Analyzing Conversational Argumentation Skills: Practices of 720 Elementary School Children in Grades 2, 4, and 6

This contribution presents main findings from a research project analyzing 180 peer conversations of (Swiss German) elementary school children solving agreement tasks. We first discuss challenges in reconstructing school-grade–related forms of conversational argumentation skills. Combining conversation-analytically informed quantitative and qualitative approaches, we then present main findings from three analytical perspectives: (1) a more process-oriented perspective examining pragmatic means (conversational actions) used to establish argumentative progression, (2) a perspective that also includes the logical-structural dimension focusing on the topoi used to build arguments, and (3) a macro-perspective that analyzes stretches of argumentative activity in terms of argumentative episodes. The analysis reveals that older children increasingly orient toward patterns of argumentative discourse activity, producing justifications more frequently, which are more proactive, complex, and context-sensitive.