PROMOTING CRITICAL THINKING THROUGH ARGUMENT MAPPING: A LAB FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Aim/Purpose In undergraduate training, helping students improve argumentative text compre-hension (CoT) by identifying the elements of an argumentative text and critical thinking (CT) by reconstructing the meaning of the text and constructing their own reflections is relevant. Argumentative skills are essential on both the per-sonal and professional levels.Background In recent decades, concern has developed over undergraduates' poor skills in re -framing and articulating their thinking on a topic, which affects critical thinking and the ability to express unique perspectives. Customized interventions in higher education could develop argumentative abilities for professional and per-sonal use. In this regard, argument maps (AM) could be a useful tool for the vis-ualization of arguments. They provide logical relationships between statements to help understand the reasoning chain.Methodology Hybrid presence-distance research was conducted over four days. A quasi -exper-iment with one group and three tests - S1, S2, and S3 - was conducted.Contribution Our study aims to investigate and enrich the research landscape, especially in the Italian university context, regarding the use of AM to support text comprehen-sion and the development of argumentative skills. Findings Our preliminary descriptive analysis showed that AM improves students' CoT and CT proficiency levels. These abilities improved from the beginning to the end of the experiment. Inferential analysis showed a beneficial pathway inflec-tion on final learning improvement. Early encouraging results suggest that AMs can improve argumentation comprehension, production, and critical thinking in teaching and learning. Recommendations for PractitionersRecommendations for Researchers The learner could better manage knowledge and understand different perspec-tives with AM usage rules. It is essential to remember that critical thinking is a multifaceted and complex concept. This article examined it as a proxy variable for text comprehension and argumentation skills. The length of exposure to the method, contexts and in-struments (analog or digital), and age/education of participants must be consid-ered when doing AM research.Impact on Society The method would improve awareness of shared ideas and make it easier to en-rich and rethink one's thoughts on the topic.Future Research To study AM roles in diverse types of information, future research could incor-porate quantitative and qualitative approaches. Cross-curricular learning for eve-ryday life in digital and AI-driven environments, as well as text comprehension and critical thinking, could also be examined. Further research could cover other aspects of the topic of critical thinking.