Facilitation and Intervention of Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation
One crucial question for educational institutions at all levels is how best to foster the development of scientific reasoning and argumentation skills. Recent research has identified the strong potential of digital technologies to provide corresponding support. However, less technology-intense environments may also be designed in a way that is conducive to the development of skills related to scientific reasoning and argumentation. Therefore, several PhD projects will deal with questions of how scientific reasoning and argumentation can be fostered with and without the use of digital technologies in order to develop principles for the design of successful interventions.
Exemplary topics, research questions and possible project advisors:
| Topic | Exemplary research question | Possible project advisors |
| Argue-Table and Argue-Wall: New technologies to analyze and facilitate scientific argumentation | How can new technologies such as Argue-Table and Argue-Wall help to analyze and facilitate collaborative argumentation in small groups? | Prof. Dr. Heinrich Hußmann Prof. Dr. Frank Fischer |
| Fostering collaborative argumentation in Biology and Mathematics with collaboration scripts | How can students’ collaborative argumentation in Biology and Mathematics be fostered with computer-supported collaboration scripts? What roles do the students’ internal argumentation-related scripts play? What epistemic emotions are affected by different internal and external scripts? |
Prof. Dr. Ingo Kollar Prof. Dr. Birgit Neuhaus Prof. Dr. Stefan Ufer |
| Fostering diagnostic competence and decision-oriented argumentation with authentic and performance-based assessment in Medical Education | How can diagnostic competence and decision-oriented argumentation be measured with an innovative and performance-based assessment instrument?
How can feedback foster diagnostic competence and decision-oriented argumentation of students at different expertise levels, with different attention levels and with different epistemic emotions? |
Prof. Dr. Martin Fischer Prof. Dr. Jan-Willem Strijbos Prof. Dr. Ingo Kollar |
| Fostering scientific reasoning by playing recreational computer- or online-games | How can recreational computer- and online-games foster the development of skills and competences related to scientific reasoning? | Prof. Dr. Heinrich Hußmann Prof. Dr. Birgit Dorner |
| Prerequisites and facilitating instructional conditions of scientific reasoning and argumentation skills in university students in the context of educational science and psychology | To what extent and how do university students of psychology and educational science learn to evaluate and use evidence in reasoning and argumentation about problems of practice? Which individual prerequisites can be identified for these skills? | Dr. Moritz Heene Prof. Dr. Frank Fischer |