Promoting Argument-Counterargument Integration in Students' Writing

It is important, when writing opinion essays, for students to consider and integrate both arguments and counterarguments to develop a final conclusion. In this article, the authors explored the effect of criteria instruction and a graphic organizer to promote integration of arguments and counterarguments. The researchers randomly assigned 84 participants from an undergraduate educational psychology course to 1 of 4 conditions: training only, organizer only, combined, and control. The graphic organizer resulted in more refutations of counterarguments. However, criteria instruction resulted in better integration of argument and counterargument (with stronger rebuttals and more balanced reasoning). The authors discussed how the 2 interventions may have activated somewhat different argumentation schema in students.