Measuring Argumentation Skills Through a Game-Enhanced Scenario-Based Assessment

This project aimed to develop an engaging formative assessment that simulates the social and dialogic processes that are often missing in traditional instruction and assessment of argumentation. In this article, we describe the design of an argumentative reasoning task within a scenario-based assessment enhanced with game elements ( Seaball—Semester at Sea). This Seaball task requires students to classify foods as “junk food” or not, by identifying relevant evidence to support their decisions and evaluating reasoning errors in others’ arguments. Data from a small-scale study of 42 middle school students revealed that students performed significantly better on questions requiring selection of appropriate evidence than questions requiring identification of logical fallacies. Additionally, students’ total scores were significantly correlated with external measures of argumentation skills, and with teacher’s ratings of their argumentative writing skills. Survey indicated that students perceived the game-enhanced scenario-based assessment as engaging. Implications for formative assessment are discussed.

EFFECT OF DIRECT EXPOSURE TO FOREIGN TARGET GROUPS ON DESCRIPTIVE STEREOTYPES HELD BY AMERICAN STUDENT

Seventy-seven American college students enrolled in a semester-at-sea program rated four target groups before and after exposure in their own national settings (in the case of English, French, and Italians), on a rating instrument (Peabody, 1968) designed to discriminate between descriptive and evaluative judgments in stereotyping. The primary purpose was to assess the effects of in vivo exposure on descriptive stereotypes. The greatest change was in the stereotypic profile of the English, with statistically significant shifts on 9 of 14 behavioral traits, mostly toward “loser” impulse expression. Descriptive stereotypes of the French, Italians, and Americans, and evaluative stereotypes of all four groups, received few statistically significant changes. For all groups, the trend reflected in pre-post evaluative judgments was in the favorable direction.