Counterclaims and Refutations: An Analysis of Students' Handling of Opposing Arguments

This paper analyzes student writing to explore how students handle opposing arguments in an argumentative writing activity. Previous research has shown that handling opposition has a positive impact on the readers' perceptions of an argument, while holding a myside bias can weaken both a writer's ethos and the persuasiveness of the argument. The findings here show that many students succumb to myside bias, thus missing the opportunity to handle opposition beyond dismissive or unsubstantiated belief statements. Such statements are seen to weaken ethos and argument. Some students do refute opposing arguments and even qualify their claims with a balanced approach to opposition. This last approach of holding opposition in balance is not discussed in the myside bias literature but suggests an important approach for engaging in fair-minded reasoning. The fact that so many students are missing this essential critical thinking (and writing) skill suggests a need to develop better instruction, including assistance in transferring learning from other contexts where such skills may also have been called upon.