On the Logical Integrity of Children's Arguments

TLDR

The study investigates properties of children’s naturally occurring arguments. Arguments were sampled from transcripts of 20 discussions in four fourth‑grade classrooms. The study found that children’s arguments frequently contain vague expressions, lack explicit conclusions and explicit warrants, yet missing information is usually inferable from context; children rarely invoke general principles unless the foundation is disputed, and the data support a coherent account of their reasoning within informal deductivism augmented by speech‑act theory.

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate properties of children's naturally occurring arguments. The arguments were sampled from transcripts of 20 discussions held in 4 fourth-grade classrooms. The principal findings were that (a) children's arguments are filled with seemingly vague refemng expressions, (b) the arguments sometimes do not contain explicit conclusions, and (c) most arguments are missing--or seem to be missing-explicit warrants to authorize conclusions. The missing or obliquely identified information, however, usually is given in the text or preceding discussion or is a commonplace from everyday life and readily inferable by actively cooperative participants in the discussion. Children seldom back their arguments by appealing to general principles, except when the foundation for the argument is disputed or seems confusing. At a more general level, we conclude that it is possible to give a coherent account of children's arguments within the framework of informal deductivism augmented with speech act theory.