Resumen de Analysing Textual Data As a Methodology to Approach Argumentation: A Research Work Among Undergraduate Students from Chilean Universities

Nadia Soledad Peralta, Mariano Andrés Castellaro, Cristián Santibáñez Yáñez

• This article aims to show how textual data analysis can be applied to the study of argumentation. This is an alternative methodology allowing to trace back massive qualitative data standing for cognitive skill displays, the analysis of which would allow to provide feedback, for instance, to the educational system. Textual data analysis was done in two key dimensions of argumentative competence, namely, counter-argumentation and epistemic revision. The analysis examined language outcomes from 86 Chilean undergraduate university students from different Chilean universities (three public and three private) from Metropolitan and Coquimbo regions, enrolled in the social sciences, exact and natural sciences, and engineering programs. In this correlational non-experimental study, the students responded a semi-structured interview, which sought to examine how this ecological community behaves argumentatively. Findings reveal that textual data analysis helps to detect specific vocabulary for each type of response, it provides an in-context analysis of selected verbs, both on the intradiscursive and interdiscursive levels, and allows data to return to reality. This is due to the flexibility of the analysis responding to a complexity inherent in the units of study, integrating different types of quantitative data with textual data.