Why children need critical thinking skills, how a climate for critical thinking can be created at home, and programs that promote critical thinking by elementary school children are discussed. (MT)

A simple problem (counting beans in a jar) is used to demonstrate an approach to organizing and quantifying decision making. The example shows that a willingness to go beyond ordinary engineering analysis may be needed to provide answers to many engineering problems. (Author/JN)

Describes typical phases through which decision-making groups pass. Explores communication dimensions of small-group deliberation, and presents suggestions to improve the quality of group problem solving. (Author/BH)

A description of the in-basket test technique which simulates the problems of a specific management role and requires the examinee to handle these simulated problems as if he were actually on the job.'' (Author/AK)

Develops a new model of crisis perception and compares it to Hermann's three-variable model (surprise, short decision time, and threat to valued goals). Three specific predictions derived from the proposed model are confirmed by data from 177 industrial and educational organizations that experienced curtailments of natural gas allocations.…

Studies the use of process instructions which explain to the jury not only the law but also provide a step-by-step process for the jury to follow. Concludes that results, in terms of verdict, do not differ with the use of process or standard instructions, but that less time was needed to reach a verdict using the process instructions. (JMF)

Two organizational problem situations were worked on by 61 teams in 4 conditions: (1) controls, (2) traditional process (goal clarity, commitment, decision making), (3) team learning (assumption surfacing, dialog, reflection), and (4) combined 2 and 3. Team learning produced significantly more double-loop learning. Controls achieved more…

Outlines major steps in problem-solving process: (1) defining the real objective; (2) defining characteristics of the optimum solution; (3) searching for alternate solutions; (4) comparing the best alternative solutions; and (5) choosing the best solution. Discusses variations in procedure when problem owner and solver are the same or different…

Principals are increasingly expected to be the instructional as well as administrative leaders of their schools. However, little is known about how principals reason through the instructional issues that they face. An analysis of principal reasoning in instructional contexts is critical. The study presented in this article draws on interviews with…

This study discusses findings that replicate and extend the original work of Burns and Vollmeyer (2002), which showed that performance in problem-solving tasks was more accurate when people were engaged in a non-specific goal than in a specific goal. The main innovation here was to examine the goal specificity effect under both observation-based…

This report describes a program for advancing critical thinking skills in an integrated earth science geography course. The targeted population consists of high school freshmen from a growing, upper middle class, suburban community 40 miles west of Chicago. The information on these students comes from teacher observation, colleague surveys, and…

Four portfolio managers who handle common stocks were observed in a study that examined the preference of an alternative decision making process in an information overload situation. The week of observation was arranged so that the portfolio manager focused primarily on the decision making portion of the work rather than on the presentation and…

WRITTEN TO IMPLEMENT THE PRINCIPLES SET FORTH IN "DESIGN FOR THINKING" (SEE TE 000 457.), THIS BOOK DEALS WITH WORDS AS TOOLS OF THOUGHT AND WITH THE PROBLEM-SOLVING FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE. CHAPTERS ARE ON (1) QUALIFICATION, CLASSIFICATION, AND ABSTRACTION, (2) SIGNS, REPRESENTATIONS, SYMBOLS, AND MATRICES, (3) ANALYSIS (BY CLASSIFICATION,…