A disagreeable outcome?

A report from the Higher Education Academy into the argumentative skills [sic] of first-year students is filling academic tutors with dread. A research team from the universities of York, Queen Mary and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found little evidence of "successful interventions to improve argument at higher education level".

"Please, no!" cried one esteemed professor of higher education. "Students are often argumentative . If they had skills of argumentation they might get listened to, and the quality of their assignments would improve. Academics should know the meaning of words. This is not a Humpty Dumpty world, is it?"