Differences in student reasoning about belief-relevant arguments: a mixed methods study
This mixed methods study investigated high school students’ evaluations of scientific arguments. Myside bias occurs when individuals evaluate belief-consistent information more favorably than belief-inconsistent information. In the quantitative phase, participants (n = 72 males) rated belief-consistent arguments more favorably than belief-inconsistent arguments; however, they also rated strong arguments more favorably than weak arguments, which indicated they did not evaluate the arguments exclusively on whether they were belief-consistent. In the follow-up qualitative phase, we conducted interviews with purposefully-sampled students who showed either higher or lower levels of myside bias. Results indicated that students in both groups applied normative evaluation criteria to the arguments. However, students who showed little or no myside bias applied the same evaluation criteria to arguments independent of whether they were belief-consistent, whereas students who showed high levels of myside bias applied different evaluation criteria to belief-inconsistent arguments. These findings suggest that procedural and conceptual metacognition may play a role in the extent to which individuals reason independent of their beliefs.
This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11409-015-9148-0
Files
Metadata
Work Title | Differences in student reasoning about belief-relevant arguments: a mixed methods study |
---|---|
Access | |
Creators |
|
Keyword |
|
License | In Copyright (Rights Reserved) |
Work Type | Article |
Publisher |
|
Publication Date | October 10, 2015 |
Publisher Identifier (DOI) |
|
Deposited | August 09, 2023 |
Versions
Analytics
Collections
This resource is currently not in any collection.