Structuring Reflection: Teaching Argument Concepts and Strategies Enhances Critical Thinking

By middle childhood most students understand the concept of evidence, but do not use it when reading or writing arguments. It was hypothesized that teaching concepts about argument components, and tenching a strategy to organize the application of these concepts, would improve students' evaluations of written arguments. In a two-by-two factorial design, 55 grade 5 students read, wrote, and discussed arguments in instructional groups that emphasized: argument concepts; an organizational strategy; both concepts and strategy; or neither concepts nor strategy. Students in all treatment groups improved relative to the control group in evaluating arguments, and transferred gains from social to science items. Concept instruction significantly improved students' evaluations of invalid arguments with plausible claims. Strategy instruction significantly improved their argument writing.