Learning to Reason: A Reason!-Able Approach.

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on the claim/reason relation) and argumentation (the deployment of informal reasoning in attempts to resolve disputes). Informal reasoning is a central component of critical thinking . How good are people are informal reasoning? U.S. studies indicate that although some are quite good at it, average levels are quite poor [13, 27]. For example, in the most thorough study of this topic, Kuhn found that a majority of the population cannot reliably produce genuine evidence for their opinions, entertain counterarguments, or rebut counterarguments. I have not found comparable studies in an Australian context, but it is plausible they would give broadly similar results. This is supported by experience in teaching. For example, I gave 95 University of Melbourne undergraduates a homework exercise in which they were asked to "analyse and evaluate the main argument" of a particular book chapter. Almost none performed the task adequately; indeed, very few even understood what the

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