The critical thinker is one who is, according to Harvey Siegel, "appropriately moved by reasons." This characterization of critical thinking combines a "reason assessment" component (the principled assessment of reasons and their ability to warrant beliefs, claims and actions) and a "critical attitude" component (the…

The skills taught in the Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) program and the Instrumental Enrichment (IE) program are unlikely to transfer to thinking in the regular curriculum. The exercises in these programs might be fun to do, but the thinking required is done outside the context of significant subject matter in the humanities and the sciences. The…

The aim of this research was to identify, develop, and evaluate empirically new reasoning item types that might be used to broaden the analytical measure of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test and to strengthen its construct validity. Six item types were selected for empirical evaluation, including the two currently used in the GRE…

Providing entertainment and recreation at home and in the classroom, this book presents over 125 verbal, visual, and logic puzzles which may also enhance problem-solving abilities and improve language skills. The games in the book are arranged in chapters: (1) Picture Puzzles; (2) Word Play; (3) Games and Trivia; (4) Mystery, Logic, and Numbers;…

Critical thinking has been conceptualized as a two-factor system in which critical thinking ability and critical thinking disposition combine to determine actual thinking performance. The present study used confirmatory factor analysis to investigate such a two-factor model empirically. One hundred ninety-eight Purdue University undergraduates…

The study investigated the role of analogic instruction and reasoning level on the dependent measure of concept acquisition in an introductory college genetics course. The question of whether concept acquisition was facilitated through the use of instructional analogies was addressed. The control treatment consisted of expository instruction alone…

This report discusses the need to teach critical thinking and study skill strategies to improve the problem-solving ability, study habits, and knowledge of subject content to students in psychiatric treatment centers. The report asserts that this type of curriculum will assist students in comprehending new information and utilizing thinking skills…

The "Convince Me""reasoner's workbench" software provides a means of explicating and revising arguments and a "reasoning engine" for assessing one's beliefs. A proposed modification to the Convince Me interface, the addition of an online diagrammatic representation to an argument's structure, is premised on the belief…

Suggesting that critical thinking activities are the crux of many of the goals and objectives of communication education, this paper summarizes a sample of the literature on critical thinking. Based on the review, the paper notes that: (1) a consensus exists regarding what critical thinking is and what specific skills are acquired through varied…

Designed to develop K-3 children's thinking skills before the children have mastered reading, this book presents 32 activities in which children learn to complete analogies--presented with an "attribute block" with 3 attributes, children choose a fourth attribute block to complete the analogy. The attribute blocks in the book are of 4 types--shape…

The research on cooperative scripts is brought together using a model that provides an overview of the learning processes involved and the outcomes to be expected from the use of certain scripts. By providing such a framework, the wealth of research may be compared and generalized, thereby promoting its instructional utility. The Cognitive…

Much of the emphasis in this handbook is on helping students develop investigative, problem-solving, and thinking skills, but the importance of students' working together in a cooperative and democratic setting to solve problems is also stressed. Cooperative learning is an instructional tool that can often be used to the student's advantage. Part…

In two studies, children participated in route-planning tasks in which they were asked to find the shortest path to retrieve certain items. In Study 1, children participated in two versions of the task (standard versus feedback) differing in the amount of contextual support. Forty-eight children, ages 6, 8, and 10 years, had to help their…

This document contains informal geometry explorations that provide students with opportunities to investigate the environment from a geometric perspective, construct connections between related mathematics and other content areas, and solve problems in a geometric context. The activities provide experiences that develop curiosity, understanding,…

Cognitive development is driven by experience, but is mediated by domain general processes, which include learning, induction, and analogy. The concepts children understand, and the strategies they develop based on that understanding, depend on the complexity of the representation they can construct. Conceptual complexity can be defined in terms…