Argument mapping improves critical thinking skills: A systematic review

Argument mapping has been claimed to produce significant gains in critical thinking skills. This systematic review analyses extant studies using argument mapping techniques on various student cohorts worldwide over a 34-year period. We reviewed Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost databases for literature that adopted a pre-test, post-test experimental format with several participant groups. We found 86 usable documents, 56 journal articles, 27 conference papers, 1 book chapter, and miscellaneous other publication types. The PRISMA checklist was used as the systematic review protocol. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s d, Glass’s Δ for unequal standard deviations. and Hedges’ g for unequal sample sizes between groups. A utility function was used to combine disparate data into a “decomposed” single mean and a standard deviation. Taken collectively, results indicated that there is measurable improvement in critical thinking as a result of argument mapping interventions, as indicated by higher means of treatment groups compared to control groups, and higher post-test means than pre-test means for both control and treatment groups. Expressed in terms of a normalised gain, this provides a measure of the effectiveness of a course in promoting conceptual understanding—a proxy for “critical thinking”. While heterogeneity in various studies was a significant limitation, we calculated a population-based combined effect size using this meta-analysis algorithm for all studies with post-test SD, N and d values. This resulted in a large effect resulting from argument mapping interventions used to improve students’ critical thinking. We conclude that argument mapping is a potentially promising technique for improving critical thinking skills.