Original Paper

Human Development 2019;62:146–164 Published online: June 6, 2019

DOI: 10.1159/000500171

Critical Thinking as Discourse

Deanna Kuhn
Teachers College Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Keywords
Critical thinking · Argumentation · Dialogue · Discourse-centered learning ·
Writing

Abstract
Less than it is an individual ability or skill, critical thinking is a dialogic practice people
engage in and commit to, initially interactively and then in interiorized form with the
other only implicit. An argument depends for its meaning on how others respond. In ad-
vancing arguments, well-practiced thinkers anticipate their defeasibility as a conse-
quence of others’ objections, in addition to envisioning their own potential rebuttals.
Whether in external or interiorized form, the dialogic process creates something new,
while itself undergoing development. This perspective may be useful in sharpening the
definition of the construct of critical thinking and in so doing help to bring together the
largely separate strands of work examining it as a theoretical construct, a measurable skill,
and an educational objective. Implications for education follow. How might critical think-
ing as a shared practice be engaged within educational settings in ways that will best sup-
port its development? One step is to privilege frequent practice of direct peer-to-peer
discourse. A second is to take advantage of the leveraging power of dialogue as a bridge
to individual argument – one affording students’ argumentative writing a well-envisioned
audience and purpose. Illustrations of this bridging power are presented. Finally, implica-
tions for assessment of critical thinking are noted and a case made for the value of com-
mitment to a high standard of critical thinking as a shared and interactive practice.
© 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel

Practitioners and scholars alike have long been invested in the construct of crit-
ical thinking. School leaders at all levels cite critical thinking as an objective in their
mission statements and promotional literature and are rarely questioned in this re-
gard. Who would not wish their own or anyone’s child to become a critical thinker?
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© 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel Deanna Kuhn

Teachers College Columbia University
E-Mail karger@karger.com 525 W. 120th Street
Lund University Libraries

www.karger.com/hde New York, NY 10027 (USA)

E-Mail dk100 @ tc.columbia.edu
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And who would be better situated than educational institutions to undertake the
task?
How is it that the construct of critical thinking has remained so alive and widely
regarded, in the absence of much development of it as a construct? Efforts to define
critical thinking, in either theoretical terms or empirical ones (via tests to measure it),
have existed for decades, but none has yet emerged as the right or best one. Robert
Ennis, a scholar having one of the longest records of work devoted to critical think-
ing, acknowledged in a recent article that he has defined critical thinking in the same
way for over 30 years, calling it “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding
what to believe or do’’ (Ennis, 2018, p. 166), a definition that leaves much remaining
to be specified.
Likely contributing to this state of affairs is the weak at best links that exist among
(a) theoretical definitions at an abstract level, (b) the items on measures of critical
thinking, (c) the thinking people do in their everyday lives, and (d) what to do to fos-
ter critical thinking. If the construct is to be useful in practice, teachers want to know
what they should do in the classroom that will enable students to merit the label of
critical thinkers and to perform better on indicators of it. One of the objectives of the
present article is to help bring together the largely separate strands of work on critical
thinking as a theoretical construct, a measurable skill, and an educational objective,
taking an interpersonal perspective to do so.
One of several contemporary trends worth noting in this regard has been a move
away from conceptual definitions of critical thinking at an abstract level, in favor of
definitions that are tied more closely to specific cognitive behaviors that can be iden-
tified and observed. This has been seen most strikingly in the new U.S. common core
standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010). Although not their pri-
mary purpose, they reframe critical thinking as skills of argument and emphasize
these as an instructional goal at all age levels and across the curriculum. Argument
encompasses both production and evaluation and both written and verbal commu-
nication channels. Similarly, the Next Generation Science Standards (2013) identify
argumentation, along with inquiry, rather than critical thinking, as central to scien-
tific thinking. Inquiry and argument can be regarded as twin pillars of skilled think-
ing, replacing the more generic critical thinking label, if we regard inquiry as an input
process of seeking and analyzing new information and argument as an output process
of drawing and communicating justified conclusions (Kuhn, 2001). Inquiry and ar-
gument as broad categories leave plenty of need for more fine-grained delineation,
but the terms get us closer to empirically identifiable skills or behaviors than does the
term critical thinking, while capturing much of what critical thinking is envisioned
to encompass.
A second, related trend is increased specificity with regard to instructional meth-
ods, bringing theorists into closer connection with practitioners. In marked contrast
to his prior writing on the topic, Ennis (2018) now devotes almost the entirety of his
most recent article to a proposed curriculum to foster critical thinking, spelled out in
concrete, implementable detail. While not as specific, other recent authors are con-
sistent in their greater focus on instructional methods for fostering critical thinking
(Byrnes & Dunbar, 2014; Hitchcock, 2015; Murphy, Rowe, Ramani, & Silverman,
2014; Rapanta, 2019; Szenes, Tilakaratna, & Maton, 2015).
A third trend connects closely to the first two in strengthening the link to prac-
tice. It consists of increasing recognition that critical thinking is best examined in its
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developmental context. Tracing a developmental progression helps us to understand
an achievement in its final form, as well as providing guideposts toward this end. A
developmental model is thus crucial in relation to educational goals. In their pioneer-
ing work, King and Kitchener (1994) recognized the role and value of a developmen-
tal framework, as have numerous writers following them (Byrnes & Dunbar, 2014;
Jiménez-Aleixandre & Puig, 2012; Kuhn, 1999, 2001; Moshman, 2005, 2015; Toplak,
West, & Stanovich, 2014). Finally, the view of critical thinking as developing with en-
gagement and practice plays a central role in the dialogic view that is to be our focus
here. Critical thinking is not an individual ability that qualifies one for admission to
the shared practice. Rather, it is through engaging in the practice that it develops.
A fourth trend is recognition that critical thinking is at least as much a disposi-
tion as it is a skill or ability. Earlier theorists such as Ennis (1987) may have acknowl-
edged the role of disposition but accorded less emphasis to it. Since then, it has be-
come more frequently mentioned and even come to assume a front-and-center role
(Facione, 2000; Hamby, 2015; Kuhn, 2005; Mercier & Sperber, 2011; Moshman, 2005,
2015). Why must disposition to engage in it be a dimension central to critical think-
ing? One of the least debatable characteristics of critical thinking is that it is effortful.
A critical thinker consistently exercises epistemic vigilance, according to Mercier and
Sperber (2011). What provides the motivation to do so? If critical thinking is not ex-
ercised, one’s ability to exercise it counts for little. Because of the considerable effort
entailed in critical thinking, disposition to exercise it should not be regarded as hab-
it but rather as willful intention, purpose, and conviction (Weinstock, Kienhues,
Feucht, & Ryan, 2017). An implication is that we must study critical thinking in con-
texts of everyday use in order to examine and begin to understand the factors that
contribute to disposition, as opposed to competence, to exercise it.
We have begun by highlighting these contemporary trends because they are
promising ones in advancing critical thinking as a construct but also more particu-
larly because they are consistent with the dialogic conceptualization of critical think-
ing that is advanced here. At the very least, the four trends indicated identify charac-
teristics the construct of critical thinking should have if it is to prove itself useful. It
should be concretely linked to behavior in measurable ways, emphasize disposition
rather than simply competence, and define a construct that is amenable to develop-
ment, again in measurable ways. The dialogic definition we examine here fulfills these
criteria.

A Dialogic View

A dialogic view of thinking is by no means entirely new. Its roots are indeed an-
cient, going back perhaps as far as Socrates but certainly to Mead (1934) and to Vy-
gotsky (1937/1987). Mead claimed that no thinking is independent of social process.
It is through the reactions of others that we construct meaning, a view represented in
modern social science in the constructionist theories of Gergen (2015), in which
meaning is regarded as a relational achievement. Arguments, Gergen claims, depend
for their meaning on how others respond. Others’ reactions to my idea raise my con-
fidence in its meaning.
Extending this view of thinking more specifically to the construct of critical
thinking, critical thinking is a dialogic practice people commit to and thereby become
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disposed to exercise, more than an individual ability or skill. Critical thinking as dia-
logue is engaged initially interactively and then with practice in interiorized form
with the other only implicit. In addition to advancing arguments to support a claim,
critical thinkers anticipate their defeasibility as a consequence of others’ objections,
as well as envisioning their own potential rebuttals. In the process, all of these are re-
fined, expanded, and even transformed. With continued engagement, and individual
and social commitment to its value, the practice of critical thinking grows in quality
and power. This view of critical thinking is proposed as a fruitful framing of the con-
struct, rather than a restrictive definition. It does not preclude the occurrence of crit-
ical thinking in non-dialogical contexts, as illustrated later.
With respect to philosophical underpinnings, a dialogic view of critical thinking
draws foremost on the work of Walton (2014), who refers to dialogue theory as “the
underlying structure on which to base the analysis and evaluation of argumentation”
(p. 1). Walton attributes to Grice (1975) the introduction of dialogic theory to mod-
ern analytical philosophy and its further development to van Eemeren and colleagues
(van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 1992), who emphasize the need to evaluate arguments
within their conversational context. According to Grice, an argument should be eval-
uated on the basis of its collaborative value as a contribution to dialogue.
Within psychology, and specifically with respect to developmental origins, Pia­
get’s (1952) ideas have been highly influential in characterizing the child as construct-
ing understanding based on interactions in the physical and social world. Of most
direct influence on a dialogic view, however, has been the sociocultural tradition that
goes back to Vygotsky (1937/1987), in taking the everyday social practice of argumen-
tation as a starting point and pathway for development of individual argumentative
thinking. In Vygotsky’s terminology, the inter-mental with practice becomes interi-
orized and transformed into the intra-mental. Vygotsky’s ideas are the most fre-
quently cited as a foundation by those who advocate educational approaches that
emphasize student talk as a key teaching and learning tool (Applebee, 1996; Cazden,
2001; Clarke, Resnick, & Rosé, 2015; Kuhn, Zillmer, Crowell, & Zavala, 2013; Mercer
& Littleton, 2007; van Drie & van de Ven, 2017). Knowledge, Applebee (1996) claims,
“arises out of participation in ongoing conversations about things that matter, con-
versations that are themselves embedded within larger traditions of discourse.” In-
struction, he says, then becomes a matter of students learning to participate in such
practice.
It in fact is not too great a leap from a traditional definition of critical thinking
to its recasting as a dialogic activity. This is so especially if we emphasize its disposi-
tional aspect. Ennis’s long-standing definition of critical thinking as “… deciding
what to believe or do” implies that the critical thinker is disposed to engage in a re-
flective process of thinking about his or her own thinking and action. Deciding im-
plies considering and weighing alternatives, an activity one must be disposed to un-
dertake if it is to occur. Further, the committed critical thinker’s willingness to engage
in this effortful reflective process rests on the conviction that it is worthwhile – that
one’s beliefs warrant careful scrutiny, in a framework of identifiable alternatives and
available evidence. One is implicitly holding them up for inspection, which includes
inspection by the hypothetical “reasonable person” whoever that might be taken to
be. Underlying this willingness is the conviction that something of value will be yield-
ed by the process. In so doing, the critical thinker expects the beliefs of others to be
open to this same process of scrutiny. In sum, practitioners of critical thinking have
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indicated their willingness, indeed commitment, to enter into conversation, making
their beliefs available for scrutiny by both real and imagined others, as well as willing-
ness and commitment to devote similar scrutiny to the beliefs of others.

Educating Critical Thinkers

The theoretical view of critical thinking as discourse has practical implications

regarding how critical thinking can be engaged in within educational settings in ways
that will best support its development and commitment to its use. A primary one is
this: To the extent such discourse is regularly engaged in, encouraged, and valued, its
quality should improve and its participants will benefit. In the remainder of this ar-
ticle, we explore this proposition with respect to both current and potential educa-
tional practice.
We begin with current practice. A number of recent collections and reviews of a
growing literature are available (Cazden, 2017; Clarke et al., 2015; Mehan & Cazden,
2015; Murphy et al., 2014; O’Connor & Snow, 2018; Resnick, Asterhan, & Clarke,
2015; van der Veen & van Oers, 2017). To succinctly summarize it, discourse has be-
come an increasing presence in pre-college classrooms, and observed outcomes are
largely favorable. However, major challenges have been identified as standing in the
way of successful implementation of discourse-based approaches (Resnick, Asterhan,
Clarke, & Schantz, 2018), challenges that, as they suggest, are severe enough to threat-
en their existence entirely.
Potential benefits of intellectual discourse practiced in educational settings in-
clude not only enhancement of the quality and productivity of this discourse itself,
but the thinking engaged in by individuals, which in academic settings is most com-
monly expressed and assessed in students’ writing – the latter of particular signifi-
cance given the wide concern on the part of educators regarding weaknesses in ex-
pository writing on the part of students of all ages. There exist as well potential knowl-
edge gains and social benefits, but here we address only the first two – discourse and
the bridge we believe lies between it and individual, typically written, argument.
Discourse in classrooms is not all of one mold (Mehan & Cazden, 2015). In an
early yet still frequently practiced form it is teacher-centered, with all exchanges oc-
curring between the teacher and a series of individual students. Presence of students’
voices has long been the exception in traditional classrooms, and to the extent heard
at all have consisted largely of a student’s response to a question posed by a teacher
who expects one of a narrow range of answers, which the teacher affirms. A modest
advance over this form of student talk is a teacher’s solicitation of a sequence of stu-
dents’ ideas on a topic but with the teacher expressing no or minimal reaction to a
student’s contribution before moving on to the next student. At most, a teacher might
engage a single student in dialogue lasting several turns, inviting the student to clar-
ify or elaborate.
Rare until recent years is another form of classroom discourse that has come to
be referred to as student-centered discourse. To achieve it, the teacher must relin-
quish a role of authority deriving from conferred status as sole source of knowledge
and replace it with another basis for authority – the authority of evidence and argu-
ment (Rapanta, 2019). This latter kind of authority is not socially imposed but rather
is founded on shared constructions of meaning. The transition from the first to sec-
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ond kind of authority is not an easy one for either teacher or students to make. It
comes only with sustained practice and both teacher and students must develop the
confidence and commitment it requires.
Within this second category there exist in practice two distinct forms. The more
common is whole-class discussion facilitated by a leader, typically the classroom
teacher, although this form may take place in a similar way in a class divided into
smaller groups. The discussion leader may employ various moves to encourage stu-
dents to speak directly to one another and address what the previous student speaker
has said. At any one point in time, however, the remainder of the students function
as observers of the exchange, a role they thus occupy during a majority of the discus-
sion period and benefit from in ways that are uncertain (O’Connor & Snow, 2018).
In a less common form of student-centered discourse, which we can call two-
sided student-centered discourse, or peer-to-peer discourse, and will examine close-
ly here, dialogue occurs between two students (or at most two pairs of students) who
hold contrasting views on their topic. They alternate dialogic turns, with each expect-
ing a response from the other to what has just been said, in a way that will continue
the dialogue and comprise the sequence of exchanges characteristic of orderly, formal
dialogue between two parties.
Whole-class student-centered discussions remain the more frequent form of stu-
dent-centered discourse and have occurred in classrooms across the curriculum from
language arts to social studies and science. However, as Resnick et al. (2018), Mehan
and Cazden (2015), and others have noted, they are highly demanding on a teacher’s
resources and skills, especially at the more common whole-class level. As a result,
many teachers do not attempt them. The teacher’s role is to be present in the discus-
sion without dominating, relying on his or her on-the-spot contributions to facilitate
students’ discourse, ideally for example by asking a student to clarify how her state-
ment connects to what was said by an earlier speaker. The teacher also seeks to have
all students participate, drawing out non-speakers and not allowing frequent speakers
to dominate.
The reports of observers and of teachers themselves leave little doubt that inex-
perienced teachers find implementing these student-centered discussions difficult
and do not do well without extensive practice, and some never come to feel comfort-
able with the techniques (Clarke et al., 2015; Hess & McAvoy, 2015; Howe, 2014;
McNeill & Knight-Bardsley, 2013; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; Mercer & Littleton,
2007; Resnick et al., 2018; Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017). Hence, despite encourag-
ing demonstrations of its successes in widely varying classroom settings, the chal-
lenges of scaling up to implement this model widely seem formidable.

A Structure for Peer-to-Peer Discourse

This scaling-up dilemma was one factor influencing our design of a classroom
method to support peer-to-peer discourse. The other was the theoretical perspective
introduced earlier, in which critical thinking is regarded as a dialogic practice that one
commits to. To the extent such commitment is maintained and serious discourse is
regularly practiced, its quality stands to improve. Would there be a way, we asked, to
structure the environment – the dialogic context – in a way that would enhance the
opportunity for rich peer-to-peer discourse by increasing its density but also would
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reduce the high skill demands burdening teachers and diminishing their enthusiasm
for discourse-centered practice?
Our approach to meeting this objective has been to transfer a greater share of
management of the discourse from the teacher to students themselves and in so doing
to provide students the opportunity for very dense engagement and exercise of criti-
cal thinking as a discourse practice. Thus, privileged is peer-to-peer discourse in
which students converse directly with one another, greatly reducing (although not
eliminating) the teacher’s role. Our developing and studying this approach is not to
be taken as dismissal or disparagement of the potential benefits of classroom-level
discourse, which clearly is preferable to its absence. Rather, the intent is to heighten
the density of peer-to-peer talk, which in so doing confers the added benefit of mak-
ing the teacher’s challenge more manageable. Nor does it imply that adult guidance
is expendable. Instead, much of the guidance comes from the fine-tuned structure
and sequence that the planned activity provides, rather than in-the-moment inter-
vention the teacher provides.
Teacher intervention in any case would be at most intermittent, since multiple
student-to-student conversations occur simultaneously, in small groups and in four-
person structured exchanges between one pair of students and another pair – a struc-
ture that greatly increases the density of student talk. Over a sequence of sessions, a
pair of students who share a position on a topic collaborate in conducting dialogues
with successive pairs of classmates who hold an opposing view on the topic. Conver-
sational norms are readily adopted and mutually accepted, with each pair expecting
the opposing pair to respond to what they have said and thereby maintain the ex-
change.
Students who engage in sustained peer-to-peer discourse on demanding topics
over time not only show skill gains but also co-construct norms for what constitute
acceptable contributions to this discourse and they come to expect one another to
uphold these norms (Kuhn et al., 2013). In other words, they enter into a community
of practice – one that we might regard as a community committed to the practice of
critical thinking as discourse. This can happen only if peer-to-peer discourse assumes
center stage, rather than being subordinated to and structured by teacher and teach-
er-managed talk.
The discourse between pairs is conducted electronically and is only one of two
modes of peer-to-peer discourse that occur. The other mode is verbal, between the
same-side pair who must agree on what to communicate to the opposing pair and
then evaluate what that pair says in response and decide how they should respond.
The electronic discourse between pairs provides a written record that externalizes
thought into a tangible form, in contrast to verbal discourse, which disappears as soon
as uttered. The electronic medium thus facilitates reflection on what is exchanged,
taking discourse temporarily “off line” (Olson, 2016; Olson & Oatley, 2014). The se-
quence of activities culminates in a whole-class “showdown” debate, debrief analysis
of the debate, and last of all individual final essays on the topic, written in the form of
a newspaper op-ed. The procedure has been described in detail elsewhere, in a video-
enhanced book for teachers (Kuhn, Hemberger, & Khait, 2016b) and another written
for middle- and high-school students themselves with suggested topics and question-
and-answer background information on each (Kuhn, 2018).
Rather than begin with a text providing required “background reading,” we let
students’ own ideas dominate at the beginning of their engagement with a topic. Still,
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students’ discourse needs to be informed and enriched by information bearing on the
topic. An effective way to achieve this goal, we have found, is to first create a need for
the information students acquire. Rather than provide lots of answers to questions
students do not have, we have them first formulate their own questions. In this way,
students first envision how such information could be useful and we then assist them
in securing it. Thus, after a few brief introductory questions and answers on the top-
ic, we invite students to generate questions of their own, the answers to which they
think might be helpful. The point is for students not just to acquire information but
to see its value and therefore be disposed to use it. Our data show that students make
greater use of evidence provided in this Q&A form than they do when it is presented
in traditional format as a whole text to be read in advance (Iordanou & Kuhn, in
press).
That activities center around peer-to-peer exchange, rather than whole-class dis-
cussion, helps to promote the objective of students becoming accountable to one an-
other, as members of a discourse community. Students are constantly on call, needing
to respond to one another. In whole-class discussion, in contrast, students can fade
in and out, raising a hand now and then but the rest of the time assuming the passive
role of audience. The evolving accountability norms are constructed within the group
and gain acceptance as expected behavior on the part of its members (Kuhn & Zillmer,
2015). Claims are expected to have reasons and these reasons must stand to the chal-
lenge of strong arguments and evidence that may weaken them. Shared understand-
ings evolve of what counts as evidence and what acceptable counterarguments consist
of, and participants risk criticism for violating them.

Evolution of Argument in Discourse and Writing over the Course of Dialogic

Engagement

Our dialogic method has been successful in enhancing students’ argumentative

writing (Hemberger, Kuhn, Matos, & Shi, 2017; Kuhn & Crowell, 2011; Kuhn, Hem-
berger, & Khait, 2016a) – widely regarded as a key educational objective and modal-
ity for display of critical thinking – as well as dialogic skills themselves (Crowell &
Kuhn, 2014; Iordanou & Constantinou, 2015; Kuhn & Moore, 2015) and the disposi-
tion to use them (Kuhn & Zillmer, 2015). What accounts for its success, especially in
the domain of argumentative writing, where students of all ages have long been re-
ported to perform poorly (Newell, Beach, Smith, & VanDerHeide, 2011)?
Motivational factors, we believe, are central. A dialogic framework provides the
missing interlocutor that gives individual argumentative writing an audience and a
purpose (Graff, 2003). Experiencing a flesh-and-blood interlocutor and a purpose to
their exchange leads the way to interiorizing this dialogic frame when it comes time
for students to express themselves individually in writing. They are no longer writing
to or for a teacher, seeking to fill the page with what they think the teacher may be
looking for. Their discourse remains alive, although now interiorized, as they envi-
sion what another might say and how they can address it. The continuing experience
of dialogue with a succession of peers holding an opposing position makes the oppos-
ing position and its accompanying arguments clear and vivid enough so that the stu-
dent writing an individual essay can summon them and address them, and, moreover,
sees the relevance of doing so.
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 How does this transition from talk to paper occur among young adolescent nov-
ice writers? In the research we have engaged in to address this question, we have
closely examined students’ peer dialogues, their argumentative essays, and the rela-
tions between them. We looked first at changes in their essays on successive topics
over the course of one or more years of dialogic engagement with a succession of top-
ics (Hemberger et al., 2017; Kuhn et al., 2016a). At first essays consisted largely of
supporting arguments for the chosen position on the topic. Next to appear were at-
tention to and arguments seeking to weaken the opposing position. Only more grad-
ually did essays begin to include mention of possible strengths of the opposing posi-
tion or weaknesses of the favored position, and later still the “however” statements
that served to connect and weigh opposing arguments. Also gradually increasing was
the use of evidence to weaken as well as support claims.
The potential of dialogue is also seen in a direct comparison of dialogues and es-
says. Kuhn and Moore (2015) reported two major differences between the dialogues
and the essays of middle schoolers addressing a new topic in each of the two contexts
(dialogue and essay) on separate occasions a week apart. The discourse was written
in both cases (via electronic communication in the dialogic case), making the two
contexts more comparable. Brief pieces of factual evidence relevant to the topic were
made available. Students were told they were welcome to make use of this informa-
tion if they wished but were not required to do so.
Individual essay writers and dialogue partners both made more statements to
support their own position than statements of any other type. Yet the essays consist-
ed almost exclusively of such statements. In dialogues, in contrast, an average of one
third of evidence-based claims served the function of weakening the opposing posi-
tion (versus under 10% in the essays of these same participants). A second difference
between dialogues and essays has to do with the kinds of evidence drawn on. Essay
writers confined themselves almost exclusively to the provided evidence – an average
of 82% of references to evidence were of this type. In their dialogues, in contrast, re-
sults were the reverse. Here writers were much more likely to draw on evidence from
their own prior personal knowledge – 80% of statements were of this type.
Macagno (2016) and Mayweg-Paus and Macagno (2016) conducted a similar
comparison of dialogues and essays among high-school students who, unlike the pre-
ceding group, had no prior dialogic experience. Students addressed the same topic in
both dialogue and essay, and dialogues were verbal rather than electronic. They sim-
ilarly found students more commonly to draw on their own prior knowledge as evi-
dence and to use evidence to weaken claims in dialogues than in essays. In addition,
they reported students’ more frequent use of evidence in more sophisticated ways in
dialogues, namely to challenge an argument rather than only challenge a claim.
How should we interpret these differences? Dialogue demands attention to the
other. Furthermore, the social context of dialogues appears to engage arguers more
deeply and authentically, prompting them to bring what they already know to the
exchange. In writing an individual essay, in contrast, the same dialogue participants
kept largely to the information provided to them as the most efficient way to complete
their task. This could not have been because they knew of nothing else to bring to
bear, as their quite different dialogue performance confirmed. Rather, they appeared
not to recognize its relevance to the task they had been assigned.
These differences are of more than theoretical significance. Essay writing is a
staple of the school curriculum. Yet, it may be dialogue that offers the most produc-
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tive path to its development. Essay writing arguably elicits a particular school-related
frame – students take the task as one of integrating the material at hand into a se-
quence of statements seeming to support a claim, avoiding mention of anything that
might suggest otherwise.
We have examined in greater detail how participants’ discourse makes its way
into culminating essays (Hemberger et al., 2017). Progress over time appeared in both
domains, but progress in the dialogic context typically preceded progress in the indi-
vidual writing context. In their dialogues over an academic year, using evidence to
weaken an opponent’s claim (O–) increased from 42% for topic 1 to 83% for topic 4.
In their essays on the topics, these percentages increased from 11% to 74%. Progress
also appeared with respect to addressing evidence of the O+ type (supportive of the
opposing side), a harder task given its lack of concordance with the student’s own po-
sition. In their topic 4 dialogues, 70% addressed such evidence (increased from 17% at
topic 1). Their topic 4 essays, however, reached a lower plateau in this regard – 37%
mentioned O+ evidence (from 0% at topic 1). Across all types, while new argument
types appeared in dialogues before they appeared in essays, they appeared in the same
order (from my-side M+ to O– to O+) as described earlier with respect to essays. How-
ever, usage of the more challenging types decreased when students wrote essays on a
new, previously unstudied topic without the benefit of prior dialogue.

Insights from Failures as well as Successes

Qualitative study of essays over time and topics shows manifestations of the dia-
logic frame students had acquired in their discourse on these topics, expressed fre-
quently in the phrase “Others may say …” In current qualitative analysis involving a
new sample, we are undertaking to relate the specific ideas in a student’s final essay
on a topic to the ideas appearing in that student’s history of peer dialogues on the
topic. In addition to successes, we are also looking closely at failures of ideas to trans-
fer from dialogues to essay. For example, an opponent’s counterarguments may be
“forgotten” by the time I am ready to write my own individual essay, and my un-
countered argument may reappear in my essay in its original pre-essay form. A gen-
eral finding has been that new ideas do not appear in the final essay without having
first appeared in at least one of the prior dialogues on the topic.
These current observations come from a group of urban middle-school stu-
dents who participated in a week-long full-day workshop during a public school
vacation week. One of the two topics they engaged was whether workers should be
responsible for saving on their own for retirement or should be required to con-
tribute from their earnings to a program like the existing U.S. Social Security sys-
tem. One example of weak transfer from dialogue to essay comes from two boys
who favored the social security (SS) side and were one another’s partners in elec-
tronic dialogues with successive pairs who favored individual saving (SV). During
one of the dialogues, the SV pair introduced the argument against the SS side that
SS was disadvantageous to the poor because the poor pay a larger portion of their
earnings than do the rich (who contribute only to a ceiling income level). The SS
pair were able to only weakly counter this argument during this dialogue, respond-
ing, “You have no evidence; tell us how the poor lose money,” leaving it unclear to
what extent they understood the SV pair’s fairly sophisticated argument. The SS
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pair addressed it no further in their dialogues nor did either of them mention it in
their individual concluding essays.
One of the SS pair’s arguments supporting their own SS position was that the
government keeps your money safe for you. This argument they voiced twice, in dia-
logues with two different opposing pairs, and each time their opponents countered
it, noting that contributions went to current recipients rather than being held for the
contributors themselves. During the second of these dialogues, the SS pair conceded
the point. In their final essays, however, one of the SS pair ignored the issue, while the
other resurrected the pair’s original claim that your contributions are kept for you,
omitting any mention of the counterargument he had at that point heard twice and
acknowledged. Nor did students always include in their final essays mention of op-
ponents’ arguments that they had in fact successfully countered in the dialogues and
thus we know had the ability to do. Thus, as is no surprise, knowledge is not enough.
Disposition to use it is also essential.
The most conceptually sophisticated arguments on this topic, such as the SV
“poor pay more” argument, most often went unchallenged at least for a time, with
attention focused on simpler ones, such as the SV argument that people should have
control of their own money to use as they wish. Nonetheless, progress could some-
times be observed in addressing more difficult ideas. The “poor pay more” argument,
for example, was countered by an SS pair’s argument that “both get the same benefit,”
and in the final essay one of this SS pair went on to express the not yet heard idea that
this issue could be resolved if contribution percentages were based on total income
(absent a ceiling).
An SV pair showed clear progress in defending their “poor pay more” argument,
as reflected in an initial and later dialogue and then individual final essay:
Initial dialogue. “Our strongest point for our side is that it’s not fair that poor
people have to give the same amount of money as wealthy persons.” (A numerical
example is attempted but becomes confused in referring to both groups contributing
6.2%, and the opposing side appears not to understand the point.)
Later dialogue. “If you have a high paycheck it won’t seem like a lot of money
that is taken away, but if you have a smaller paycheck then it makes a huge difference.”
Final essay. Both dialogue partners are now able to make clear and succinct state-
ments of this argument. One essay says, for example, “The middle and lower class get
paid a smaller amount, so that 6.2% really does hurt their check.”
In sum, arguments do develop in the course of dialogic engagement. Yet we can-
not predict with any certainty when that thinking will make its way into the partici-
pants’ individual expression when expressing their arguments alone without benefit
of an interlocutor.

Strengths and Challenges of Discourse as a Medium for Thinking

These qualitative observations of students engaged in both dialogue and indi-

vidual argumentative writing have suggested to us a model of individual and collab-
orative thinking skills as codeveloping, even though the dialogic typically precedes.
As their experience accumulates in contemplating a particular topic as well as in dia-
logue more broadly, dialogic partners produce more ideas in the forms of claims, ar-
guments, counterarguments, and evidence. In so doing they provide an interlocutor
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more and richer material to work with, both within their discourse and in the indi-
vidual argumentative writing produced by each of them. Each new idea introduced
becomes potentially available for both sides to address.
This development can occur at a meta-level as well. A practice we have explored
recently is collaborative essay writing by two peers who hold opposing positions on
the topic they have addressed in discourse activities over multiple sessions with a se-
ries of peers. They are asked to write a joint essay that “lays out the issues as com-
pletely as possible for someone unfamiliar with the topic.” The negotiation that oc-
curs in their meta-talk regarding what to say in the essay is the most valuable part of
the activity. It takes to a new level the peer dialogues that preceded this new form of
engagement with the topic. In so doing it serves as a further bridge from dialogue to
subsequent individual writing.
The enrichment provided by a peer occurs at the strategic as well as substantive
levels. It is most marked when one dialogue partner possesses greater dialogic skill
than the other. Papathomas and Kuhn (2017) observed this effect when, unbeknownst
to young adolescent participants, a highly capable adult substituted as interlocutor in
a portion of the electronic dialogues the adolescents engaged in. Those participating
in this condition later outperformed those who engaged only with peers, when both
subsequently engaged in discourse with peers on a new topic. In this case, the more
competent adult served dual roles, both providing rich material as a context for the
younger person’s discourse development and serving as a model for such discourse.
Finally, it remains to highlight the difference that variation in discourse skill
level makes in people’s communication with one another in adult lives outside of
classrooms. Table 1 (from Kuhn & Modrek, 2018) contains the dialogues of two adult
pairs on a topic of each pair’s choice. All four individuals had college degrees and had
done postgraduate work, thus reducing variation attributable to a prime individual
difference variable, education level.
The dialogue of the first pair reveals several characteristics associated with high-
quality discourse. Both speakers cite actual or potential empirical evidence as the es-
sential basis on which a claim is supported. Second, both understand that the two
factors under discussion are not mutually exclusive alternatives – both may jointly
and simultaneously contribute to the outcome (“I believe it’s a combination of the
two,” P says explicitly), and the dialogue then turns to the relative efficacy of the two,
again with an emphasis on empirical data as the basis for a judgment, recognizing that
data may weaken as well as support a causal claim. Third, both P and N represent the
dialogue at a meta-level – they make repeated reference to what they are doing and
seek to accomplish. When N acknowledges, “You have a point,” the subject is the
dialogue itself and the relation between the speakers’ respective claims, rather than
the voicing of the claims themselves. P makes an even more ambitious meta-level ef-
fort to identify this relation: “I agree the government has a responsibility to stop peo-
ple. I think we just disagree on the means by which they do this.”
The dialogue between A and O by contrast shows none of these characteristics.
A and O alternate turns, each presenting their preferred causal candidates, with grad-
ual elaboration seeking to make their positions more convincing but without refer-
ence to evidence that would support the causal claim being advanced. Equally critical,
neither directly addresses the other’s claims, instead using the conversational turn to
elaborate the speaker’s own claim. Only at turn 5 does A first address O’s claim of
monetary cause by denying its causal status (“Teachers don’t work for pay”), with O
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Table 1. Illustrative strong and weak dialogues1

Topic: Should smoking be reduced by educating people about its dangers or by charging a
very high tax on purchase?
P: I favor education. Smoking is a personal decision. Something intrinsically very addictive and
something people need to understand and make a decision for themselves. While I understand
that people might vote, might purchase based off of their pocketbooks, you have to pay for smok-
ing and if people really want something they’re gonna find out how to do it probably to the detri-
ment of other areas where they could be spending some of that disposable income.
N: I’m taking the other position that there should be a tax. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest
that smoking kills and the government has a responsibility to stop people hurting themselves.
P: I agree the government has a responsibility to stop people. I think we just disagree on the means
by which they do this. And I’m going to point to two data points that I think rebut and actually
state that raising taxes and making people decide based off of their pocketbooks has not been ef-
fective. I think the first thing we can talk to are a number of illegal drugs right now that are on
the street. You see people who have very little money don’t purchase food but they find the means
to buy those drugs by any way possible. By the fact that there is a high price they’re not only go-
ing to be purchasing them, to their detriment they’re not going to be purchasing the things they
need. That’s my first argument.
N: Let me disagree with that. You have a point that people do buy illegal drugs, but on the other
hand the government has a responsibility, and there are many areas where governments do take
action to help people. Drugs is certainly one. There are a lot of other products people cannot buy
because the government thinks it’s bad either for them personally or for other people. And the
fact that people are getting illegal drugs I think does not stop government’s responsibility for try-
ing to stop people from smoking by a high tax.
P: I don’t think we disagree about whether it’s the government’s responsibility. It’s the means by
which they do it. I don’t disagree it’s the government’s responsibility to educate, put programs in
place. But I think the government should allocate those resources to education, not taxes.
N: I think people should be forced to pay. I think they should ban cigarettes altogether. But fail-
ing that by making it really expensive to people is a good second best.
P: But if you had to pick one or the other, and the objective is to stop people from smoking, I be-
lieve it’s a combination of the two. But if you had to pick one, is it higher taxes or education? And
I think there’s a lot of evidence … and I’m going to point to Denmark where I was watching a
documentary where they actually legalized and kept the price the same – this was for some hard
drugs – when they legalized it and they continued to educate the people – I don’t have the data
in front of me – but the amount of usage was reduced. This is one case study which might be
contrary to the argument for raising taxes.
N: People have been educated about the dangers of smoking for years. You even have to put on
the cigarette box how dangerous it is to smoke. So it’s pretty clear that doesn’t happen. On the
other hand, people do get worried about their pocketbooks and what they pay and I think that a
higher price they have to pay will probably reduce their ability to smoke. There’s probably been
studies on that of when taxes have gone up in the past. I don’t have that data in front of me but
that would be something worth looking at.
P: I would tend to argue that between the 70s and 2016, if you were to look at the contributing
factors, there’s been a huge decrease in the rate of smoking in the last 30 to 40 years, as a per cent
of population between the late 70s and 2016. If you were to try to dissect the factors that impact-
ed that, you might find that in areas where there was a high tax, really there wasn’t a decrease in
smoking. So there’s really no corollary between a high tax and a decrease. But also schools that
really focused on educating people, when in fact there was no increase in tax, you would find a
decrease in smoking.
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Table 1 (continued)

N: I’m sure there’s data there and I think you’re right, smoking has gone down over the years. But
I think you have to look at the data and tease out of that data whether it was education or wheth-
er it was taxes. And I believe you will find that taxes had much greater effect than the level of
education.
Topic: Is the cause of teacher turnover low pay or poor working conditions?
A: So I think teachers are treated poorly for the amount of work they have to put in.
O: Maybe for some, but at the end of the day if salary was higher more teachers would probably
stick around.
A: Not sure if I agree; it’s how people treat you.
O: But you have to admit money incentivizes most people.
A: I think how you feel when you come to work and how appreciated you are is a stronger incen-
tive.
O: So money has nothing to do with how happy or appreciated teachers feel?
A: I think working conditions, like administration and support, has a stronger impact on how we
feel.
O: But salary would at least make more teachers stay.
A: Okay, teachers don’t work for pay.
O: I didn’t say that. I just think that higher salary would change the turnover rate.
A: Not sure if I agree; I mean, think of that lack of support from administrators.
O: Well there is need for more support from everyone.
A: Well yeah.
O: But turnover is high because many realize they aren’t compensated enough for the amount of
work they do.
A: Teachers do not get into this field because of wages.
O: We’re asked to do many other things besides just to instruct in the classroom and many are
hardly making ends meet with the amount they get paid.
A: Okay, fine, but the reason for turnover is the way schools are run, not the money.
O: Salary change would make people want to stay.
A: Teachers go into the profession with a general idea of the salary but they can’t predict the work
conditions.
O: Not everyone knows what they’re getting into.
From Kuhn and Modrek (2018). 1 The pair discussing smoking reduction were participants
in a graduate business course in strategic decision-making. The pair discussing the teaching
profession were teachers participating in professional development training.
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responding by reasserting its efficacy. This pattern occurs again, with A repeating the
same denial (“Teachers do not get into this field because of wages”). Following an-
other such repetition, A expresses the first counterargument to O’s claim: “Teachers
go into the profession with a general idea of the salary.” Nor does either speaker evi-
dence awareness that both their causes could be operating. Also absent is meta-level
discourse about the exchange itself (beyond an unelaborated non-acceptance of the
other’s claim: “Not sure if I agree”). A and O may see no function of the dialogue be-
yond one of airing their respective views, which they could have done outside a dia-
logic context. Their dialogue thus reflects the failed or at least compromised inter-
change of ideas that may occur in the absence of the characteristics observed in P and
N’s dialogue.
What leads these two dialogues to be so different? Without systematic analysis
of a large number of such individuals in dialogues with different partners, our answer
can be only tentative. Despite their advanced educational levels, these two pairs did
score quite differently on a test of multivariable causal reasoning we gave them (Kuhn
& Modrek, 2018), with the pair discussing smoking showing stronger reasoning than
the teachers. These individual characteristics undoubtedly figured in the pairs’ dis-
course behavior, yet they are not likely the whole story. Put simply, the pair discussing
smoking knew how to talk to one another in a way that makes the discourse produc-
tive and advances joint understanding. This discourse skill, we can speculate, devel-
oped over the course of months and years of practice each had accumulated in engag-
ing in such activity in a wide range of contexts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a dialogic concept of critical thinking has been advanced here, one
that can be seen as theoretically productive as well as suggesting an answer to how
critical thinking is best developed – through practice early and often in the form of
direct peer-to-peer dialogue that comes to be guided by evolving norms of discourse
(Kuhn & Zillmer, 2015), or what has been referred to as “accountable talk” (Clarke et
al., 2015). Transferring a greater share of management of discourse from the teacher
to students themselves lessens the high skill demands on teachers, potentially making
them more confident in undertaking discourse-centered practice and thereby bene-
fitting students. Again, however, nothing about our method is meant to suggest that
classroom-level, teacher-managed discourse is not productive, especially in compar-
ison to its absence. In further research related to both formats, the important task
remains of fine-tuning the optimal nature and role of adult guidance.
With respect to theoretical stance, despite the dialogic theme none of what has
been said here is meant to imply that thinking must always be relational. Individuals
indeed construct ideas on their own, as apparently did our young participant who
came up with the idea of eliminating the income ceiling on social security contribu-
tions. Such ideas can be and most often are shared with others, whether in original or
evolving form. This sharing of ideas is a potent source of their development, although
not an exclusive one.
Acknowledging a place for ideas that originate in a single individual’s mind
brings us back to the outset and to the potential gains achieved by reframing the tra-
ditional conception of critical thinking as a skill or ability that resides within an indi-
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vidual and accordingly is assessed as a largely stable attribute of that individual. It also
brings us back to the earlier identified continuing challenge facing both researchers
and practitioners – achieving a satisfactory way to assess critical thinking. The mea-
surement challenge of critical thinking as discourse arguably requires a new ap-
proach, one in which what is measured is an individual’s performance within the
practice of accountable discourse itself. What strategies does the individual display in
responding to an interlocutor in such discourse? Does the response directly address
the interlocutor’s preceding statement? Does it do so in a way that furthers the dia-
logue by seeking to fulfill either of the objectives of discourse identified by Walton
(1989) – to question the opponent’s position by identifying and challenging gaps in
their argument, and to secure commitments from the opponent that can be employed
to advantage in the exchange?
Progress has been made in developing assessment schemes that measure critical
thinking skill defined in this dialogic framework (Goldstein, Crowell, & Kuhn, 2009;
Kuhn et al., 2013; Macagno, 2016; Rapanta, Garcia-Mila, & Gilabert, 2013). The most
recent of these (Macagno, 2016; Papathomas & Kuhn, 2017) include the distinction
between a response to an opponent that criticizes the opponent’s claim or supporting
evidence and one that criticizes the opponent’s reasoning. Such an assessment thus
offers an appraisal of individual performance and moreover one that incorporates
both production and evaluation of arguments as dual aspects of critical thinking
(Byrnes & Dunbar, 2014; Kuhn et al., 2013). Another approach is to blend the dia-
logic and individual aspects by asking respondents to construct an argument between
two disagreeing individuals (Zavala & Kuhn, 2017).
Such approaches to assessment have the important advantage of contextualizing
critical thinking interpersonally. Rather than a fixed attribute of an individual, critical
thinking is a dynamic activity that may show itself to a greater or lesser extent and in
varying forms depending on the affordances of the context. This appears a productive
way forward in both conceptualizing and measuring critical thinking as a practice.
Current assessment instruments show negligible gains in critical thinking during the
college years (Arum & Roksa, 2011). The growing prominence of dialogic teaching
and learning and the further development of ways to measure growth in critical
thinking as discourse will hopefully change this picture.

Statement of Ethics

The author has nothing to report.

Disclosure Statement

The author has nothing to report.

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