Debate lessons improve critical thinking skills

© 2022 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Kids benefit when we teach them critical thinking skills.

What's the best fashion to practise it?

Studies suggest that explicit lessons in logic and reasoning are effective, so much and so that they may really improve a child's IQ.

But few kids encounter such lessons, even in high schoolhouse.

Yes, students might option upwards logical principles every bit they study mathematics or science. They are frequently asked to present arguments in the form of written essays. And, yes, these experiences can be helpful.

Experiments propose that students are more than probable to principal a topic when they are forced to explain it to another person. And most of us have noticed that the act of writing tin can clarify our thoughts.

Writing can brand united states aware of gaps in our understanding. It can force is to discover gaps in our explanations. Missing data. Logical flaws. In principle, writing may encourage students to construct better arguments.

Just it'southward non articulate how many kids better their critical thinking skills through writing. Based on the studies I've seen, I don't recollect writing alone is very effective.

Perchance that's considering students lack the perspective to critique their own work.

Ask students to contend a example, and they might be pretty good at naming a few reasons in support of their argument. Merely they rarely consider counterarguments, disconfirming prove, or the merits of the opposing view.

These are the points raised past researchers Deanna Khun and Amanda Powell. They think students need someone to argue confronting. They need an intelligent critic. A person to play Devil'due south advocate.

And that'due south where debate comes into information technology. Not the silly, sloppy, emotional exchanges that laissez passer for debate on Telly and the cyberspace. But the real matter: Disciplined, logical, responsive, evidence-based argumentation with another person.

Should we be preparation kids in the art of argue? As Kuhn and Powell annotation, fence forces kids to consider 2 perspectives, not just their own. It encourages kids to anticipate objections to their arguments. To answer counterarguments. To counterbalance the show on both sides.

And then the researchers designed and tested a 3-year debate curriculum on a group of lower income, American, heart schoolhouse students.

Here'due south how.

The kids started the plan when they were in the 6th grade. Xl-eight kids were assigned to a philosophy class that emphasized debate. A control group of 28 kids were assigned to attend a like form that featured instructor-led discussion and essay writing, merely lacked any training or practice in contend.

At the beginning of the study, kids were tested on their ability to reason about a controversial outcome. Then the coursework begin: Two fifty-minute lessons each week.

What kids did in grade

For kids in the fence-based course, lessons were organized around four controversial topics. Each topic took almost 13 weeks to complete.

Teachers would begin each thirteen-week term by presenting a controversy—like euthanasia—and asking kids to accept sides. Then the teams worked in groups to prepare for a debate.

Team members would spend several sessions building a case in support of their position. They'd think of reasons and evaluate them. They'd endeavour to anticipate what the opposition would argue, and prepare counterarguments and rebuttals. Then they'd rehearse—pairing off with other members of their team holding mock debates on the estimator, via software for instant messaging.

Why the computer? The researchers knew that adolescents were well-acquainted with instant messaging, and the typed dialogs gave researchers a written record of the students' reasoning. Kuhn and Powell as well thought that a written dialog would encourage kids to reflect.

Each term culminated in a showdown between teams. The debate was led by ii spokespeople—1 elected from each team—who could confer with their teammates for assist. Like the practice runs, the real argue took place on the computer.

What kids learned

At the cease of each school year, kids were tested on their reasoning abilities. Their scores were compared with the scores of the control group—kids who has spent the year discussing and writing nearly similar controversial problems, only without whatsoever practice in contend.

How did things turn out?

When asked to write essays about a new controversy, the kids with the debating experience showed more sophistication.

Argue-trained students submitted more dual-perspective arguments–i.e., arguments that mentioned the claims of opposing points of view.

At the end of the third year, students in the debate group went fifty-fifty further: They submitted essays that discussed the costs and benefits of each position.

Kuhn and Powell call this an integrative perspective, and it was significantly less common among kids in the control grouping.

The contend kids also distinguished themselves in some other mode. They seemed meliorate at figuring out what new data would help resolve the controversy.

Researchers asked kids to consider their need for evidence:

"Are there any questions y'all would desire to have answers to that would assistance you make your argument?"

The debate-trained kids came up with more such questions. In improver, their questions were more pertinent to forming a general judgment about the effect.

No quick set up

The debate plan developed by Kuhn and Powell seems successful. But it's no quick fix. And doing it correct means getting the details right. For case:

1. Kids didn't begin the programme with an appreciation for evidence. They had to exist taught.

At the end of Yr One, teachers started presenting students with questions that were pertinent to the argue. Questions like "How humanely are animals treated in laboratories?" or "Has animal inquiry led to whatever cures?" In subsequent years, students were encouraged to generate and research their own questions. Gradually, kids began to see how of import it was to respond these questions. But it took time and practise.

2. Kids were given explicit teacher feedback about the strength and weaknesses of their arguments.

For the concluding session of each term, teachers debriefed students, going over transcripts of the contend and creating a diagram that summarized what was constructive or ineffective nigh each squad's presentation. Teams were rewarded points for good moves and demerits for bad moves—similar unwarranted assumptions and unconnected responses. The points were tallied and the winning team was declared.

An investment worth making?

Did Kuhn and Powell create the optimal program? Perhaps not. This is only the beginning study of its kind to get published. More research should help usa tease apart which aspects of the program were the virtually effective. But Kuhn and Powell accept taken an of import outset pace.

Meanwhile, they make a persuasive case for teaching debate.

Informal classroom discussion doesn't seem to exist an especially effective fashion to foster critical thinking skills. And I doubtable that debate lessons might help shrink the achievement gap between students of lower and higher socioeconomic status.

In many middle class families, parents try to mold behavior past reasoning with their kids. They encourage give and take. They explain the reasons for rules and invite kids to negotiate—every bit long as they can make persuasive, well-reasoned arguments. I retrieve one anthropologist's quip that the American intelligentsia train their children to talk like lawyers.

Presumably, children of professional thinkers would turn a profit from lessons in debate. But kids from backgrounds of lower socioeconomic status—where negotiation and argue are often discouraged—might turn a profit fifty-fifty more.

So I'm inclined to think that adding debate to the curriculum is a skillful investment for lodge equally a whole. We might exist laying the foundation for a more enlightened culture, with ameliorate-informed voters, more rational jurors, and citizens more appreciative of science.

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References: Fence improves critical thinking skills

Kuhn D and Powell A. 2011. Dialogic Argumentation as a Vehicle for Developing Young Adolescents' Thinking. Psychological Science. March 21 [Epub ahead of print]

For references regarding the common practices of middle class parents, see my commodity about administrative parenting.

wilsonthapecou.blogspot.com

Source: https://parentingscience.com/debate-improves-critical-thinking-skills/

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