2021 Volume 62 Issue 1 Pages 119-131
The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is a relationship between children’s ability to self-assess arguments and argument skills, and if so, what kind of relationship exists. For this study, in order to examine the relationship between the two, a total of 65 children were surveyed via the task of describing their arguments as well as though the task of having the children self-evaluate their own arguments. These investigations were conducted during the implementation of the third- grade unit “Things and Weights,” which introduces an argument that included claim-evidence-reasoning. The results of the two surveys suggested the following: (1) children with high ability to self-assess arguments tended to have high argument skills, and (2) children with low ability to self-assess arguments tended to have low argument skills. Next, Interviews were conducted with 16 children who demonstrated varying levels of improvement in argument skills, asking for details of their self-assessment of their arguments. The results of the second survey revealed the following correlations: (1) children who were able to judge the success or failure of their own augments and to explain the problems of their own augments tended to have better argument skills, while (2) children who were unable to explain the problems of arguments tended not to have improved upon their argument skills.
