The effect of a graph‐oriented computer‐assisted project‐based learning environment on argumentation skills

The purpose of this quasi‐experimental study was to explore how seventh graders in a suburban school in the United States developed argumentation skills and science knowledge in a project‐based learning environment that incorporated a graph‐oriented, computer‐assisted application. A total of 54 students (three classes) comprised this treatment condition and were engaged in a project‐based learning environment that incorporated a graph‐oriented, computer‐assisted application, whereas a total of 57 students (three classes) comprised the control condition and were engaged in a project‐based learning environment without this graph‐oriented, computer‐assisted application. Verbal collaborative argumentation was recorded and the students' post essays were collected. A random effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted and a significant difference in science knowledge about alternative energies between conditions was observed. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted and there was a significant difference in counterargument and rebuttal skills between conditions. A qualitative analysis was conducted to examine how the graph‐oriented, computer‐assisted application supported students' development of argumentation skills and affected the quality of collaborative argumentation. The difference in argumentation structure and quality of argumentation between conditions might explain a difference in science knowledge as well counterargument and rebuttal skills (argumentation) between both conditions. This study concluded that a project‐based learning environment incorporating a graph‐oriented, computer‐assisted application was effective in improving students' science knowledge and developing their scientific argumentation skills.     

Coalitions of arguments: A tool for handling bipolar argumentation frameworks

Bipolar argumentation frameworks enable to represent two kinds of interaction between arguments: support and conflict. In this paper, we turn a bipolar argumentation framework into a meta‐argumentation framework where conflicts occur between sets of arguments, characterized as coalitions of supporting arguments. So, Dung's well‐known semantics can be used on this meta‐argumentation framework to select the acceptable arguments. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Implementation of Web‐based argumentation in facilitating elementary school students to learn environmental issues

This research develops a Web‐based argumentation system named the Web‐based Interactive Argumentation System (WIAS). WIAS can provide teachers with the scaffolding for argumentation instruction. Students can propose their statements, collect supporting evidence and share and discuss with peers online. This research adopts a quasi‐experimental design, applying WIAS to the teaching of environmental issues, including mudslides, global warming and nuclear power. Fifty‐seven elementary school fifth graders from two classes participated in this research. With each class as a unit, they were divided into the WIAS group (n = 30) and the traditional argumentation instruction (TAI) group (n = 27). Before research, all students took the pre‐test of the ‘achievement test for environmental issues (ATEI)’ and the ‘environmental literacy scale (ELS).’ Then all students received argumentation training and six classes of argumentation instruction. Students in the WIAS group performed argumentation in the WIAS, while those in the TAI group performed argumentation in a traditional classroom. After the six‐class argumentation instruction, all students took the post‐test of the ATEI and ELS. The results show that students in the WIAS group have significantly better learning effectiveness than those in the TAI group. Students in the WIAS group also exhibited significantly better improvement in their environmental literacy.     

The effects of computerized inquiry‐stage‐dependent argumentation assistance on elementary students' science process and argument construction skills

This study proposed a computerized inquiry‐stage‐dependent argumentation assistance and investigated whether this can help improve elementary students' performance in science processes and the construction of quality arguments. Various argumentation assistances were developed and incorporated into each stage of scientific inquiry in a computer‐supported scientific inquiry system. A nonequivalent quasi‐experimental design was adopted to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach. Two intact sixth grade classes (N = 55) participated in this study, and each student used a tablet computer to accomplish the designated inquiry activities. One class of students was arranged to use the stage‐dependent argumentation assistance, and the other used a generic text‐based interface. The findings indicate that students who used the stage‐dependent argumentation assistance could acquire significantly better science process and argument construction skills than those using the generic text‐based interface.     

A cross‐cultural study of the effect of a graph‐oriented computer‐assisted project‐based learning environment on middle school students' science knowledge and argumentation skills

The purpose of this mixed‐methods study was to explore how seventh graders in a suburban school in the United States and sixth graders in an urban school in Taiwan developed argumentation skills and science knowledge in a project‐based learning environment that incorporated a graph‐oriented, computer‐assisted application (GOCAA). A total of 42 students comprised the treatment condition and were engaged in a project‐based learning environment that incorporated a GOCAA. Of these 42 students, 21 were located in the United States and 21 were located in Taiwan. A total of 26 students comprised the control condition and were engaged in a project‐based learning environment without the GOCAA. Of these 26 students, 15 were in the United States and 11 were in Taiwan. In each country, verbal collaborative argumentation was recorded and the students' post‐essays were collected. A one‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for each measure of science knowledge about alternative energies. The results showed a significant treatment effect for the outcome of scientific explanation among U.S. students, while among Taiwanese students, a significant treatment effect on scientific facts was observed. A one‐way ANOVA was additionally conducted for each measure of argumentation skills and a significant treatment effect on counterarguments and rebuttals was observed among the U.S. students, while in Taiwan, a significant treatment effect on reasoning and rebuttals was observed. A qualitative analysis was conducted to examine how the GOCAA supported students' development of argumentation skills in different countries. This study found distinct argumentation patterns between the U.S. and Taiwanese intervention teams. Additionally, a distinct gender difference in the use of evidence and division of labour was noted when the Taiwanese teams were compared with the U.S. teams, which may be explained by cultural differences. This study concluded that, in both the United States and Taiwan, a project‐based learning environment incorporating a GOCAA was effective in improving students' science knowledge and developing their scientific argumentation skills.     

Exchanging and countering points of view: a linguistic perspective on school students' use of electronic conferencing

Abstract The ability to argue is an important academic goal in secondary education. This paper reports on an exploratory study which investigated how asynchronous text‐based conferencing provides a new site for school students to rehearse and develop their skills in argumentation. The study used linguistic tools of analysis to investigate two key questions:

• ? How is argumentation structured in asynchronous text‐based conferencing?
• ? How do students use language to negotiate their position on an issue?

The originality of our study lies in the use of a functional linguistic method of analysis which provides unique insights into how students use language to argue, insights that can inform teaching and learning both in school history (the context for this paper) and more generally. Our interest in language is based on the premise that it is central to the learning process – a premise supported by work in socio‐cultural psychology and systemic functional linguistics. The most significant findings to emerge from the analysis were that (1) counter‐argumentation was rare; and (2b) the more tentatively a claim is phrased the more likely it is that students will challenge or counter it.     

Hybrid job offer recommender system in a social network

Recommender systems (RSs) play a very important role in web navigation, ensuring that the users easily find the information they are looking for. Today's social networks contain a large amount of information and it is necessary that they employ a mechanism that will guide users to the information they are interested in. However, to be able to recommend content according to user preferences, it is necessary to analyse their profiles and determine their preferences. The present work proposes a job offer RS for a career‐oriented social network. The recommendation system is a hybrid, it consists of a case‐based reasoning (CBR) system and an argumentation framework, based on a multi‐agent system (MAS) architecture. The CBR system uses a series of metrics and similar cases to decide whether a job offer is likely to be recommended to a user. Besides, the argumentation framework extends the system with an argumentation CBR, through which old and similar cases can be obtained from the CBR system. Finally, a discussion process is established amongst the agents who debate using their experience from past cases to take a final decision.     

Promoting argumentation in primary science contexts: an analysis of students' interactions in formal and informal learning environments

The paper reports on the outcomes of a study that utilized a graphical tool, Digalo, to stimulate argumentative interactions in both school and informal learning settings. Digalo was developed in a European study to explore argumentation in a range of learning environments. The focus here is on the potential for using Digalo in promoting argumentative interactions of students in primary science, first, in a school‐based context of students investigating and learning about electricity, and second, in a hands‐on science discovery centre where students are interacting with different scientific phenomena. Data sources included observations of students using Digalo in the two contexts and the resultant Digalo maps. Analysis of observations focused on students' engagement and interactions, and of Digalo maps in terms of the process and content of argumentation. A previously developed level system was used to evaluate the process of argumentation. The study has revealed some limitations of Digalo as a teaching resource, but has provided insights into ways in which students build their knowledge with the help of Digalo as they interact with each other and with scientific phenomena.     

Handling threats,rewards, and explanatory arguments in a unified setting

Current logic‐based handling of arguments has mainly focused on explanation or justification‐oriented purposes in presence of inconsistency. So only one type of argument has been considered, and several argumentation frameworks have then been proposed for generating and evaluating such arguments. However, recent works on argumentation‐based negotiation have emphasized different other types of arguments such as threats, rewards, and appeals. The purpose of this article is to provide a logical setting that encompasses the classical argumentation‐based framework and handles the new types of arguments. More precisely, we give the logical definitions of these arguments and their weighting systems. These definitions take into account that negotiation dialogues involve not only agents' beliefs (of various strengths), but also their goals (having maybe different priorities), as well as the beliefs on the goals of other agents. In other words, from the different beliefs and goals bases maintained by agents, all the possible threats, rewards, explanations, and appeals that are associated with them can be generated. It may also happen that an intended threat, or reward, is not perceived as such by the addressee and thus misses its target because the addresser misrepresents the addressee's goals. The proposed approach accounts for that phenomenon. Finally, we show how to evaluate conflicting arguments of different types. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 20: 1195–1218, 2005.     

基于工作流的装备需求论证项目管理系统的设计与实现

针对目前装备需求论证流程缺少科学的方法论指导、缺少规范的管理机制、信息文档不便于整理、装备需求论证各要素之间相互关系复杂且动态多变等问题,基于工作流技术,设计并实现了一套支持装备需求论证的项目管理系统,该系统能够以在线方式辅助装备需求论证人员基于定义好的论证流程开展武器装备的需求论证工作,并提供了论证进度监控等功能,提高了工作效率,安全性高。     

战争设计工程专家群体研讨模型*

针对战争设计工程中专家群体研讨问题,根据研讨的主题以及目标,将专家群体研讨划分为三类:寻求信息研讨、质询研讨和商议研讨。在研讨类型划分的基础上,建立了战争设计工程群体专家研讨模型。该模型主要用于对战争设计工程中专家群体研讨过程建模,有利于专家对研讨进程的了解。最后阐述了该模型在战争设计工程中的应用。     

A logic of argumentation for specification and verification of abstract argumentation frameworks

In this paper, we propose a logic of argumentation for the specification and verification (LA4SV) of requirements on Dung??s abstract argumentation frameworks. We distinguish three kinds of decision problems for argumentation verification, called extension verification, framework verification, and specification verification respectively. For example, given a political requirement like ??if the argument to increase taxes is accepted, then the argument to increase services must be accepted too,?? we can either verify an extension of acceptable arguments, or all extensions of an argumentation framework, or all extensions of all argumentation frameworks satisfying a framework specification. We introduce the logic of argumentation verification to specify such requirements, and we represent the three verification problems of argumentation as model checking and theorem proving properties of the logic. Moreover, we recast the logic of argumentation verification in a modal framework, in order to express multiple extensions, and properties like transitivity and reflexivity of the attack relation. Finally, we introduce a logic of meta-argumentation where abstract argumentation is used to reason about abstract argumentation itself. We define the logic of meta-argumentation using the fibring methodology in such a way to represent attack relations not only among arguments but also among attacks. We show how to use this logic to verify the requirements of argumentation frameworks where higher-order attacks are allowed [A preliminary version of the logic of argumentation compliance was called the logic of abstract argumentation?(2005).]     

Argumentation mining

Argumentation mining aims to automatically detect, classify and structure argumentation in text. Therefore, argumentation mining is an important part of a complete argumentation analyisis, i.e. understanding the content of serial arguments, their linguistic structure, the relationship between the preceding and following arguments, recognizing the underlying conceptual beliefs, and understanding within the comprehensive coherence of the specific topic. We present different methods to aid argumentation mining, starting with plain argumentation detection and moving forward to a more structural analysis of the detected argumentation. Different state-of-the-art techniques on machine learning and context free grammars are applied to solve the challenges of argumentation mining. We also highlight fundamental questions found during our research and analyse different issues for future research on argumentation mining.     

分级论辩系统的逻辑研究

近年来,形式论证已逐渐成为人工智能领域的研究热点之一。自Dung于1995年提出抽象辩论框架起,学术界普遍认为论辩的核心任务是在各种基于外延的语义下对论点集进行评估,以确定其辩护状态。分级论辩系统(Graded Argumentation System,GAS)是对经典Dung型论辩系统(Dung-style Argumentation System,DAS)的推广,通过一般化DAS语义的两个核心性质,即无冲突性和可接受性,来提供更细化的论点状态概念。当前的论辩系统语义等效性研究主要集中在框架和论点层次上,可为其结构约简提供有力的保证。针对两个不同分级论辩系统中论点的语义等效问题,首先运用分级模态逻辑(Graded Modal Logic,GML)形式化分级论辩系统的片段,然后建立并证明了分级论辩系统基于外延的语义和GML公式之间的一一对应关系,最后定义分级互模拟关系并证明其蕴含分级论辩系统的4个重要的语义等价性。     

Dynamics of argumentation systems: A division-based method

The changing of arguments and their attack relation is an intrinsic property of a variety of argumentation systems. So, it is very important to efficiently figure out how the status of arguments in a system evolves when the system is updated. However, unlike other areas of argumentation that have been deeply explored, such as argumentation semantics, proof theories, and algorithms, etc., dynamics of argumentation systems has been comparatively neglected. In this paper, we formulate a general theory (called a division-based method) to cope with this problem based on a new concept: the division of an argumentation framework. When an argumentation framework is updated, it is divided into three parts: an unaffected, an affected, and a conditioning part. The status of arguments in the unaffected sub-framework remains unchanged, while the status of the affected arguments is computed in a special argumentation framework (called a conditioned argumentation framework, or briefly CAF) that is composed of an affected part and a conditioning part. We have proved that under a certain semantics that satisfies the directionality criterion (complete, preferred, ideal, or grounded semantics), the extensions of the updated framework are equal to the result of a combination of the extensions of an unaffected sub-framework and sets of the extensions of a set of assigned CAFs. Due to the efficiency of the division-based method, it is expected to be very useful in various kinds of argumentation systems where arguments and attacks are dynamics.     

On-line synchronous scientific argumentation learning: Nurturing students' argumentation ability and conceptual change in science context

The purpose of this study is to examine the difference in effectiveness between two on-line scientific learning programs – one with an argumentation component and one without an argumentation component – on students' scientific argumentation ability and conceptual change. A quasi-experimental design was used in this study. Two classes of 8th grade students (the experimental group) received the on-line scientific argumentation learning program about chemical reaction, and the other two classes of 8th grade students (the control group) received the same on-line scientific learning program about chemical reaction, but without argumentation, for two weeks. All 140 students were administered the scientific conception test, conceptual change test, and argumentation test before, one week after, and eight weeks after learning. In addition, the experimental group students' on-line argumentation process was collected. Results showed that the students of the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group, regardless of scientific conceptions, conceptual change, and argumentation. Regression results indicated that hold of scientific conceptions is the best predicator for students' conceptual change, followed by argumentation ability. The quantity and quality of scientific arguments that students generated in a series of argumentation questions improved across the four topics. In addition, students also successfully changed their conceptions from pre- to post-driving questions across four topics. This clearly demonstrates that students' argumentation ability and conceptual change were both facilitated through receiving the on-line Synchronous Argumentation science learning program.     

Dialectical Argumentation with Argumentation Schemes: An Approach to Legal Logic

This paper describes an approach to legal logic based on the formal analysis of argumentation schemes. Argumentation schemes a notion borrowed from the .eld of argumentation theory - are a kind of generalized rules of inference, in the sense that they express that given certain premises a particular conclusion can be drawn. However, argumentation schemes need not concern strict, abstract, necessarily valid patterns of reasoning, but can be defeasible, concrete and contingently valid, i.e., valid in certain contexts or under certain circumstances. A method is presented to analyze argumentation schemes and it is shown how argumentation schemes can be embedded in a formal model of dialectical argumentation.     

基于论证关系判别的议论文句子排序研究

议论文自动生成是自然语言生成中一项极具挑战性的任务,与诗歌、故事等生成任务不同,所生成的文章需要句子语义明确、论证结构清晰并合理地表达出核心论点。上述特点使得现有的预训练模型难以准确地建模并自动生成,因此传统的检索式方法成为解决该问题的主要方式。但前人方法在句子检索和排序过程中只考虑了语义相关度,忽视了对逻辑论证关系的判别,导致语义不连贯、论证逻辑倒置等问题。针对上述问题,该文将自然语言推理应用于论证关系逻辑判别任务,提出了基于显式语义结构的论证关系逻辑判别方法,新模型在论证判别数据集上取得优于以往自然语言推理模型的效果。同时将论文判别结果作为显式特征应用于议论文句子排序模型,在议论文生成数据集中有效改善了排序模型的逻辑不一致问题并进一步提升了议论文生成系统的总体性能。     

辩论的逻辑模型研究综述

辩论的逻辑模型是哲学、逻辑学和人工智能等多个领域的研究课题,在非单调推理、法律推理、决策支持和多Agent交互等领域有广泛应用。文中首先简要阐述辩论及辩论模型的基本概念。然后从对辩论建模和用辩论建模两个方面对目前的研究进行总结,分析现有的有影响的辩论模型特点及其存在的问题。最后,指出今后的研究方向和发展趋势。     

一种基于时态的扩展值辩论框架

时间是用来描述辩论过程以及辩论活动变化的一个重要因素,在辩论框架中加入时间因素是积极的。本文结合Dung的标准辩论框架以及Bench-Capon的基于值的辩论框架,提出了基于时态的扩展值辩论框架。首先分析了Dung的辩论框架以及Bench-Capon的值辩论框架在时态以及辩论值方面描述的局限性及需求,然后结合这些需求提出了基于时态的扩展值辩论框架,给出了完整的框架结构和语义描述,证明了基于时态的扩展值辩论框架满足Dung提出的标准辩论框架的一些基本定理。