Reports several years of instructional design work organized by an interest in the identification of students' preinstructional beliefs and the use of argumentative discussion as instructional interventions in an introductory communication research methods course. Concludes that students' preinstructional beliefs interfere with learning of…

Studies children's justification of message choices as characteristics of their reasoning processes. Indicates that interpersonal reasoning increases in sophistication and complexity over the age groups studied and that females reason at a higher level than males. Situational influences on level of interpersonal reasoning were also found. (JMF)