Research, learn, and prepare a position. In the group of four, one pair is assigned the pro position and the other pair the con position. Each pair is to prepare the best case possible for its assigned position by Researching the assigned position and learning all relevant information. Students are to read the supporting materials and find new information to support their position. The opposing pair is given any information students find that supports its position.
Organizing the information into a persuasive argument that contains a thesis statement or claim (“George Washington was a more effective President than Abraham Lincoln”), the rationale supporting the thesis (“He accomplished a, b, and c”), and a logical conclusion that is the same as the thesis (“Therefore, George Washington was a more effective president than Abraham Lincoln”).
Planning how to advocate the assigned position effectively to ensure it receives a fair and complete hearing. Make sure both pair members are ready to present the assigned position so persuasively that the opposing participants will understand and learn the information and, of course, agree that the position is valid and correct.
Present and advocate the position. Students present the best case for their assigned position to ensure it gets a fair and complete hearing. They need to be forceful, persuasive, and convincing in doing so. Ideally, they will use more than one medium to increase the impact of the presentation. Students are to listen carefully to and learn the opposing position, taking notes and clarifying anything they do not understand.
Engage in an open discussion in which there is spirited disagreement. Students discuss the issue by freely exchanging information and ideas. Students are to argue forcefully and persuasively for their position (presenting as many facts as they can to support their point of view); critically analyze the evidence and reasoning supporting the opposing position; ask for data to support assertions; refute the opposing position by pointing out the inadequacies in the information and reasoning; and rebut attacks on their position and present counterarguments. Students are to take careful notes on and thoroughly learn the opposing position. Students are to give the other position a trial by fire while following the norms for constructive controversy. Sometimes a time-out period will be provided so students can caucus with their partners and prepare new arguments. The teacher may encourage more spirited arguing, take sides when a pair is in trouble, play devil’s advocate, ask one group to observe another group engaging in a spirited argument, and generally stir up the discussion.
Reverse perspectives. Students reverse perspectives and present the best case for the opposing position. Teachers may wish to have students change chairs. In presenting the opposing position sincerely and forcefully (as if it was their own), students may use their notes and add any new facts they know of. Students should strive to see the issue from both perspectives simultaneously.
Synthesize. Students are to drop all advocacy and find a synthesis on which all members can agree. They summarize the best evidence and reasoning from both sides and integrate it into a joint position that is new and unique. Students are to Write a group report on the group’s synthesis with the supporting evidence and rationale. All group members sign the report indicating that they agree with it, can explain its content, and consider it ready to be evaluated. Each member must be able to present the report to the entire class.
Take a test on both positions. If all members score above the preset criteria of excellence, each receives five bonus points.
Process how well the group functioned and how its performance may be improved during the next constructive controversy. The specific conflict management skills required for constructive controversy may be highlighted.
Celebrate the group’s success and the hard work of each member to make every step of the constructive controversy procedure effective.
Monitor the Controversy Groups and Intervene When Needed.
While the groups engage in the constructive controversy procedure, teachers monitor the learning groups and intervene to improve students’ skills in engaging in each step of the constructive controversy procedure and use the social skills appropriately. Teachers may also wish to intervene to highlight or reinforce particularly effective and skillful behaviors.
Evaluate Students’ Learning and Process Group Effectiveness.
At the end of each instructional unit, teachers evaluate students’ learning and give feedback. Qualitative as well as quantitative aspects of performance may be addressed. Students are graded on both the quality of their final report and their performance on the test covering both sides of the issue. The learning groups also process how well they functioned. Students describe what member actions were helpful (and unhelpful) in completing each step of the constructive controversy procedure and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change. In whole-class processing, the teacher gives the class feedback and has participants share incidents that occurred in their groups.
Decision Making
A large pharmaceutical company faced the decision of whether to buy or build a chemical plant (Wall Street Journal, October 22, 1975). To maximize the likelihood that the best decision would be made, the president established two advocacy teams to ensure that both the buy and the build alternatives received a fair and complete hearing. An advocacy team is a subgroup that prepares and presents a particular policy alternative to the decision-making group. The buy team was instructed to prepare and present the best case for purchasing a chemical plant, and the build team was told to prepare and present the best case for constructing a new chemical plant near the company’s national headquarters.
The buy team identified over one hundred existing plants that would meet the company’s needs, narrowed the field down to twenty, further narrowed the field down to three, and then selected one plant as the ideal plant to buy. The build team contacted dozens of engineering firms and, after four months of consideration, selected a design for the ideal plant to build. Nine months after they were established, the two teams, armed with all the details about cost, presented their best case and challenged each other’s information, reasoning, and conclusions. From the spirited discussion, it became apparent that the two options would cost about the same amount of money. The group therefore chose the build option because it allowed the plant to be conveniently located near company headquarters. This procedure represents the structured use of constructive controversy to ensure high-quality decision making.
The purpose of group decision making is to decide on well-considered, well-understood, realistic action toward goals every member wishes to achieve. A group decision implies that some agreement prevails among group members as to which of several courses of action is most desirable for achieving the group’s goals. Making a decision is just one step in the more general problem-solving process of goal-directed groups, but it is a crucial one. After defining a problem or issue, thinking over alternative courses of action, and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each, a group will decide which course is the most desirable to implement. To ensure high-quality decision making, each alternative course of action must receive a complete and fair hearing and be critically analyzed to reveal its strengths and weaknesses. In order to do so, the following constructive controversy procedure may be implemented. Group members
Propose several courses of action that will solve the problem under consideration. When the group is making a decision, identify a number of alternative courses of action for the group to follow.
Form advocacy teams. To ensure that each course of action receives a fair and complete hearing, assign two group members to be an advocacy team to present the best case possible for the assigned position. Positive interdependence is structured by highlighting the cooperative goal of making the best decision possible (goal interdependence) and noting that a high-quality decision cannot be made without considering the information that is being organized by the other advocacy teams (resource interdependence). Individual accountability is structured by ensuring
that each member participates in preparing and presenting the assigned position. Any information discovered that supports the other alternatives is given to the appropriate advocacy pair.
Engage in the constructive controversy procedure. Each advocacy team researches its position and prepares a persuasive presentation to convince other group members of its validity. The advocacy teams are given the time to research their assigned alternative course of action and find all the supporting evidence available. They organize what is known into a coherent and reasoned position. They plan how to present their case so that all members of the group understand thoroughly the advocacy pair’s position, give it a fair and complete hearing, and are convinced of its soundness.
Each advocacy team presents without interruption the best case possible for their assigned alternative course of action to the entire group. Other advocacy teams listen carefully, taking notes and striving to learn the information provided.
There is an open discussion characterized by advocacy, refutation, and rebuttal. The advocacy teams give opposing positions a trial by fire by seeking to refute them by challenging the validity of their information and logic. They defend their own position while continuing to attempt to persuade other group members of its validity. For higher-level reasoning and critical thinking to occur, it is necessary to probe and push each other’s conclusions. Members ask for data to support each other’s statements, clarify rationales, and show why their position is the most rational one. Group members refute the claims being made by the opposing teams and rebut the attacks on their own position. They take careful notes on and thoroughly learn the opposing positions. Members follow the specific rules for constructive controversy. Sometimes a time-out period needs to be provided so that pairs can caucus and prepare new arguments. Members should encourage spirited arguing and playing devil’s advocate. Members are instructed: “Argue forcefully and persuasively for your position, presenting as many facts as you can to support your point of view. Listen critically to the opposing pair’s position, asking them for the facts that support their viewpoint, and then present counterarguments. Remember this is a complex issue, and you need to know all sides to make a good decision.”
Advocacy teams reverse perspectives and positions by presenting one of the opposing positions as sincerely and forcefully as team members can. Members may be told, “Present an opposing position as if it were yours. Be as sincere and forceful as you can. Add any new facts you know. Elaborate their position by relating it to other information you have previously learned.” Advocacy pairs strive to see the issue from all perspectives simultaneously.
All members drop their advocacy and reach a decision by consensus. They may wish to summarize their decision in a group report that details the course of action they have adopted and its supporting rationale. Often the chosen alternative represents a new perspective or synthesis that is more rational than the two assigned. All group members sign the report, indicating that they agree with the decision and will do their share of the work in implementing it. Members may be instructed: “Summarize and synthesize the best arguments for all points of view. Reach a decision by consensus. Change your mind only when the facts and the rationale clearly indicate that you should do so. Write a report with the supporting evidence and rationale for your synthesis that your group has agreed on. When you are certain the report is as good as you can make it, sign it.”
Group members process how well the group functioned and how their performance may be improved during the next constructive controversy.
Implement the decision. Once the decision is made, all members commit themselves to implement it regardless of whether they initially favored the alternative adopted.
Controversies are common within decision-making situations. In the mining industry, for example, engineers are accustomed to address issues such as land use, air and water pollution, and health and safety. The complexity of the design of production processes, the balancing of environmental and manufacturing interests, and numerous other factors often create the opportunity for constructive controversy. Most groups waste the benefits of such disputes, but every effective decision-making situation thrives on what constructive controversy has to offer. Decisions are by their very nature controversial, as alternative solutions are suggested and considered before agreement is reached. When a decision is made, the constructive controversy ends and participants commit themselves to a common course of action.
CONSTRUCTIVE CONTROVERSY AND DEMOCRACY
Thomas Jefferson believed that free and open discussion should serve as the basis of influence within society, not the social rank within which a person was born. Based on the beliefs of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and their fellow revolutionaries, American democracy was founded on the premise that truth will result from free and open-minded discussion in which opposing points of view are advocated and vigorously argued. Every citizen is given the opportunity to advocate for his or her ideas and to listen respectfully to opposing points of view.
Political discourse is the formal exchange of reasoned views as to which of several alternative courses of action should be taken to solve a societal problem (Johnson and Johnson, 2000). It is intended to involve all citizens in the making of the decision. Citizens are expected to persuade one another through valid information and logic as to what course of action would be most effective. Political discourse is aimed at making a decision in a way that ensures all citizens are committed to implement the decision (whether they agree with it or not) and the democratic process. Once a decision is made, the minority is expected to go along willingly with the majority because they know they have been given a fair and complete hearing. To be a citizen in our democracy, individuals need to internalize the norms for constructive controversy as well as mastering the process of researching an issue, organizing their conclusions, advocating their views, challenging opposing positions, making a decision, and committing themselves to implement the decision made (regardless of whether one initially favored the alternative adopted). In essence, the use of constructive controversy teaches the participants to be active citizens of a democracy.
CONCLUSION
Thomas Jefferson based his faith in the future of democracy on the power of constructive conflict. Based on structure-process-outcome theory (Watson and Johnson, 1972), it may be posited that the way in which conflict is structured determines how group members interact, which in turn determines the resulting outcomes. Conflicts may be structured to produce constructive controversy or concurrence seeking (as well as debate or individualistic problem solving). Each way of structuring conflict leads to a different process of interaction among group members and different outcomes.
The process of constructive controversy includes forming an initial conclusion when presented with a problem; being confronted by other people with different conclusions, becoming uncertain as to the correctness of one’s views, actively searching for more information and a more adequate perspective; and forming a new, reconceptualized, and reorganized conclusion. The process of concurrence seeking includes seeking a quick decision, avoiding any disagreement or dissent, emphasizing agreement among group members, and avoiding realistic appraisal of alternative ideas and courses of action.
Compared to concurrence seeking (and debate and individualistic efforts), controversies tend to result in greater achievement and retention, cognitive and moral reasoning, perspective taking, open-mindedness, creativity, task involvement, continuing motivation, attitude change, interpersonal attraction, and self-esteem. This is especially true when the situational context is cooperative, there is some heterogeneity among group members, information and expertise are distributed within the group, members have the necessary conflict skills, and the canons of rational argumentation are followed.
While the constructive controversy process can occur naturally, it may be consciously structured in decision making and learning situations. This involves dividing a cooperative group into two pairs and assigning the
m opposing positions. The pairs then develop their position, present it to the other pair and listen to the opposing position, engage in a discussion in which they attempt to refute the other side and rebut attacks on their position, reverse perspectives and present the other position, and drop all advocacy and seek a synthesis that takes both perspectives and positions into account. Engaging in the constructive controversy procedure skillfully provides an example of how conflict creates positive outcomes.
References
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Johnson, D. W. (2014). Reaching out: Interpersonal effectiveness and self-actualization (11th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Johnson D. W., & Johnson, F. (2013). Joining together: Group theory and group skills (11th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1979). Conflict in the classroom: Constructive controversy and learning. Review of Educational Research, 49, 51–61.
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: Interaction.
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Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (2003). Controversy and peace education. Journal of Research in Education, 13(1), 71–91.
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