Causal Reasoning in Argumentative Contexts in the Classroom

Abstract

Abstract

The current education system in Colombia demands the development of scientific reasoning as a foundation for teaching and learning processes in the classroom. However, research has shown that students face difficulties with inferential processing and critical comprehension, which limits their ability to analyze and synthesize information and to solve complex problems. This study aims to describe the development of causal reasoning in secondary school students within a learning context based on argumentation around socio-scientific issues, highlighting the need to explore how this type of reasoning emerges and how it can be strengthened. A qualitative approach was adopted, privileging a dialogic-discursive analysis of argumentative productions from 150 cases selected through purposive sampling, identifying patterns and levels of causal relationships. The results reveal that causal relationships in students’ argumentative productions are predominantly multicausal, and that the structure of causal argumentation becomes progressively more complex as the number of statements included in viewpoints increases, as well as the types of causal relationships established between justifications and viewpoints, and among different argumentative lines. These findings suggest the need to engage students in activities that explicitly promote inferential processes and more complex ways of structuring reasoning. Consequently, the study proposes implementing strategies based on the mediation of argumentative reasoning as a tool for the development of causal reasoning, thereby fostering actions oriented towards strengthening it.