Using controversies for knowledge construction: Thinking and writing about alternative medicine

This paper presents a case study in which two participants with opposing points of view used a shared document for purposes of dealing with a controversy on the effectiveness of homeopathic medicine. The participants were working by turns on a common presentation that should outline their opinions on the topic. During this alternating process they had to think aloud to make individual processes observable. In addition, we analyzed the development of the shared text. We combined a content analysis and the think-aloud data to measure internal and external processes of knowledge construction, and we describe how these processes influenced each other. This procedure led to insights into the development of perception shared by the participants and into the resulting knowledge construction with respect to quantitative and qualitative processes. In particular, we analyzed the interplay between the participants' thinking and writing processes as well as the co-evolution of their thinking and writing as cognitive and social processes. In our conclusion we discuss the implications of our findings for understanding processes of knowledge construction. © ISLS.