumentative elements in the experimental group has been greatly improved in the post test compared with the pre-test (Claim 1.92–2.16, Qualifier 1.68–1.61, Reason 1.66–2.46, Evidence 1.05–1.64, Warrant 1.66–2.49, Counter argument 0.38–0.80, Rebuttal 0.41–0.84) This shows that students have a strong acceptance of teaching intervention of schemata ( Swales, 1990 ). Students have greatly improved in the two weak aspects of counterarguments and rebuttals, which verified that the classroom writing intervention of point-to-point argumentative elements has a significant effect on students ( Liu & Stapleton, 2020 ).…”

“…In terms of the types of argumentative elements, as shown in Tables 4 and 5 , except for qualifiers, the types of argumentative elements in the experimental group have been greatly improved in the post test compared with the pre-test (Claim 1.32–1.35, Qualifier 1.28–1.08, Reason 0.99–1.18, Evidence 0.84–1.12, Warrant 1.04–1.14, Counterargument 0.37–0.69, Rebuttal 0.35–0.65), which shows that the interventional teaching ]not only makes a relatively comprehensive contribution to the generation of the number of argumentative elements in writing ( Nussbaum, 2002 , 2008 ; Liu & Stapleton, 2020 ), but also has a positive impact on the diversity of the output of argumentativr elements., In the control group, the situation is different (Claim 1.38–1.39, Qualifier 1.06–0.86, Reason 0.86–1.00, Evidence 0.76–0.74, Warrant 0.99–1.00, Counter argument 0.32–0.31, and Rebuttal 0.36–0.34) Only the types of reason and evidence have slight improvement, other types have declined. The higher the students' writing performance, the less the number of qualifiers they write ( Yang, 2022 ).…”

“…Because scaffolding plays an important role in the learning process, in recent years, second language writing researchers have applied various intervention pedagogies based on argumentative theory to argumentative writing, for example, explicit interventions in the classroom such as teaching argumentative basics ( Németh and Kormos, 2001 ), pre-writing debates ( El Majidi et al., 2021 ), process-genre pedagogy ( Huang and Zhang, 2020 ), argumentative writing templates ( Liu & Stapleton, 2020 ), and reader-response approach ( Rashtchi, 2019 ). The underlying principle of these studies is that students need additional support to produce more argumentative elements to gain connections between individual argumentative elements and to gain the ability to challenge the argumentation of others.…”

Revealing the effect of local-based teaching materials toward scientific reasoning, argumentation, and problem-solving in biology classroom

“…Vertebrate animals also have larger size than invertebrate animals, making it easier for students to make observations and provide opinions or arguments about the structure of morphology of the animals. Probosari et al (2016) Construction of the rebuttal, however, is not simple, and several studies have found that individuals struggled with the creation of rebuttal even after repeated interventions (Liu & Stapleton, 2020;Ryu & Sandoval, 2012). Students need to think deeply and find some opposite fast to countering the claim and make it a rebuttal.…”

Source choice and use in counterargument writing

“…Research reveals that without explicit instruction, students rarely include or evaluate opposing arguments (Nussbaum & Kardash, 2005); with proper instruction on argument–counterargument integration, undergraduates did present more counterarguments in their writing (Liu & Stapleton, 2014; Nussbaum & Kardash, 2005; Nussbaum & Schraw, 2007; Nussbaum et al, 2019; Song & Ferretti, 2013). However, research found that although including counterarguments suggested that students considered alternative viewpoints, this inclusion did not always ensure appropriate or strong counterarguments in terms of logic and evidence (Liu & Stapleton, 2020). As Stapleton and Wu (2015) argued, “The surface structure, or shell of the argument, may appear appropriate or even exemplary, but the actual substance could still be exceedingly weak” (p. 12).…”