Reasoning About Disagreements: Instructional Design to Improve Thinking About Controversial Multiple Documents

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to develop instruction that enables students to learn, detect, and analyze disagreements among multiple conflicting texts. We developed a learning sequence to understand and to promote disagreement resolution in reasoning about conflicting information, which included (a) explanations regarding steps to analyze and identify reasons for disagreements, and (b) self-invention, peer discussion, and reflection on dialogic model of how to analyze disagreements. The goal was to help participants elaborate their reasoning about disagreements among conflicting information within and between texts. We conducted a scenario-based assessment to investigate students’ epistemic criteria after a three-session intervention. Results indicated that the current learning sequence led students to focus on details of studies that appeared in the multiple conflicting information to resolve disagreements.