Towards a Rational Society: Scaling Argument Mapping in Higher Education

Argument mapping (AM) is the activity of plotting a diagram representing the logical connections between evidence and the claims it supports, with boxes connected by lines. AM can massively benefit students and their communities. Not only is it about twice as effective at improving student critical thinking any other method and enhance student math, science, and writing skills, thus demonstrating its use in an academic setting; there is also reason to think AM represents a larger commitment to democratic education. Improving critical thinking "en masse" opens up the possibility of improving democratic health by improving democratic attitudes such as tolerance and open-mindedness, epistemic confidence, etc. However, AM's incompatibility with federal accessibility standards hinders its widespread adoption. In this paper, we review the research on AM, critical thinking, and the benefits thereof. We then argue that a still-developing web-based application, Argumentation, could make AM accessible and thereby unlock the method's benefits for students and their societies. Finally, we identify some avenues for further research that an accessible AM app would open. [For the full proceedings, see ED652228.]