ABSTRACT
Inspired by John Dewey’s (1910) exploration of refl ective thinking, those in communication studies interested in group discussion as an instrument of deliberation have treated this activity as a form of inquiry having as its paramount goal discovery. They offered a model of discussion that discouraged efforts by participants to convince one another of the merits of competing choice options by means of argument; that purportedly was the domain of debate (see, e.g., Ewbank & Auer, 1941). The dominant feeling was that discussion, conducted properly by individuals trained and skilled in refl ective thinking, would serve to reveal the appropriate answers to questions of fact, conjecture, value, and policy, as well as lead to the identifi cation of workable solutions to all manner of problematic situations.
