Publication Date

6-1-2022

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Educational Psychology Review

Volume

34

Issue

2

DOI

10.1007/s10648-021-09637-2

First Page

477

Last Page

509

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, a broad and diverse research literature has emerged to address how students learn to argue through dialogue in educational contexts. However, the variety of approaches used to study this phenomenon makes it challenging to find coherence in what may otherwise seem to be disparate fields of study. In this integrative review, we propose looking at how learning to argue (LTA) has been operationalized thus far in educational research, focusing on how different scholars have framed and fostered argumentative dialogue, assessed its gains, and applied it in different learning contexts. In total, 143 studies from the broad literature on educational dialogue and argumentation were analysed, including all educational levels (from primary to university). The following patterns for studying how dialogue fosters LTA emerged: whole-class ‘low structure’ framing with a goal of dialogue, small-group ‘high structure’ framing with varied argumentative goals, and studies with one-to-one dialectic framing with a goal of persuasive deliberation. The affordances and limitations of these different instructional approaches to LTA research and practice are discussed. We conclude with a discussion of complementarity of the approaches that emerged from our analysis in terms of the pedagogical methods and conditions that promote productive and/or constructive classroom interactions.

Funding Number

57/2016/CP1453/CT0066

Funding Sponsor

European Commission

Keywords

Argumentation, Dialogue, Instructional approach, Learning to argue, Patterns, Review

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Teacher Education

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