Teaching critical questions about argumentation through the revising process: Effects on college students' argumentative essays

The effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) revising instruction for college students that targeted the use of argumentation schemes and critical questions were assessed in three conditions. In the first condition, students were taught to revise their essays by asking and answering critical questions about the argument from consequences and argument from example schemes while writing about controversial topics. In the second condition, students were taught to revise their essays by using argumentation schemes to justify their standpoint, but did not learn the critical questions. In the third condition, students received no instruction about either the argumentation schemes or the critical questions. Compared to students in the contrasting conditions, those who were taught to ask and answer critical questions wrote essays that were of higher quality, and included more counterarguments, alternative standpoints, and rebuttals. It was also found that students in the two treatment conditions used argument from consequences and argument from example more frequently after they learned these argumentation schemes than students in the control condition. These findings indicate that strategy instruction that includes critical standards of argumentation increases college students' sensitivity to alternative perspectives.