The Six-Sentence Argument: Training Critical Thinking Skills Using Peer Review

Abstract

The six-sentence argument (6SA) is an exercise to train critical thinking skills. Faced with a decision situation, students argue for their preferred course of action using a logical structure of exactly six sentences. Through a guided peer review, students engage critically with other students’ arguments and receive detailed feedback on their own arguments. This exercise helps students craft convincing arguments and reflect on their reasoning in a format that can be applied in real-world situations. A key strength of the six-sentence argument exercise is that it can be administered online and is scalable for large courses with little additional workload for the instructor.

Keywords

critical thinking peer review peer assessment online learning argument writing skills

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Athanassiou

McNett

J. M.

Harvey

(2003). Critical thinking in the management classroom: Bloom’s taxonomy as a learning tool. Journal of Management Education, 27, 533-555.

Balfour

S. P.

(2013). Assessing writing in MOOCs: Automated Essay Scoring and Calibrated Peer Review™. Research & Practice in Assessment, 8(3), 29-41.

Burke

L. A.

Rau

(2010). The research-teaching gap in management. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 9, 132-143.

Dewey

(1910). How we think. Boston, MA: D. C. Heath.

Ennis

R. H.

(1996). Critical thinking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Fisher

(2011). Critical thinking. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Flavell

J. H.

(1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34, 906-911.

Glaser

E. M.

(1941). An experiment in the development of critical thinking. New York, NY: Teachers College, University of Columbia.

Lovelace

K. J.

Eggers

Dyck

L. R.

(2016). I do and I understand: Assessing the utility of web-based management simulations to develop critical thinking skills. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 15, 100-121.

10.

Toulmin

(1958). The uses of argument. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.20 MB