Creating a Contrastive Rhetorical Stance

Mei, Wu

doi:10.1177/0033688206071316

Cited by 62 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Because of their background knowledge, the writer's critical thinking is expressed differently based on their problematization strategy in writing argumentative essays. As investigated by Mei (2006), high rated and low rated essays perform differently in discussing problematization of issues. Writers of high rated essay or students with high writing performance indicate a more strategic and appropriate use of evaluative resources to create clear lines of contrast positions.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Thinking, Writing Performance and Topic Familiarity of Indonesian EFL Learners

Indah

2017

JLTR

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Abstract-This study seeks the evidence for the best pattern of relationship among critical thinking, writing performance and topic familiarity of EFL students at an Islamic university in Indonesia. Understanding the patterns of relationship is important to develop teaching syllabus, materials and evaluation method for teaching critical writing class. It employs ex-post-facto design to English department students. The instruments used were writing prompts and rubrics for assessing the observed skills namely critical thinking, writing performance and topic familiarity. Path analysis was used to figure out the pattern of relationship. The verified patterns of relationship show that on student initiated topic, critical thinking skills are triggered by topic familiarity and can be mediated by writing performance. Topic familiarity also has direct contribution toward critical thinking skills on student initiated topic. Similarly, on teacher initiated topic, critical thinking skills are supported by topic familiarity and can be mediated by writing performance as well. However, topic familiarity of teacher initiated topic does not have direct contribution toward critical thinking skills. The finding also indicates that the verified path model serves as the best pattern and can be used as a framework to predict the success of the student's critical thinking skills.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Thinking, Writing Performance and Topic Familiarity of Indonesian EFL Learners

Indah

2017

JLTR

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“…Undergraduate essay writing often requires analysis and evaluation of information (Wu, 2006). However, university students are claimed to lack both the motivation and effort to compare information when they write essays .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wu (2006) argues that undergraduate essay assignments often require students to analyze and evaluate content knowledge, to choose their position in debates in their discipline and argue accordingly. Hence, argumentation is a key requirement of essay writing by undergraduate students (Wingate, 2012).…”

Section: Critical Thinking and Argumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Utriainen

Marttunen

Kallio

et al. 2016

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

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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.Keywords: critical thinking, argumentation, entrance examination, academic achievement, higher education 3Critical thinking and well-developed argumentation skills are commonly seen as important from the civic participation perspective (Arum & Roksa, 2011;Kuhn, 2005;Williams, Foster & Krohn, 2008), and are also regarded as key learning outcomes by higher education institutions (Halpern, 2001). Hence it is not surprising that university students' critical thinking skills have been widely studied (e.g., reviews by Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005;Niu, Behar-Horenstein & Garvan, 2013), and also that various definitions of critical thinking have been proposed. For example, Elder and Paul (2010) define critical thinking as a process of assessing and analyzing one's own thinking with the aim of improving it, whereas Ennis (1993) conceptualizes critical thinking as reasonable reflective thinking, aiming at deciding what to believe or not. These definitions highlight the importance of knowledge and its justification in conceptions of critical thinking. Ennis (2008) has labeled views of this kind as epistemic approaches to the conception of critical thinking, since they share the purpose of finding the truth or at least the closest approximation to it. In contrast to this common epistemic element is the claim that there is no unanimous definition of critical thinking (Flores, Matkin, Burbach, Quinn & Harding, 2012). Nevertheless, three common dimensions for critical thinking have been suggested, namely the ability to perform rational and reasonable thinking, the ability to see alternative viewpoints, and the ability to reflect on one's own thinking and its quality (Niu et al., 2013;Flores et al., 2012).Like the definitions of critical thinking, the research results on learning critical thinking skills as an outcome of university studies are also conflicting. In some studies, participation in higher education has been found to develop certain elements of students' critical thinking, that is, the ability to approach problems from various...

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“…Undergraduate students are typically required to complete assignments in the form of writing opinion papers and argumentative essays (Mei, 2006). Such assignments require students to investigate a topic, gather and evaluate evidence, and write a clear and concise report in the form of an argumentative essay.…”

Section: Writing Argumentative Essaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Argumentation Competence: Students’ Argumentation Knowledge, Behavior and Attitude and their Relationships with Domain-Specific Knowledge Acquisition

Haro

Noroozi

Biemans

et al. 2020

Journal of Constructivist Psychology

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Following constructivist paradigms for learning, this article explores the relationships between the components of argumentation competence (knowledge, behavior and attitude), their relationships with domain-specific knowledge acquisition, and the differences in argumentation behavior between successful and less-successful students. An exploratory study, with a pre-and post-test design, in an authentic, non-scaffolded, online learning environment was conducted. Contrary to our expectations, no significant relationships between the components of argumentation competence were found. Nevertheless, a significant relationship between argumentation behavior and domain-specific knowledge acquisition was found. Moreover, results suggested that the capacity of students to transfer argumentation behavior to similar argumentation tasks can be related to students' domain-specific knowledge acquisition. Finally, successful students in terms of domain-specific knowledge acquisition scored higher with regard to their argumentation behavior than less-successful students. These findings are discussed followed by theoretical and practical implications and suggestion for future work. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Creating a Contrastive Rhetorical Stance

Cited by 62 publications

References 20 publications

Critical Thinking, Writing Performance and Topic Familiarity of Indonesian EFL Learners

Critical Thinking, Writing Performance and Topic Familiarity of Indonesian EFL Learners

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

Argumentation Competence: Students’ Argumentation Knowledge, Behavior and Attitude and their Relationships with Domain-Specific Knowledge Acquisition

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