Effects of a training intervention to foster precursors of evaluativist epistemological understanding and intellectual values

Hefter, Markus H.; Renkl, Alexander; Rieß, Werner; Schmid, Sebastian; Fries, Stefan; Berthold, Kirsten

doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.05.002

Cited by 42 publications

(51 citation statements)

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“…Our results suggest that such trainings would likely profit from the inclusion of full-fledged arguments-including warrants-to focalise relations between premises and conclusions (Toulmin, 1958). Some evidence has shown that even short-term interventions can be effective in improving argument evaluation skills in students (e.g., Hefter et al, 2014Hefter et al, , 2015. For example, Larson et al (2009) found that a tutorial explaining general skills associated with successful argument evaluation to high school and college students led to an increased performance when immediate feedback was provided during training.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Judging the plausibility of arguments in scientific texts: a student–scientist comparison

Mühlen

Richter

Schmid

et al. 2015

Thinking & Reasoning

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The ability to evaluate scientific claims and evidence is an important aspect of scientific literacy and requires various epistemic competences. Readers spontaneously validate presented information against their knowledge and beliefs but differ in their ability to strategically evaluate the soundness of informal arguments. The present research investigated how students of psychology, compared to scientists working in psychology, evaluate informal arguments. Using a think-aloud procedure, we identified the specific strategies students and scientists apply when judging the plausibility of arguments and classifying common argumentation fallacies. Results indicate that students, compared to scientists, have difficulties forming these judgements and base them on intuition and opinion rather than the internal consistency of arguments. Our findings are discussed using the mental model theory framework. Although introductory students validate scientific information against their knowledge and beliefs, their judgements are often erroneous, in part because their use of strategy is immature. Implications for systematic trainings of epistemic competences are discussed. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 14 April 2015; Accepted 27 November 2015KEYWORDS Informal argument evaluation; epistemic competences; mental model theory; think-aloud procedure; competences in higher education Arguments can affect our daily lives in many ways, whether we think of politicians trying to persuade us to vote for a particular party, a newspaper article providing a certain perspective on a societal issue, or taking decisions about which kind of career we would like to pursue. In scientific discourse, arguments also play a central role, because they link theoretical claims to supporting empirical evidence. Students entering university are confronted with scientific literature that presents different and at times conflicting theories backed up by more or less compelling evidence. The ability to evaluate This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. THINKING & REASONING, 2016 VOL. 22, NO. 2, 221À249 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2015 scientific claims and evidence is an important aspect of scientific literacy and requires various epistemic competences (Britt, Richter, & Rouet, 2014). The present research investigated how students of psychology, compared to scientists working in psychology, evaluate arguments and which strategies they use to judge their plausibility. Successful readers possess a broad number of general processing strategies that they use in a flexible way, depending on the processing goal (Wyatt et al., 1993). Although argumentation skills are generally not formally taught in higher education, we expect scie...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Judging the plausibility of arguments in scientific texts: a student–scientist comparison

Mühlen

Richter

Schmid

et al. 2015

Thinking & Reasoning

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“…In this field, reading literacy, fluid intelligence (for example logical thinking/reasoning), general epistemological beliefs, crystallized intelligence (general knowledge), declarative meta-memory (learning-relevant characteristics, problem solving capabilities, self-regulation and self-regulated learning strategies) can be situated. In order to initiate and sustain a learning process, there must be a corresponding motivation which then also affects the cognitive processing of the content, the epistemological beliefs, moral sagacity, (for example [38,[45][46][47]) and the self-efficacy expectation (expectation to perform intentional actions, for example [48]). These are competencies that are needed for learning in general, as well as for effective and just social interactions.…”

Section: The Frame-model For Sustainability Competenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Validation of an Instrument for Measuring Student Sustainability Competencies

2019

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The importance of education, and ESD in particular, for achieving sustainable development is highlighted in the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since the Brundtland Report (1987) and the Agenda 21 conference in Rio in 1992, many measures and programs have been launched. However, no widely accepted and validated assessment instruments are currently available to examine the output levels of ESD on the student side as a means to contribute to monitoring the effects of ESD initiatives. Furthermore, connections to the results of empirical educational research are often lacking. Indeed, operationalization is necessary in order to evaluate actions of fostering ESD. Taking concepts of empirical educational and other relevant research findings (for example, psychology for sustainability) into account, this study develops a reliable and valid approach to measuring sustainability competencies. In this paper, novel data of a first school assessment is presented. One thousand six hundred and twenty-two students (aged from 9 to 16) participated in the survey. The paper-pencil questionnaire covers general (socio-demographic) as well as cognitive, affective, behavioral, application- and curriculum-orientated aspects of sustainability competencies. The evidence for the validity and reliability of the instrument indicates that the presented assessment tool constitutes a suitable instrument by which to measure sustainability competencies in secondary schools. The gathered insights show a path towards the operationalization of sustainability competencies to clarify the needs and achievements of ESD implementation in schools.

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“…Constructivist learning environments (CLE, Jonassen 1999), which are based on the assumption that knowledge cannot be transmitted but is individually constructed by the learner, have been shown to be effective for instruction in a number of interventions (e.g., Berthold and Renkl 2010;Hefter et al 2014Hefter et al , 2015Larson et al 2009). Various research shows that students remember information better when they construct their own knowledge (e.g., De Winstanley and Bjork 2004;Marsh et al 2001).…”

Section: Improving Lay Readers' Competences To Comprehend Informal Armentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As knowledge about the structure of arguments has been shown to be particularly important for comprehension and evaluation (Britt et al 2014;Britt and Larson 2003;Larson et al 2004Larson et al , 2009Wolfe et al 2009), the experiment evaluated the effects of an intervention designed to improve students' competences to recognise the structural components of informal arguments and their relations, including relevant markers. Building on earlier research (e.g., Hefter et al 2014Hefter et al , 2015Larson et al 2009), our intervention conveyed both conceptual and procedural knowledge in a constructivist learning environment (Jonassen 1999). Procedural knowledge can be defined as the ability to execute sequences of action to solve problems (e.g., Rittle-Johnson et al 2009), whereas conceptual knowledge can be defined as an integrated and functional understanding of domain-specific ideas (Kilpatrick et al 2001;Rittle-Johnson et al 2009).…”

Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How to improve argumentation comprehension in university students: experimental test of a training approach

et al. 2018

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The ability to comprehend informal arguments is essential for scientific literacy but students often lack structural knowledge about these arguments, especially when the arguments are more complex. This study used a pre-post-test design with a follow-up 4 weeks later to investigate whether a computerised training in identifying structural components of informal arguments can improve university students' competences to understand complex arguments. The training was embedded in a constructivist learning environment and contents were based on the Toulmin model of argument structure, according to which arguments can be deconstructed into several functional components: Claim, datum, warrant, backing evidence, and rebuttal. Being able to identify the warrant is central for scientific literacy, as the warrant determines whether a conclusion is justified given the data. Results indicate that training in argument structure did not generally improve performance for all students and argument types, but that it was particularly helpful for identifying more complex arguments with a less typical structure and relational aspects between key components (i.e. warrants). High achieving students profited the most from this intervention, and the intervention was also helpful for students with high pretest accuracy scores. Our results suggest that interventions to foster argumentation skills should be included into the curriculum and these interventions should be designed to match learners' ability level.

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Effects of a training intervention to foster precursors of evaluativist epistemological understanding and intellectual values

Cited by 42 publications

References 34 publications

Judging the plausibility of arguments in scientific texts: a student–scientist comparison

Judging the plausibility of arguments in scientific texts: a student–scientist comparison

Development and Validation of an Instrument for Measuring Student Sustainability Competencies

How to improve argumentation comprehension in university students: experimental test of a training approach

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