Argument Mapping Research Articles

An evaluation of argument mapping as a method of enhancing critical thinking performance in e-learning environments

The current research examined the effects of a critical thinking (CT) e-learning course taught through argument mapping (AM) on measures of CT ability. Seventy-four undergraduate psychology students were allocated to either an AM-infused CT e-learning course or a no instruction control group and were tested both before and after an 8-week intervention period on CT ability using the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment. Results revealed that participation in the AM-infused CT course significantly enhanced overall CT ability and all CT sub-scale abilities from pre- to post-testing and that post-test performance was positively correlated with motivation towards learning and dispositional need for cognition. In addition, AM-infused CT course participants exhibited a significantly larger gain in both overall CT and in argument analysis (a CT subscale) than controls. There were no effects of training on either motivation for learning or need for cognition. However, both the latter variables were correlated with CT ability at post-testing. Results are discussed in light of research and theory on the best practices of providing CT instruction through argument mapping and e-learning environments.

Argument map for carbon capture and storage

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can contribute to the deep CO2 cuts which are necessary to achieve climate change targets. There is, however, a strong public debate whether CCS should be implemented. In this article we give an overview of the arguments for and against based on the opinion of Dutch stakeholders. CCS is an umbrella term for a wide range of different configurations of separate technologies. Some arguments are applicable in general for all CCS chains; some are only valid for a particular configuration. In this paper we will discuss these arguments in the context of the background of different CCS configurations. The argument that CCS costs a lot of extra energy, for instance, is valid for the power sector, not for gas treatment. A good understanding of the CCS debate and the arguments used may help with developing a better energy policy and may give direction to future research and technology development.

MAKING GOOD BETTER: A PROPOSAL FOR TEACHING ETHICS AT THE SERVICE ACADEMIES

This paper addresses the teaching of mandatory ethics courses in a military context, with particular reference to the Service Academies of the United States Armed Forces. In seeking to optimize the core ethics course's potential to develop Midshipmen and Cadets' moral reasoning skills I suggest a model that employs case-based scenarios, woven together into a metanarrative, in place of the traditional historical case study and in a manner that gives students deliberate, guided practice in ethical decision-making. The described model also commends a resource- and pedagogy-driven partnership between civilian philosophers/ethicists and senior military officers in teaching the course. Also proposed is the deliberate use of a simple but formal method of applying the central ethical theories usually taught in such courses, what I call ‘ethical triangulation’. The employment of Computer Aided Argument Mapping is also recommended.

Computer-Aided Argument Mapping as a Tool for Teaching Critical Thinking

Maps and mapping have been used for educational purposes for many years. That is nothing new. Mind mapping and concept mapping are both routinely used in higher education contexts. What is new is a variety of software packages that permit more complex forms of map-making. These software programs take advantage of computational power to enhance and augment the natural processing limitations of the human brain. Also new is a specialized form of mapping—argument mapping—dedicated to displaying inferential connections among propositions. Computer-aided argument mapping (CAAM) is a relatively recent innovation that promises to assist in the teaching of critical thinking skills. Students can now visually demonstrate their understanding of complex debates by actively engaging in making maps of arguments. Empirical evidence consistently shows that CAAM can significantly improve critical thinking skills with targeted interventions under controlled conditions. Although critical thinking has long been assumed to be ...

LASAD: Flexible representations for computer-based collaborative argumentation

Teaching argumentation is challenging, and the factors of how to effectively support the acquisition of argumentation skills through technology are not fully explored yet. One of the key reasons for that is the lack of comparability between studies. In this article, we describe LASAD, a collaborative argumentation framework that can be flexibly parameterized. We illustrate the flexibility of the framework with respect to visualization, structural definitions and kind of cooperation. Using this framework, this paper presents an evaluation of the impact of using an argumentation system with different argument representations and with collaborative vs. individual use on the outcomes of scientific argumentation. We investigate which combinations of these factors produces the best results concerning argument production and learning outcomes. The results of this controlled lab study with 36 participants showed that the use of simple representational formats is superior compared to highly structured ones. Even though the latter encouraged the provision of additional non-given material, the former is less error-prone. A hypothesized structural guidance provided by more complex formats could not be confirmed. With respect to collaboration, the results highlight that arguing in groups lead to more cluttered argumentation maps, including a higher amount of duplicate elements. An expected peer-reviewing between group members did not occur. Yet, groups also tended to include more points-of-view in their arguments, leading to more elaborated argument maps.

Enabling Large-Scale Deliberation Using Attention-Mediation Metrics

Humanity now finds itself faced with a range of highly complex and controversial challenges – such as climate change, the spread of disease, international security, scientific collaborations, product development, and so on – that call upon us to bring together large numbers of experts and stakeholders to deliberate collectively on a global scale. Collocated meetings can however be impractically expensive, severely limit the concurrency and thus breadth of interaction, and are prone to serious dysfunctions such as polarization and hidden profiles. Social media such as email, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, and web forums provide unprecedented opportunities for interacting on a massive scale, but have yet to realize their potential for helping people deliberate effectively, typically generating poorly-organized, unsystematic and highly redundant contributions of widely varying quality. Large-scale argumentation systems represent a promising approach for addressing these challenges, by virtue of providing a simple systematic structure that radically reduces redundancy and encourages clarity. They do, however, raise an important challenge. How can we ensure that the attention of the deliberation participants is drawn, especially in large complex argument maps, to where it can best serve the goals of the deliberation? How can users, for example, find the issues they can best contribute to, assess whether some intervention is needed, or identify the results that are mature and ready to “harvest”? Can we enable, for large-scale distributed discussions, the ready understanding that participants typically have about the progress and needs of small-scale, collocated discussions?This paper will address these important questions, discussing (1) the strengths and limitations of current deliberation technologies, (2) how argumentation technology can help address these limitations, and (3) how we can use attention-mediation metrics to enhance the effectiveness of large-scale argumentation-based deliberations.

A Carneades reconstruction of Popov v Hayashi

Carneades is an open source argument mapping application and a programming library for building argumentation support tools. In this paper, Carneades' support for argument reconstruction, evaluation and visualization is illustrated by modeling most of the factual and legal arguments in Popov v Hayashi.

A debate dashboard to enhance online knowledge sharing

PurposeIn this paper the aim is to present Debate Dashboard, an online collaborative platform designed to support distributed knowledge management and decision making. The platform integrates an argument mapping tool with visual widgets with the objective of enhancing collective sense‐making and mutual understanding as well as to compensate for the costs of mediated communication in virtual collaborative environments.Design/methodology/approachThe design of Debate Dashboard is based on the theory of common ground according to which participants involved in a conversation build mutual understanding thanks to the exchange of different types of feedback. Using the concept of grounding cost, the authors identified several features of the Dashboard supposed to favour mutual understanding and knowledge sharing. Such features have been implemented through six visual widgets selected through a benchmarking of currently available visualization tools.FindingsThe paper discusses the limitations and advantages of online argumentation to support online discussions and presents a review of current visualization tools. The design of a new platform able to integrate online argumentation and visualization technologies is described and it is argued that Debate Dashboard will improve online collaboration in many respects especially in terms of supporting the construction of shared knowledge representations for geographically distributed collaborative teams.Originality/valueFirst, the work adds to the debate on the development of online argumentation platforms by offering an alternative theoretical perspective based on language and conversational studies. Second, it proposes for the first time to integrate argumentation and visualization technologies in the same tool to create an augmented collaborative platform able to overcome the limitations of both traditional online collaboration technologies, such as forums and wikis, as well as the criticalities associated with the use of argumentation technologies.

Computer-Aided Argument Mapping and the Teaching of Critical Thinking

This paper is in two parts. Part I outlines three traditional approaches to the teaching of critical thinking: the normative, cognitive psychology, and educational approaches. Each of these approaches is discussed in relation to the influences of various methods of critical thinking instruction. The paper contrasts these approaches with what I call the “visualisation” approach. This approach is explained with reference to computer-aided argument mapping (CAAM) which uses dedicated computer software to represent inferences between premise and conclusions. The paper presents a detailed account of the CAAM methodology, and theoretical justification for its use, illustrating this with the argument mapping software Rationale™. A number of Rationale™ design conventions and logical principles are outlined including the principle of abstraction, the MECE principle, and the “Holding Hands” and “Rabbit Rule” heuristics. Part II of this paper outlines the growing empirical evidence for the effectiveness of CAAM as a method of teaching critical thinking.

Witty invention or dubious fad? Using argument mapping to examine the contours of management fashion

This paper examines management fashion discourse based on the premise that management fashions are not neutral, but problematic. It grounds this premise on Abrahamson and Fairchild's (1999) observation that attributes the upswings of management fashion discourse to “emotionally charged, enthusiastic and unreasoned discourse”. Adopting this critical perspective, the paper conducts a careful analysis of faddish discourse in an attempt to understand the discursive ailments that would justify ascribing a diagnosis of “unreasoned” to this discourse. To achieve this goal, the paper employs the technique of argument mapping to examine and compare the structures of early discourse surrounding: (1) Business Process Reengineering (BPR) – typically now considered a fad; (2) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) – an enduring, non-faddish IS discourse; and (3) Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – a more recent discourse that is evaluated based on insights derived from comparisons of BPR and ERP. Findings from the resultant argument maps show conspicuous differences between BPR and ERP argumentation, which suggests an association between early argument structure and the faddish trajectory of discourse. Similarly, insights derived from ERP and BPR argument comparisons suggest that SOA is more likely to follow the faddish course of its BPR predecessor rather than the enduring track of ERP.

Teleological argumentation to and from motives

This paper uses tools from argumentation and artificial intelligence to build a system to analyse reasoning from a motive to an action and reasoning from circumstantial evidence of actions to a motive. The tools include argument mapping, argumentation schemes, inference to the best explanation and a hybrid method of combining argument and explanation. Several examples of use of relevant motive evidence in law are used to illustrate how the system works. It is shown how adjudicating cases where motive of evidence is relevant depends on a balance of argumentation that can be tilted to one side or the other using plausible reasoning that combines arguments and explanations. Language: en

The effectiveness of a single intervention of computer‐aided argument mapping in a marketing and a financial accounting subject

An argument map visually represents the structure of an argument, outlining its informal logical connections and informing judgments as to its worthiness. Argument mapping can be augmented with dedicated software that aids the mapping process. Empirical evidence suggests that semester‐length subjects using argument mapping along with dedicated software can produce remarkable increases in students’ critical thinking abilities. Introducing such specialised subjects, however, is often practically and politically difficult. This study ascertains student perceptions of the use of argument mapping in two large, regular, semester‐length classes in a Business and Economics Faculty at the University of Melbourne. Unlike the semester‐length expert‐led trials in prior research, in our study only one expert‐led session was conducted at the beginning of the semester and followed by class practice. Survey results conducted at the end of the semester, show that, with reservations, even this minimalist, ‘one‐shot inoculation’ of argument mapping is effective in terms of students’ perceptions of improvements in their critical thinking skills.

A Scalable GeoWeb Tool for Argumentation Mapping

Public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) support collaborative decision-making in the public realm. PPGIS provide advanced communication, deliberation, and conflict resolution mecha nisms to engage diverse stakeholder groups. Many of the functional characteristics of Web 2.0 echo basic PPGIS functions including the authoring, linking, and sharing of volunteered geographic information. However, with the increasing popularity of geospatial applications on the Web comes a need to develop concepts for scalable, reliable, and easy-to-maintain tools. In this paper, we propose a cloud computing implementation of a scalable argumentation mapping tool. The tool also illustrates the opportunities of applying a Web 2.0 model to PPGIS. The searching, linking, authoring, tagging, extension, and signalling (SLATES) functions are associated with PPGIS functionality to produce a participatory GeoWeb tool for deliberative democracy.

Using Social Network Analysis to Support Collective Decision-Making Process

Current traditional technologies, while enabling effective knowledge sharing and accumulation, seem to be less supportive of knowledge organization, use and consensus formation, as well as of collaborative decision making process. To address these limitations and thus to better foster collective decision-making around complex and controversial problems, a new family of tools is emerging able to support more structured knowledge representations known as collaborative argument mapping tools. This paper argues that online collaborative argumentation has the rather unique feature of combining knowledge organization with social mapping and that such a combination can provide interesting insights on the social processes activated within a collaborative decision making initiative. In particular, the authors investigate how Social Network Analysis can be used for the analysis of the collective argumentation process to study the structural properties of the concepts and social networks emerging from users’ interaction. Using Cohere, an online platform designed to support collaborative argumentation, some empirical findings obtained from two use cases are presented.

Rationale Argument Mapping Software

This software review focuses on using Rationale Argument Mapping Software to teach critical thinking skills in social work. Overall, the program is a great tool for helping students to think critically and precisely about their arguments.

Hi-Trees and Their Layout

We introduce hi-trees, a new visual representation for hierarchical data in which, depending on the kind of parent node, the child relationship is represented using either containment or links. We give a drawing convention for hi-trees based on the standard layered drawing convention for rooted trees, then show how to extend standard bottom-up tree layout algorithms to draw hi-trees in this convention. We also explore a number of other more compact layout styles for layout of larger hi-trees and give algorithms for computing these. Finally, we describe two applications of hi-trees: argument mapping and business decision support.

Climate Ethics: Structuring Deliberation by Means of Logical Argument Mapping

Climate Ethics: Structuring Deliberation by Means of Logical Argument Mapping

Argument mining based on a structured database and its usage in an intelligent tutoring environment

Argumentation theory is a new research area that concerns mainly with reaching a mutually acceptable conclusion using logical reasoning. Argumentation can be defined as a proof of dynamic nature and is considered as an ill-defined domain that typically lacks clear distinctions between “right” and “wrong” answers. Instead, there are often competing reasonable answers. Recently, a number of argument mapping tools have been developed to diagram, articulate, and comprehend different arguments. Despite the fact, these methods are of complementary nature, and the efforts for integrating these tools are missing. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) revealing a novel approach for argument representation using a structured relational argument database “RADB”, which has been designed, developed, and implemented in order to represent different argument analyses and diagrams, (2) presenting a classifier agent that utilizes the RADB repository by using different mining techniques in order to retrieve the most relevant arguments to the subject of search, and (3) proposing an agent-based educational environment (ALES) that utilizes the RABD together with the classifier agent to teach argument analysis.

Climate Ethics: Structuring Deliberation by Means of Logical Argument Mapping

Climate Ethics: Structuring Deliberation by Means of Logical Argument Mapping

Enabling Large-Scale Deliberation Using Attention-Mediation Metrics

Humanity now finds itself faced with a range of highly complex and controversial challenges – such as climate change, the spread of disease, international security, scientific collaborations, product development, and so on – that call upon us to bring together large numbers of experts and stakeholders to deliberate collectively on a global scale. Collocated meetings can however be impractically expensive, severely limit the concurrency and thus breadth of interaction, and are prone to serious dysfunctions such as polarization and hidden profiles. Social media such as email, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, and web forums provide unprecedented opportunities for interacting on a massive scale, but have yet to realize their potential for helping people deliberate effectively, typically generating poorly-organized, unsystematic and highly redundant contributions of widely varying quality. Large-scale argumentation systems represent a promising approach for addressing these challenges, by virtue of providing a simple systematic structure that radically reduces redundancy and encourages clarity. They do, however, raise an important challenge. How can we ensure that the attention of the deliberation participants is drawn, especially in large complex argument maps, to where it can best serve the goals of the deliberation? How can users, for example, find the issues they can best contribute to, assess whether some intervention is needed, or identify the results that are mature and ready to “harvest”? Can we enable, for large-scale distributed discussions, the ready understanding that participants typically have about the progress and needs of small-scale, collocated discussions?This paper will address these important questions, discussing (1) the strengths and limitations of current deliberation technologies, (2) how argumentation technology can help address these limitations, and (3) how we can use attention-mediation metrics to enhance the effectiveness of large-scale argumentation-based deliberations.