Scripting Argumentation in Technology- Enhanced Learning: a Proposed System Architecture

Argumentative knowledge construction is an important component of critical thinking. Learners who collaboratively argue about a subject can potentially develop domain knowledge and have the opportunity to use evidence critically in order to make sense of the subject under consideration. Moreover learners have to take into account claims and evidence of each other during argumentation and in this way they develop mental models for argument construction and sequence. However, research indicates that learners tend to be inconsistent in distinguishing claims and theories from evidence that support them. Furthermore they rarely know how to efficiently construct knowledge through argumentation. In this regard, the use of collaboration scripts can assist learners to understand and participate in argumentative discourse while facilitating the process of argumentative knowledge construction. Unfortunately, this need for scripting argumentation is poorly reflected in the design of computer-based environments which mostly do not incorporate scripts. This paper provides a unifying view of the functional characteristics of existing argumentation tools and also analyzes the major features of collaboration scripts. Furthermore the paper presents a proposed system architecture for a computer-based tool that supports argumentative knowledge construction integrating also collaboration scripts for guiding students’ individual and group work. The architecture provides a coarse-grained description of the system components and describes user facilities that need to be considered in a script-based system.