Teaching case-based argumentation through a model and examples

Abstract

CATO is an intelligent learning environment designed to help beginning law students learn basic skills of making arguments with cases. Using CATO, students practice tasks of induction and analogical argumentation. They practice testing theories against a body of cases and making written arguments about a problem, comparing and contrasting it to past cases. CATO’s model addresses arguments in which two opponents analogize a problem to favorable cases, distinguish unfavorable cases, assess the significance of similarities and differences between cases in light of normative knowledge about the domain, and use that knowledge to organize multi-case arguments. CATO communicates the model to students by presenting dynamically-generated argumentation examples and by reifying argument structure based on the model. CATO also provides a case database and tools based on the model that help make students ’ tasks more manageable. CATO was evaluated in the context of an actual legal writing course, in a study involving 30 first-year law students. We found that instruction with CATO leads to statistically significant improvement in students ’ basic argumentation skills, comparable