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Mere Exposure to Dialogic Framing Enriches Argumentive Thinking

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Title: Mere Exposure to Dialogic Framing Enriches Argumentive Thinking
Language: English
Authors: Kuhn, Deanna, Modrek, Anahid (ORCID 0000-0002-0474-5777)
Source: Applied Cognitive Psychology. Sep-Oct 2021 35(5):1349-1355.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 7
Publication Date: 2021
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Persuasive Discourse, College Students, Scripts, Dialogs (Language), Essays, Writing (Composition), Citations (References), Connected Discourse
DOI: 10.1002/acp.3862
ISSN: 0888-4080
Abstract: Sixty college students either read a script of a dialog between two individuals holding contrasting positions on the issue of U.S. immigration or read texts containing their two individual position statements on the issue, expressing their same respective views. With this material removed from view, participants expressed in writing their own views on the issue. We asked whether exposure to the dialogic framing would have a greater effect on argumentive thinking, compared to non-dialogic presentation of the same arguments. Essays of the two groups differed in several ways. The dialog group showed greater investment in the task by writing more. Additionally, 78% of the dialog group (vs. 48% of the individual-position control group) made reference to the views they had read, despite no instruction to do so, over half referencing them in a comparative way (vs. 21% of the control group). The substance of the essays showed richer thought by the dialog group, including more "However" clauses (connecting two opposing statements) and more meta-level statements about the issue itself, supporting the hypothesis of a benefit of dialogic framing. Theoretical and educational implications are considered.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2021
Accession Number: EJ1307189
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0152247476;bu801sep.21;2021Sep06.02:22;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0152247476-1">Mere exposure to dialogic framing enriches argumentive thinking </title> <p>Summary: Sixty college students either read a script of a dialog between two individuals holding contrasting positions on the issue of U.S. immigration or read texts containing their two individual position statements on the issue, expressing their same respective views. With this material removed from view, participants expressed in writing their own views on the issue. We asked whether exposure to the dialogic framing would have a greater effect on argumentive thinking, compared to non‐dialogic presentation of the same arguments. Essays of the two groups differed in several ways. The dialog group showed greater investment in the task by writing more. Additionally, 78% of the dialog group (vs. 48% of the individual‐position control group) made reference to the views they had read, despite no instruction to do so, over half referencing them in a comparative way (vs. 21% of the control group). The substance of the essays showed richer thought by the dialog group, including more "However" clauses (connecting two opposing statements) and more meta‐level statements about the issue itself, supporting the hypothesis of a benefit of dialogic framing. Theoretical and educational implications are considered.</p> <p>Keywords: argument; dialog; discourse; metacognition; reasoning; writing</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-2">INTRODUCTION</hd> <p>Engaging students in discourse with peers is now widely endorsed as a promising means to engage them intellectually and to promote their own individual intellectual development (Applebee, 1996; Cazden, 2001; Hildebrandt & Musholt, 2020; Mehan & Cazden, 2015; Resnick et al., 2010). The view that thinking and reasoning are at heart dialogic is not a new one, with advocates ranging as far back as Socrates and Mead (1934), who claimed that no thinking is independent of social process. Contemporary writers such as Gergen (2015) carry forward this view of meaning as a relational achievement. An argument, Gergen asserts, depends for its meaning on how others respond. Others' reactions to my argument enrich and raise my confidence in its meaning. The philosopher Walton (2014) refers to dialog as the basis for analysis of argumentation.</p> <p>Among educators, the most direct influence on a dialogic view has been the sociocultural tradition that goes back to Vygotsky (1987), in taking the everyday social practice of argumentation as a starting point and pathway for development of individual argumentive thinking. In Vygotsky's terminology, the inter‐mental with practice becomes interiorized and transformed into the intra‐mental. Vygotsky's ideas are the most frequently cited as a foundation by those who advocate educational approaches that emphasize student talk as a key teaching and learning tool (Applebee, 1996; Cazden, 2001; Clarke et al., 2015; Howe & Zachariou, 2017; Järvelä et al., 2016; Kuhn, 2018, 2019; Matuk & Linn, 2018; van Drie & van de Ven, 2017). Knowledge, Applebee (1996) claims, "arises out of participation in ongoing conversations about things that matter, conversations that are themselves embedded within larger traditions of discourse." Instruction, he says, then becomes a matter of students learning to participate in such practice.</p> <p>Reviews of a growing literature are available on the success of peer discourse in classrooms (Cazden, 2017; Clarke et al., 2015; Lin et al., 2020; Mehan & Cazden, 2015; Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Murphy et al., 2014; O'Connor & Snow, 2018; Resnick et al., 2015; Van der Veen & Van Oers, 2017). This may be because thinking is inherently dialogic, as Gergen (2015) and Applebee (1996) claim. Or it can be seen merely as more motivating in dialogic context, because it lends purpose to the ideas being expressed, providing a guaranteed audience that supports their author's experience of agency and meaning in expressing them (Graff, 2003).</p> <p>Learning outcomes of peer discourse are largely reported to be favorable although not entirely (Littleton & Howe, 2010; Resnick et al., 2015), with benefits of the peer context less likely to be seen when the material to be learned does not depend on appreciating another's contrasting perspective (Kuhn, 2015). In applied settings, largely educational ones extending from elementary school through college, the extent of use of peer discourse as an instructional tool has yet to become widespread (Lin et al., 2020), despite the enthusiasm noted above. Major challenges have been identified as standing in the way of broader implementation of discourse‐based approaches (Resnick et al., 2018), most notably teachers' reported feelings of lack of competence in managing such discourse. These challenges are ones that Resnick et al. (2018) suggest are severe enough to threaten the use of such approaches entirely. Such a threat adds to the potential significance of exploration of alternatives, as undertaken in the present work.</p> <p>Despite these challenges, the concept of learning through discourse enjoys considerable face validity. We of course stand to learn much we do not know through exposure to the ideas of our peers as well as more knowledgeable elders. And by expressing our own ideas to others and have them react, we stand to clarify these ideas for ourselves. The power of discourse as an educational tool (including the extent and limits of this power) thus seem well worthy of investigation.</p> <p>In the work reported here, we seek to better understand the potential benefits and limitations of discourse as an educational tool by examining its borderline conditions. Can benefits be realized as effectively without face‐to‐face discourse, through text read or written, or even an unsent letter to an imagined recipient composed in solitude? Or does enacted, interpersonal discourse contribute something essential, as Mill (1859/1996) long ago proclaimed? New ideas must be heard, he said, "... from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them." And must our own ideas be presented to a critical audience that reacts to them if they are to become fully realized, as Gergen (2015) suggests?</p> <p>In recent research (Hemberger et al., 2017; Iordanou et al., 2019; Iordanou & Kuhn, 2020; Kuhn et al., 2019, 2020) we have explored ways to examine and identify more precisely the alleged benefits of argumentive discourse. One study (Iordanou & Kuhn, 2020) found that students who engaged in electronic dialogs (thereby eliminating the potentially influential affective factors that live discourse invokes) with a disagreeing peer on a social issue later wrote richer essays on the topic than did those whose collaboration was confined to agreeing partners, although all were provided identical information to draw on, in preparation for a final full‐group debate. Even debate restricted to agreeing peers, however, has been shown to produce some enrichment of an individual's argumentive thinking on an issue (Kuhn et al., 2019).</p> <p>There now exists some evidence that such an effect extends to the case in which the other is totally absent (Shi, 2020; Zavala & Kuhn, 2017). Participants working alone were asked to merely construct a hypothetical dialog between two opponents on an issue (vs. a simple individual essay on the topic), before offering their own argument in the form of a script for a TV spot. Arguments were richer among the constructed dialog group.</p> <p>Finally, evidence exists that the benefits of discourse extend beyond the context of the topic being discussed. We have documented the advantage participants show following extended engagement in electronic discourse with disagreeing peers on a succession of topics. Gains appear in both discourse skill and individual writing on new topics (Crowell & Kuhn, 2014; Hemberger et al., 2017; Kuhn & Crowell, 2011). Moreover, these gains are enhanced when e‐dialog partners are (unknown to participants) more accomplished individuals, leading us to propose an apprenticeship model of the development of discourse skills (Papathomas & Kuhn, 2017).</p> <p>In the present study, we ask whether the benefits of discourse extend to the case in which exposure to discourse occurs only second hand—a question if answered positively could conceivably open a door to the use of observed discourse as a pedagogical tool to enhance thinking and learning. In the situation we examine here, participants neither engage in dialog nor envision a hypothetical dialog. They simply read a dialogic script of the interchange between two individuals who hold contrasting positions on an issue. In a control condition the identical views are made available via individual position statements on the issue. Does a benefit of the exposure to the dialogic framework appear in the dialogic condition? Specifically, does simply the placement of ideas into a dialogic structure enhance the argumentive thinking of an individual exposed to them? If the view of thinking as essentially dialogic is correct, such an effect should be detectable. The few previous studies that have asked the question, however, have reported mixed results, either answering affirmatively (Cox et al., 1999), negatively (Jewett & Kuhn, 2016), or equivocally depending on participants' age group (Muldner et al., 2014).</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-3">METHOD</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0152247476-4">Participants</hd> <p>Participants were 60 undergraduate students at a private university in the Northeastern US. They participated for course credit. Genders were equally represented. Ethnicities were diverse but Caucasians were the most represented group with one quarter representing a variety of other ethnicities.</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-5">Task and design</hd> <p>The issue that participants were asked to address was illegal immigration, specifically to choose and justify a position on whether undocumented immigrants to the United States should be allowed to stay (STAY position) or forcibly returned to their home country (GO position). As a sociopolitical topic to ask participants about, we chose this as one that is a prevalent contemporary topic of discussion that college students will have had opportunities to develop opinions on. But in addition to its current significance, we considered the topic a particularly apt one for our purposes because of its complexity and hence cognitive demands on participants. A fully adequate, comprehensive treatment of the issue demands recognition of at least two competing sets of considerations, those of a society and its laws and those of an individual who has reason to violate them. Individuals whose justifications for their chosen position pertain solely to one of these two considerations arguably have not offered a comprehensive, well‐reasoned argument regarding the issue. The material participants were presented prior to expressing their own views afforded them reasoned accounts of the STAY and GO positions, either in dialogic or individual format. Doing so eliminated the possibility that a participant was not aware of possible arguments addressing both sides of the issue, leaving in question, rather, which arguments the participant regarded as relevant in justifying their own position.</p> <p>Of central interest to us in examining participants' own subsequent justifications was the extent to which they expressed justifications that reflected the more comprehensive, dual perspective surrounding the issue and the inherent tension it reflected—a perspective we have argued is necessary for full understanding of this complex issue. Our objective in introducing the material prior to soliciting their views was not to change participants' positions on a STAY/GO continuum, but rather only to evaluate its potential influence on the depth of understanding of the issue they subsequently expressed.</p> <p>Our research question was whether the two forms of the presented material, otherwise identical in substance, would differentially influence the argumentive thinking they expressed in offering their own view. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two intervention conditions, implemented prior to soliciting their own thinking on the issue. Participants in the dialog condition (<emph>n</emph> = 27) were asked to read the dialog between Ben and Sam shown in Table 1. Participants in a control (text) condition (<emph>n</emph> = 33) read two passages (with order counterbalanced across participants), one by Ben and one by Sam, that contained the same content (set of reasons) but conveyed in individual texts in which Ben and Sam each presented the same set of reasons that they had expressed in the dialog but presented them in an individual position statement.</p> <p>1 TABLEDialogic condition text</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>Ben and Sam are sitting at the airport waiting for their flight and watching the TV screen. when a segment on immigration pops up. Ben starts a conversation.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: I believe you have to send them back. They have no right to be in the US.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: Why do you say they don't have a right?</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Because they broke the law. The US is a country based on laws and rules.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But these laws were made by the people of this country. The laws could always be changed.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about what should happen under existing laws.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: Okay, I'll accept that. But then what about those who entered as children? They didn't knowingly break the law.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Okay then let's limit our discussion to those who knowingly came as adults. So they must go back.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: Will that accomplish anything? They'll just try to come back.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Not if there's a secure border. It's supposed to being built right now. That will solve the problem of people bringing their children illegally and the problem of children growing up illegally in the US can go away.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But is a border wall realistic? How much would that cost?</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: The estimates say a totally secure wall would be very difficult and costly to build. So I agree it probably won't happen at least anytime soon.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: So wouldn't that money on border walls and border guards be better spent on all the many needs of people in the USA?</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Maybe, but then we haven't solved our problem of what to do about people entering illegally.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But I believe that many of them need to come because they are escaping danger in their own countries.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Then they can apply as refugees. There's a program for that.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But maybe they're in immediate danger.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: But maybe they're not and only pretending.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: Refugees are subject to long investigation to make sure their stories are true. And anyway, if they're applying legally as refugees they aren't part of the problem of illegal entering that we're talking about... people who aren't necessarily in danger and enter illegally just because they want a better life.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: They should be refused entry.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But what if they're already here? That's what we're supposed to be talking about. Why send them back?</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: One reason is that they are taking away jobs from Americans who need them.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: What is the evidence for this?</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Unemployment rates are high. Lots of Americans need jobs.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But only in some fields. Immigrants are willing to take jobs Americans don't want, just to get a start.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: But what if they don't get a job? They will become a burden to the US to support them. The US may even have to give them job training and educate their children, which is very expensive. They have to learn English.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: But then they can contribute and become useful members of US society.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: Does that happen often?</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: Yes, there are many examples of immigrants who become doctors, lawyers, scientists.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: But why should they come? Why not stay in their own country and contribute to it?</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: Because that's not the American way. America is a country of immigrants. Do you know what is written on the Statue of Liberty to welcome all who enter? "Give me your tired, your poor...".</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: But if the US let's anyone in who wants to come, it could be too much for the US to give them all the help they need to get started.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: As I said, a great many succeed. Why not give anyone who wants it a chance to come and work hard to succeed?</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: If it's easy to get into the US, more and more people will be encouraged to come. It could get out of control and people born in the US or already here wouldn't have their needs met.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: So a system needs to be set up to decide who gets priority to come.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: But the US does have a system for deciding the cases of people who apply to enter legally. It just maybe isn't the best or fairest one and isn't working very well at the moment.</td></tr><tr><td>Sam: You have a point. So maybe we should put all efforts into figuring out a better system for people who want to come and help them to do it legally.</td></tr><tr><td>Ben: I agree, that would be best. So maybe our disagreement isn't so great. But there are many factors to consider – we agree on that – so the task isn't going to be an easy one.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0152247476-6">Procedure</hd> <p>The study was conducted as an online activity which students completed on their own at their convenience and was not timed. In both conditions this material disappeared from view before the participant knew what they might be asked to do with it. Once it was removed from view, the following instruction appeared:</p> <p>Ben and Sam end up coming to a common conclusion. But their reasons and their thinking about the problem are very different. In a short opinion piece (100‐300 words), describe how you think about this important problem.</p> <p>The instruction, note, did not include a request to evaluate Ben or Sam's positions. Instead, our interest lay in whether any influence of the presented material on the student's own opinion essay would vary as a function of whether it was presented in dialogic or non‐dialogic form.</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-7">RESULTS</hd> <p>Analysis of the written essays participants produced examined possible differences across conditions that could be attributable to the influence of the material they had been asked to read. In particular we wished to know whether the dialog (vs. individual texts) had led to any deeper processing of, and/or effect of, the material that would manifest itself in their own essays. Essays were segmented into idea units, and incidences of each of these attributes were identified in all essays. Results are summarized in Table 2. A second rater blind to the hypothesis and participant's condition rated a randomly chosen half of the essays in each condition with respect to each of the attributes and achieved inter‐rater agreements ranging from 79% (for text reference, kappa = 0.76) to 88% (for meta statements, kappa = 0.90). Agreement for <emph>However</emph> clauses was 83% (kappa = 0.88). Differences were resolved by discussion.</p> <p>2 TABLEComparison of dialog and non‐dialogic conditions in mean frequencies or proportions showing select attributes</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><th align="left">Attribute</th><th align="left">Dialogic condition</th><th align="left">Non‐dialogic condition</th><th align="left">Examples</th></tr></thead><tbody valign="top"><tr><td>Number of words written</td><td>234.89</td><td>183.94</td><td /></tr><tr><td>Reference to both STAY and GO positions</td><td>70%</td><td>34%</td><td>Each solution has drawbacks.</td></tr><tr><td>However clauses, connecting two opposing assertions</td><td>67%</td><td>18%</td><td>A lot of people do not support immigration because they think the people hopping the borders are rapists, murderers, drug dealers...etc., but when really that is only a very very small percentage.</td></tr><tr><td>Meta‐statements about topic</td><td>37%</td><td>6%</td><td>It is difficult to determine what is the right solution to this problem in general that will please everyone involved.</td></tr><tr><td>Reference to provided text</td><td>78%</td><td>48%</td><td>I agree with Sam.</td></tr><tr><td>Comparative reference to text positions</td><td>56%</td><td>21%</td><td>I understand where both Sam and Ben are coming from in their arguments.Ben had a better argument.</td></tr><tr><td>Mean number of comparative references</td><td>1.18 (range 0–5)</td><td>0.21 (range 0–1)</td><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>An initial and the most superficial indicator in Table 2 is essay length. Students in the Dialogic condition overall wrote somewhat longer essays than those in the Text (control) condition, a mean of 234.89 (<emph>SD</emph> = 67.58) versus 183.94 (<emph>SD</emph> = 48.72) words (<emph>t</emph> = 3.389, <emph>p</emph> < .001).</p> <p>Further indicators address the content or substance of what participants wrote. Differences across conditions on these indicators can be distinguished according to whether they reflect implicit influences of the material presented, as the participant does not directly refer to this material, or explicit influences, that is, participants directly reference the material they had been presented. We begin with implicit indicators.</p> <p>A common criterion in assessing quality of an argumentive essay is whether it addresses both sides of the issue, a criterion especially salient in the case of the present topic, as argued earlier. As seen in Table 2, essays in the Dialogic condition were more likely to do so, including mention of merits and/or drawbacks of both the Stay and Go positions.</p> <p>We further examined the structural complexity of an essay, specifically by examining whether and how the writer connected arguments for or against opposing positions. As shown in Table 2, students in the Dialogic condition more often included what we term <emph>However</emph> clauses (Hemberger et al., 2017; Iordanou et al., 2019; Shi, 2019). These are clauses of one to two contiguous sentences that juxtapose two opposing assertions and connect them, typically with a conjunction such as "however" or "although" that acknowledges their opposition. To be categorized as a However clause, the two statements must genuinely be in opposition to or inconsistent with one another (see Table 2 example). A sentence that has its superficial form but was not categorized as a However clause, for example, is this one: <emph>Although I believe that an excessive amount of immigrants in the country is negative, I do not think that all immigrants should be viewed in a bad way</emph>. (The prevalence of immigrants does not connect directly to how immigrants are viewed.)</p> <p>Finally, we identified meta‐statements about the topic itself, as distinguished from expression of the writer's position on the topic, an indicator found salient in previous studies (Iordanou et al., 2019; Kuhn & Zillmer, 2015; Shi, 2019). In the present context, it suggests that the writer is thinking more deeply about the topic than simply stating his or her own views, for example by noting that the topic is a difficult one or that people have many different views on it. As seen in Table 2, participants in the Dialogic condition more often included such meta‐statements in addition to expressing their own views on the topic.</p> <p>A second set of indicators involved explicit evidence of the writer having been influenced by the dialogic or non‐dialogic passages that had been presented to them earlier. Of particular note, first of all, is how frequently writers referred to the texts they had been asked to read, despite the absence of any suggestion or requirement to do so. The proportions of respondents making such reference, moreover, was greater in the Dialogic condition—78% and 48% of essays in the Dialogic and Non‐dialogic (text) conditions respectively included one or more references to one or both of the individuals' positions presented in the respective texts. Furthermore, respondents in the Dialogic condition making such reference were more likely to address both positions, identifying a contrast or a similarity between them (<emph>X</emph><sups>2</sups> = 7.542, <emph>p</emph> < .01), and to make more such inferences (<emph>p</emph> < .01, Table 2). There is thus evidence that both conditions were influential and that the Dialogic text was more influential.</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-8">DISCUSSION</hd> <p>The data presented here contribute to a dialogic perspective on thought by extending the effect of dialog to a borderline condition in which no actual dialog occurs (Shi, 2020; Zavala & Kuhn, 2017). If the view of thinking as essentially dialogic is correct, the placement of ideas into a dialogic structure should enhance their role in the argumentive thinking of individuals exposed to them in beneficial ways. This hypothesis was supported.</p> <p>The present study provides a particularly stringent test of this hypothesis since participants did not know what if anything they would be asked to do with the dialogic or non‐dialogic text they were asked to read. Moreover, the administration format provided no assurance that they read the material thoroughly or that they read it at all, possibly at most glancing at it quickly. Furthermore, after the text disappeared, the instructions to participants did not ask them to connect their responses to the text they had read. They were asked simply to express their views on the topic.</p> <p>The resulting essays differed in a number of different ways summarized in Table 2, as a function of whether presentation of the dialogic or non‐dialogic text had preceded them. How should these differences be explained?</p> <p>One likely possibility is that college students expect to be asked to respond to material they are asked to read and therefore read the material with this expectation in mind. This expectation should have applied equally across conditions, however. Hence it does not account for the greater number of words written by those in the dialogic condition, nor for any of the other differences that appeared between conditions, including the dialog group's greater reference to the characters portrayed in the text nor the greater structural complexity of their own statements.</p> <p>Another possibility is that the differences that did appear are due to the fact that participants found the dialogic text more interesting and engaging and for this reason became more engaged in the task. The slightly longer essays by the dialogic group is consistent with this interpretation. However, less easy to reconcile with it are the qualitative differences identified. The respective positions of the two characters Ben and Sam were neatly summarized in the non‐dialogic condition, which arguably might have facilitated evaluation and comparison of their positions. Yet it was the dialogic group who more often compared their two positions, as well as overall made more references to them.</p> <p>Finally, the greater structural complexity of dialogic participants' writing is not readily explained on motivational grounds, and in our view this complexity is what best identifies the advantage conferred by the dialogic format. This level of complexity is reflected in meta‐statements and especially in the "Yes, but" structure of the However category of statements that were more frequent in the dialogic group's essays. This difference perhaps best captures what dialog can do: "Yes there's that, but note there's also this that bears on it that we must consider." In the present case dialog encompassed this juxtapositional "However" structure in a way that modeled it and prompted writers to organize their own ideas into such a structure. In other words, the dialogic frame may leave the reader with a deeper understanding of two contrasting positions on an issue and the precise relations they bear to one another. Although further investigation will be required to confirm it, this benefit appears to extend to the case in which an individual merely reads the type of material we presented.</p> <p>Authors and editors of newspaper and magazine articles have long been concerned to offer readers "balanced" views of a contentious issue. For the most part, however, such public treatments appear more similar to our non‐dialogic control condition, i.e., the opposing views are presented sequentially (first one is fully expressed, then the other), than to the dialogic condition in the present study. Only after full exposition of one view does the typical newspaper article note that "Others have questioned this view, claiming ..." If such an article is presented in the increasingly popular audio mode, this difference between the two modes is even more pronounced, since the listener in the non‐dialogic context is unable or unlikely to return to the first view to consider exactly how the two views relate.</p> <p>The more explicitly educational implications of the present findings are also of note. Of course, educators would like to engage students at all levels in actual peer discourse to the full extent possible, even if circumstances dictate that it be conducted remotely. But what we claim to show here is that the structure of dialog itself is facilitative. A primary outcome variable in educational studies designed to promote development of argument skills is the incidence of discourse moves in which students address one another's claims via counterarguments and rebuttals (Hemberger et al., 2017; Iordanou et al., 2019; Iordanou & Constantinou, 2015; Kuhn, 2018; Larrain et al., 2020; Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017; Shi, 2019). Simply modeling what such argumentive discourse looks like, as Papathomas and Kuhn  (2017) did in electronic dialogs between more capable adults and young teens, and as we did in the dialogic condition of the present study, appears to have a positive effect. The effectiveness of modeling of desirable strategies to good effect is especially notable given that it contradicts studies going back as far as Kuhn and Ho (1980) and then Jewett and Kuhn (2016) and Muldner et al. (2014), all of which report that students must be active agents to accrue cognitive benefit and observing a peer's use of them does not confer the same benefit (Chi et al., 2008; Chi, 2009). Observers in such studies likely gain something from observing a peer's engagement with challenging material, but it may take closer investigation to identify exactly what that is.</p> <p>The present findings suggesting a modeling effect take on particular significance as educators have turned increasingly to technologically delivered formats of instruction, albeit much of it still directed to rote learning. Arvidsson and Kuhn  (2021) make the argument that while technology promises the benefits of individualization, its potential remains far from fully realized, in particular with respect to supporting higher‐level thinking. Here, asking the right questions at "just in time" moments is critical in supporting the metacognitive reflection that supports growth. Arvidsson and Kuhn (2021) show that a social context remains important in such contexts. In addition to supporting this view, the present study expands the range of possibilities in providing the social context of cognition.</p> <p>None of this is to deny that discourse is fraught with challenge. Misunderstanding and heightened affect can increase polarization and simplistic, unidimensional thinking (Kuhn et al., 2020). Yet at a time in human history when unidimensional and unilateral thinking are all too prevalent, reasoned discourse becomes even more critical, especially in the face of opposing positions that demand at a minimum to be recognized and considered if not reconciled.</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-9">CONFLICT OF INTEREST</hd> <p>The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.</p> <hd id="AN0152247476-10">DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT</hd> <p>The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.</p> <ref id="AN0152247476-11"> <title> REFERENCES </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Applebee, A. (1996). Curriculum as conversation. University of Chicago Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Arvidsson, T. S., & Kuhn, D. (2021). Realizing the full potential of individualizing learning. 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  Data: Mere Exposure to Dialogic Framing Enriches Argumentive Thinking
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kuhn%2C+Deanna%22">Kuhn, Deanna</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Modrek%2C+Anahid%22">Modrek, Anahid</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0474-5777">0000-0002-0474-5777</externalLink>)
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Applied+Cognitive+Psychology%22"><i>Applied Cognitive Psychology</i></searchLink>. Sep-Oct 2021 35(5):1349-1355.
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  Data: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Persuasive+Discourse%22">Persuasive Discourse</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Students%22">College Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Scripts%22">Scripts</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Dialogs+%28Language%29%22">Dialogs (Language)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Essays%22">Essays</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Writing+%28Composition%29%22">Writing (Composition)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Citations+%28References%29%22">Citations (References)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Connected+Discourse%22">Connected Discourse</searchLink>
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  Data: 10.1002/acp.3862
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  Data: Sixty college students either read a script of a dialog between two individuals holding contrasting positions on the issue of U.S. immigration or read texts containing their two individual position statements on the issue, expressing their same respective views. With this material removed from view, participants expressed in writing their own views on the issue. We asked whether exposure to the dialogic framing would have a greater effect on argumentive thinking, compared to non-dialogic presentation of the same arguments. Essays of the two groups differed in several ways. The dialog group showed greater investment in the task by writing more. Additionally, 78% of the dialog group (vs. 48% of the individual-position control group) made reference to the views they had read, despite no instruction to do so, over half referencing them in a comparative way (vs. 21% of the control group). The substance of the essays showed richer thought by the dialog group, including more "However" clauses (connecting two opposing statements) and more meta-level statements about the issue itself, supporting the hypothesis of a benefit of dialogic framing. Theoretical and educational implications are considered.
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