Argument Construction, Argument Evaluation, And Decision-Making: A Content Analysis Of Argumentation And Debate Textbooks

ARGUMENT CONSTRUCTION, ARGUMENT EVALUATION, ANDDECISION-MAKING: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ARGUMENTATION ANDDEBATE TEXTBOOKSby NEIL BUTTMay 2010Advisor: Dr. Kelly YoungMajor: CommunicationDegree: Doctor of PhilosophyCritical thinking abilities, especially the advanced critical thinking abilities required fordecision-making, are important to both individuals and democratic policymaking processes.Previous studies have indicated that argumentation and debate instruction can improve criticalthinking abilities, but there are reasons to believe that current approaches are not as effective atdeveloping decision-making ability as they could be, in part because they focus too heavily onargument construction, rather than argument evaluation and decision-making. In order to testwhich approaches to teaching argumentation and debate best encourage decision-makingabilities, researchers need to know which elements are included in current argumentation anddebate textbooks. No comprehensive reviews of the content of argumentation and debatetextbooks exist, however, so it has not been possible to test and compare approaches.A content analysis of 73 currently available argumentation and debate textbooksdemonstrated that: (a) most textbooks provide students with the basics of argument construction,argumentation theory, and how to evaluate individual claims; (b) many textbooks providestudents with important precursors for decision-making; (c) none of the textbooks provides acomprehensive approach to decision-making that includes a structure or framework for