Dialogic Assessment for Strengthening Critical Reasoning in Large Classes

Emily Carter

Dialogic Assessment for Strengthening Critical Reasoning in Large Classes

Author(s)	Dr. Emily Carter
Country	United States
Abstract	Large university classes create a persistent educational tension between instructional scale and the development of higher-order reasoning. Conventional quizzes and examinations can efficiently assess factual understanding across hundreds of students, yet they frequently provide limited opportunities for learners to articulate assumptions, defend claims with evidence, engage with counterarguments, revise reasoning, and respond to alternative interpretations. Dialogic assessment offers a potentially scalable alternative by embedding assessment within structured cycles of questioning, peer explanation, challenge, feedback, and reasoned revision. Evidence from higher education indicates that well-designed classroom dialogue can elicit critical-thinking processes, while regulated dialogic peer assessment can improve feedback quality and critical thinking. Active-learning research further demonstrates that student engagement through discussion and problem solving can improve achievement across large undergraduate courses. This paper develops a structured Dialogic Critical-Reasoning Assessment Model designed for large-enrolment higher-education classrooms. The framework organizes assessment around four reasoning dimensions: evidence evaluation, claim justification, counterargument handling, and reasoned revision. It combines individual commitment, peer dialogue, structured reasoning prompts, whole-class synthesis, rapid formative feedback, and concise reflective reassessment. Because no classroom dataset was supplied, the study adopts a conceptual-methodological design and reports an explicitly simulated comparison among conventional individual quizzes, question-plus-think–pair–share assessment, peer-reasoning assessment, and structured dialogic assessment. The simulated composite critical-reasoning scores increase from 41 under conventional individual quizzing to 93 under the fully structured dialogic model. These values are illustrative and must not be interpreted as empirical learning gains. The study concludes that dialogue becomes educationally valuable when students are required not merely to speak but to make reasoning visible, compare competing claims, justify judgments, respond to criticism, and revise positions. In large classes, digital polling, peer assessment, carefully designed prompts, and sampled instructor synthesis can distribute the work of formative assessment without eliminating academic oversight.
Keywords	dialogic assessment, critical reasoning, critical thinking, large classes, peer assessment, formative assessment, peer instruction, higher education, argumentation, assessment for learning
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 3, Issue 5, September-October 2022
Published On	2022-09-05

View / Download PDF File

About AJAMIR Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Publication Ethics Peer Review & Plagiarism	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Reviewer Referral Program Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us		+1-872-302-3851	editor@ajamir.com

American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Dialogic Assessment for Strengthening Critical Reasoning in Large Classes

Share this