Promoting Argumentative Abilities in Written Composition of Psychology Senior Students: CAAM Method

Abstract

Main aim in this research was to develop argumentative abilities for written composing of psychology senior students, who are elaborating their bachelor's dissertation. The study was based on a cuasi-experimental design with pre and post-test and control group. The experimental group was composed by 22 women psychology senior students. Explicit use of deductive silogism method (Davies, 2008) for composing grammatically and inferentially good essays as well as the CAAM method for making argumentative maps, were used in this intervention. Both method showed to be effective to teach students how to compose sound argumentative essays. Mapping arguments helps students to visualize their reasoning line and to detect easier, among other things, co-premisas or co-reasons (broader explanations and explicit inferences) and evidence (support reasons for other reasons) needed in their argumentation.