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ERIC Number: EJ1178372
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1937-0814
EISSN: N/A
Classroom Debates in Middle School Social Studies: Moving from Personal Attacks to Evidence and Reasoning
Duhaylongsod, Leslie
Middle Grades Research Journal, v11 n2 p99-115 2017
Using transcripts of 6 classroom debates that took place in 4 urban schools, the present study takes a closer look at what middle school students do during classroom debates in the context of a social studies curriculum designed to support student argumentation in debate. Two coding schemes were used to analyze student comments in the transcripts: argumentative moves and the quality of grounds (reasons/evidence used to support a claim). Results show that: (a) students used textual evidence to support their arguments over a third of the time (37.6%), which is a higher rate than what might be expected given previous studies; (b) students connected their evidence to their claims 20.3% of the time (also a much higher rate than what might be expected given previous studies); and (c) argumentative moves were related to text-based grounds quality at a statistically significant level (p = 0.006). Students were more likely to support positions with textual evidence than support oppositions and supporting comments with textual evidence. Implications for middle school practice are discussed.
IAP - Information Age Publishing, Inc. P.O. Box 79049, Charlotte, NC 28271-7047. Tel: 704-752-9125; Fax: 704-752-9113; e-mail: infoage@infoagepub.com; Web site: http://www.infoagepub.com/middle-grades-research-journal.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy (Rome); Greece; Egypt
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305F100026