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Stimulating Reflection and Self-correcting Reasoning Through Argument Mapping: Three Approaches

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Abstract

A large body of research in cognitive science differentiates human reasoning into two types: fast, intuitive, and emotional “System 1” thinking, and slower, more reflective “System 2” reasoning. According to this research, human reasoning is by default fast and intuitive, but that means that it is prone to error and biases that cloud our judgments and decision making. To improve the quality of reasoning, critical thinking education should develop strategies to slow it down and to become more reflective. The goal of such education should be to enable and motivate students to identify weaknesses, gaps, biases, and limiting perspectives in their own reasoning and to correct them. This contribution discusses how this goal could be achieved with regard to reasoning that involves the construction of arguments; or more precisely: how computer-supported argument visualization (CSAV) tools could be designed that support reflection on the quality of arguments and their improvement. Three types of CSAV approaches are distinguished that focus on reflection and self-correcting reasoning. The first one is to trigger reflection by confronting the user with specific questions that direct attention to critical points. The second approach uses templates that, on the one hand, provide a particular structure to reason about an issue by means of arguments and, on the other, include prompts to enter specific items. And a third approach is realized in specifically designed user guidance (“scripts”) that attempts to trigger reflection and self-correction. These types of approaches are currently realized only in very few CSAV tools. In order to inform the future development of what I call reflection tools, this article discusses the potential and limitations of these types and tools with regard to five explanations of the observation that students hardly ever engage in substantial revisions of what they wrote: a lack of strategies how to do it; cognitive overload; certain epistemic beliefs; myside bias; and over-confidence in the quality of one’s own reasoning. The question is: To what degree can each of the CSAV approaches and tools address these five potential obstacles to reflection and self-correction?

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Notes

  1. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer who pointed this out to me.

  2. See http://araucaria.computing.dundee.ac.uk/doku.php; http://carneades.github.io/; https://www.rationaleonline.com/browse/all; http://agora.gatech.edu; http://assistentearg.herokuapp.com. According to Tom Gordon, who directs the development of Carneades, critical questions are available only in its 3.7 version, not in the more recent 4.1 (personal communication). CompendiumNG is seriously limited for the presentation of argumentation schemes, as Walton (2007, p. 128) points out.

  3. A tool in which argument schemes with critical questions are used to stimulate reflection is CISpaces which was developed for intelligence analysts. It is not listed above because it is currently not publicly available. According to Toniolo et al. (2015), in CISpaces an artificial “sensemaking agent interprets” a pro- or con-link on an argument map “and suggests critical questions” (p. 785).

  4. See http://www.reasoninglab.com and https://www.rationaleonline.com. Rationale is the successor of Reason!Able.

  5. A similar approach has been pursued by Deanna Kuhn in her Education for Thinking Project. See http://www.educationforthinking.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Reflection-Sheets.pdf.

  6. Quoted from http://agora.gatech.edu/learn/goal.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Bryan Norton for helpful feedback on the first version of this paper. I am grateful also for the insights and suggestions provided by two anonymous reviewers, and for the excellent work done by Frank Zenker, the editor of this special issue.

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Hoffmann, M.H.G. Stimulating Reflection and Self-correcting Reasoning Through Argument Mapping: Three Approaches. Topoi 37, 185–199 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9408-x

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