Analogies between Logic Programming and Linguistics for Developing Students' Understanding of Argumentation Texts

Aim/Purpose: Research shows that students encounter difficulties in identifying the structure of argumentation texts and in understanding the main message of the argument. The research examined the effect that learning Logic Programming (LP), while applying logic inference, has on students' und...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of information technology education 2018, Vol.17, p.549-575
Hauptverfasser: Ragonis, Noa, Shilo, Gila
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Aim/Purpose: Research shows that students encounter difficulties in identifying the structure of argumentation texts and in understanding the main message of the argument. The research examined the effect that learning Logic Programming (LP), while applying logic inference, has on students' understanding of argumentation texts. Background: Understanding an argumentation text means exposure to its structure, which requires the ability to identify the argument presented and to distinguish between the argument and its justifications. Argumentation is an important cognitive capacity for handling conflicting information, viewpoints, and opinions. Students' lack of ability to identify the structure of argumentation texts, and to understand its' main message, affects the understanding of texts in general, the writing of texts, and the presentation of oral arguments. Since Logic Programming is based on inference that is similar to the way in which people commonly believe that human inferential thinking is performed, our research approach was to investigate how learning LP in Computer Science affects the understanding of argumentation texts in Linguistics. Methodology: The research population included 319 11th-grade students from five high schools, divided into a study group and a control group. Students' understanding was tested using knowledge questionnaires after completing their language studies, before (pre-study) and after (post-study) a year of learning LP. The knowledge questionnaires included argumentation paragraphs where students were asked to give each paragraph a title and to analyze the argument structure. In addition, an attitudes questionnaire was administered at the end of the school year in order to examine the students' attitudes towards the connection between the two disciplines. The research applied a mixed method approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative methods. Contribution: The research and its' findings contribute to the previous body of knowledge with relation to students difficulties in understanding argumentation texts in Linguistics studies. Moreover, it suggests a new approach of using argumentation in the framework of inference as apply in LP to scaffold students' conceptions. The use of an interactive computerized system (like the logic programming language Prolog) can scaffold students in constructing their knowledge, develop their computational thinking skills, and also enables to vary the teaching methods. Findings: F
ISSN:1547-9714
1539-3585
DOI:10.28945/4163