I don't feel I'm teaching my students well in the use of the term plausibility. I want to prepare the next lot better for the final question on unit 1. Even with the markscheme I'm a bit in the dark. Any brilliant ideas? Especially on how to assess plausibility. For credibility there are the given criteria, but plausibility seems much vaguer - little more than 'seems OK to me'. Hardly critical!
Critical Thinking Forum » Critical Thinking
credibility and plausibility
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Posted 1 year ago #
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I first raised this question about a year ago. When I first read the new specification, it seemed to suggest that inconsistency and plausibility were credibility criteria but I now get the impression that this is to not be the case.
In the Jan 2009 Unit One paper, the word "plausibility" was taken to mean the likelihood of an outcome, so we assess plausibility when we ask candidates to "come to a reasoned judgement as to how likely it is that..."
Posted 1 year ago # -
The introduction of the term 'plausibility' into the requirement for the argument does indeed raise many questions of meaning, not least with regard to its relationship to credibility. I find the given attempted clarification of 'plausibility' as 'likelihod' to be significantly unhelpful. It is certainly a very eccentric meaning of the term. I don't see why we don't just stick to the more common meaning of 'reasonableness'. Which of these two versions is the more plausible simply means which of these two vesions is the more reasonable. Credibiltiy then forms part of the discussion. If one side is more credible than the other, then this credibility contributes to the possible reasonableness of this side's case.
Using plausibility to mean reasonableness, we can ask useful questions. Looking at the evidence on each side, which side produces the more reasonable case? How are the points raised by one side answered by the other? Does one side have evidence which makes its claim more likely to be the case? Are there any inconsistencies between the claims of one side? Has one side stacked up more relevant claims than the other?
This becomes then a very rich area for students to explore.
Posted 1 year ago #
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