Psychosocial argumentative competence: schemes, structures and types of arguments among Chilean university students

Abstract

The current study identified the psychosocial knowledge associated with the argumentative performance of Chilean university students. For this purpose, a Likert-type instrument was administered to a sample of 418 students from private and public universities from the region of Coquimbo. The analysis showed that students starting higher education use a symptomatic scheme by means of a multiple coordinated structure leading to causal, ad misericordiam and by example arguments. It was also established that the analogic scheme is more frequent among female students towards the end of their studies while the instrumental scheme is more frequent among male students at this point of their studies.