The design is intended to address cognitive and metacognitive limitations of unpracticed beginners while supporting their practice of this complex skill. Both prior psychological research and formative evaluation studies with users shaped the interface design. Collaborative Argumentation Environment, Educational Application, Design Rationale. An early and persistent interest in designing software systems to support argumentation has resulted in interesting work with hypertext systems and with graphical interfaces for argument construction.
Belvedere aims to support the development of scientific argumentation skills in young students.
These students can't be presumed to have either general skills of constructing arguments or the specific knowledge of a domain. A main goal of our system is to stimulate critical discussion that wouldn't otherwise take place. Our users' final graphical and textual products need not record all their claims and argument moves. We therefore designed Belvedere's representations and functionalities to be used as objects of discussion as well as a medium of discussion. Belvedere uses diagrammatic representations that provide users with concrete forms for diagraming the abstract structure of theories and related arguments.