We compared two automated approaches to teaching distinguishing, a fundamental skill of case-based reasoning that involves assessing the relevant differences among cases in a context-sensitive way. The approaches are implemented in two versions of CATO, an ITS designed to teach law students basic skills of case-based legal argument. The original version of CATO employed a didactic explanatory dialogue. The newer version, CATO-Dial, teaches the same skill with a simulated dialectric argument in a courtroom setting. Our hypothesis was that students would learn better by engaging in the simulated argument than by receiving interactive explanation. We showed that students in the dialectic argument simulation group performed significantly better on certain sections of the post-test aimed at assessing transfer of their skills of distinguishing.
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