The impact of inquiry-based learning on the critical thinking dispositions of pre-service science teachers

ABSTRACT

In the study, the impact of inquiry-based learning on pre-service teachers’ critical thinking dispositions was investigated. The sample of the study comprised of 56 pre-service teachers in the science education teacher education programme at the public university in the north of Turkey. In the study, quasi-experimental design with an experimental and a control group were applied to find out the impact of inquiry-based learning on the critical thinking dispositions of the pre-service teachers in the teacher education programme. The results showed that the pre-service teachers in the experimental group did not show statistically significant greater progress in terms of critical thinking dispositions than those in the control group. Teacher educators who are responsible for pedagogical courses in the teacher education programme should consider that the inquiry-based learning could not be effective method to improve pre-service teachers’ critical thinking dispositions. The results are discussed in relation to potential impact on science teacher education and implications for future research.     

Enhancing critical thinking using team-based learning

This study examines students’ perceptions of the development of academic and critical thinking skills in college, with a specific focus on team-based learning (TBL), an active learning strategy designed to increase student interaction and engagement. Six hundred and fifty students in five different courses were surveyed at the beginning of the semester about the extent to which they felt the typical college course enhances various academic and critical thinking skills. These responses were compared to their responses after a semester of TBL regarding the extent to which the TBL environment enhanced these same skills. Students expressed significantly greater improvement in critical thinking skills in a TBL environment in comparison to typical courses for most of the skills assessed and greater improvement in all of these skills in comparison to lecture-based courses. These results held for every demographic subgroup examined, including males, females, freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors, as well as all levels of academic achievement as measured by grade point average.     

对西安市城镇高中生批判性思维的初步调查

This paper reports the development of critical thinking of urban high school students in the Chinese city of Xi’an. It presents the assessment of the students’ two components of critical thinking: dispositions towards critical thinking and critical thinking skills, using the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory and the California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Results show that the students’ dispositions toward critical thinking are at an average level while their critical thinking skills are very low. This research also shows that there is no significant difference between students from science classes and arts classes in their critical thinking dispositions while science students have a higher level of critical thinking skills. Students from advanced classes have a higher level of the two components of critical thinking than their counterparts from general classes. There are no differences between male students and female students in both components.      

Action learning and critical thinking: a synthesis of two models

Recent scholarship and the news media have identified a lack of critical thinking and ethical behavior in the business world. These deficiencies have led to faulty decision-making, ineffective planning, and frequent organizational dysfunction. This situation has focused attention on both practitioners in the field of business and on the university programs that educate them. A number of upper-tier universities have begun to address these important issues by exploring ways of revising their Master of Business Administration programs to place greater emphasis on their graduates' ability to think critically and consider ethical implications before and after taking action. The authors propose a potential means of addressing these issues in both the business and academic environments through a synthesis of two well-established models based on the constructs of critical thinking and action learning. This synthesis has the potential to produce symbiotic and synergistic effects that may provide educators and practitioners with a new tool for encouraging critical thinking and ethical behavior. The implications for future research and practice are also discussed.     

Using higher order thinking questions to foster critical thinking: a classroom study

To determine if quizzes containing higher order thinking questions are related to critical thinking and test performance when utilised in conjunction with an immersion approach to instruction and effort-based grading, sections of an Educational Psychology course were assigned to one of three quizzing conditions. Quizzes contained factual multiple-choice questions, factual essay questions or essay items requiring higher order thinking. Critical thinking was measured with a pre-test–post-test design and the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Short Form). Classroom learning was assessed via multiple-choice and essay tests. Critical thinking increased equally across all sections. The section receiving higher order thinking quizzes performed significantly better than the other two sections on both the multiple-choice and essay portions of the classroom tests. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of methodological approaches to encouraging critical thinking.     

The role of learning environments in thinking styles

The present study examined the association between students’ perceived general learning environment and their thinking styles (a specific term for ‘intellectual styles’). Seven hundred and fifty-two undergraduates in Shanghai responded to the Thinking Style Inventory-Revised II and the Inventory of Students’ Perceived Learning Environment. Results indicated that students’ perceived learning environment statistically predicted their thinking styles beyond gender, grade, major, and socio-economic status. Specifically, constructivist-oriented teaching, as well as peer morale and identities, were mainly associated with thinking styles that are characterised by cognitive complexity, nonconformity, autonomy and low degrees of structure (known as Type I styles), while clear goals and coherence of curricula mainly statistically predicted thinking styles that are characterised by cognitive simplicity, conformity, authority, and high degrees of structure (known as Type II styles). Student–student cooperation, the nature of assessment and assignments and learning facilities also statistically contributed to thinking styles to varying extents. The implications and limitations of the present findings are discussed.     

Critical thinking in criminology: critical reflections on learning and teaching

Fostering critical thinking abilities amongst students is one component of preparing them to navigate uncertain and complex social lives and employment circumstances. One conceptualisation of critical thinking, valuable in higher education, draws from critical theory to promote social justice and redress power inequities. This study explored how students’ critical thinking developed in a discrete core unit of criminology. Second and third year students were invited to participate in the research. Participants wrote critical reflections on how their thinking about crime and criminal justice had developed throughout the unit. Analysis of responses indicated that certain topics were salient to students, offering a way to engage them in deeper thinking. Students’ critical reflections showed evidence of personally relevant meaning-making, including the development of more nuanced thinking about crime and justice, and more compassionate rationales for aspiring to careers within the field. Implications for learning and teaching critical thinking in criminology are discussed.     

Cultivating engineering ethics and critical thinking: a systematic and cross-cultural education approach using problem-based learning

In May 2008, the worst earthquake in more than three decades struck southwest China, killing more than 80,000 people. The complexity of this earthquake makes it an ideal case study to clarify the intertwined issues of ethics in engineering and to help cultivate critical thinking skills. This paper first explores the need to encourage engineering ethics within a cross-cultural context. Next, it presents a systematic model for designing an engineering ethics curriculum based on moral development theory and ethic dilemma analysis. Quantitative and qualitative data from students’ oral and written work were collected and analysed to determine directions for improvement. The paper also presents results of an assessment of this interdisciplinary engineering ethics course. This investigation of a disaster is limited strictly to engineering ethics education; it is not intended to assign blame, but rather to spark debate about ethical issues.     

Students embracing change towards more powerful learning environments in vocational education

Students’ educational engagement is both an important predictor of study success and a key preventive factor for dropout. Vocational tracks in secondary education show high dropout rates. There is strong evidence that the solution to educational disengagement lies in student‐centred, powerful learning environments (PLEs). This study investigates characteristics of PLEs from the perspective of students in vocational secondary education. Students’ perspectives on a learning environment are crucial for their satisfaction and learning engagement. Therefore, we investigated whether the perceived learning environment meets the requirements of PLEs, and to what extent it meets students’ preferences. Additionally, it was investigated whether students who perceive their learning environment as more powerful, are also more engaged for school. Survey data of 532 students showed that student perceptions of their current learning environment were largely discrepant from the characteristics of PLEs. Students strongly asked for more challenging learning pathways, in combination with adaptive learning support. Students who perceived the characteristics of PLEs as being present, reported higher satisfaction and stronger engagement than students who perceived their education to be a less powerful environment. There is a need to redesign curricula in vocational education in such a way that these more intensely implement characteristics of PLEs.     

Redesigning chat forum for critical thinking in a problem-based learning environment

Support is needed to promote problem-based learning (PBL) and to enhance critical thinking skills in discussion-based Internet forums. By advancing the capabilities of chat room and forum software, problem-based discussions for learning can be supported further in online learning environments. In this paper, the authors report on MALESAbrain, an intelligent learning tool. The model is built on the notions of threshold and knowledge weight from the discipline of machine learning. The model encourages learners to judge or critically evaluate the solutions posted by others before exploring further knowledge content. The system then sums up the judgment scores as its knowledge weight to pass the thresholds setup for ranking/arranging the learning issues. This constraint design, therefore, becomes a mechanism for critical thinking in a problem-based learning activity. MALESAbrain as a model helps transform the forum and chat room into rich learning discussion environments.     

Enhancing curricula and learning environments using critical realist perspectives and approaches: a case study and critique

While critical realist (CR) ontological and epistemological perspectives and research approaches are becoming more widely adopted by higher education researchers, the scope of research is relatively limited, and novice researchers in the area still struggle to create rich, in-depth, and critical accounts of these approaches ‘in action’. This article provides an account of teacher-researchers’ exploration of these perspectives in the context of an important aspect their everyday teaching practice – the design of effective curricula and learning environments. The context is research that focused on the design, evaluation, and enhancement of learning environments intended to facilitate students’ development of design thinking expertise. The article outlines the researchers’ CR paradigm positioning and implications for methodologies used to gather, analyse, and theorise data about the response of design and business students to three iterations of a design thinking learning environment. The research involved action research that integrated survey, case study, and theorising methodologies. Examples of data, analyses, and explanatory theory are provided to give insights into specific research tasks and their outcomes. Possible explanations for the findings and their implications for attempts to enhance the learning environment are considered from a CR perspective along with challenges that deploying these approaches may entail.     

Classroom learning environment,critical thinking and achievement in an interdisciplinary subject: a study of Hong Kong secondary school graduates

Although the relationship between the classroom learning environment and academic achievement has been explored in subject-free and disciplinary subject contexts, research into this relationship is still lacking in the context of interdisciplinary subjects. This study investigated the relationship between the classroom learning environment and student achievement in an interdisciplinary subject (i.e. liberal studies) in Hong Kong secondary schools. The mediating role of critical thinking was also explored. The participants were 410 Hong Kong secondary school graduates. The structural equation modelling analyses indicated that (1) the Content aspect of the classroom learning environment had an effect on the achievement in liberal studies, and this effect was not mediated by critical thinking; (2) the Pedagogy aspect predicted critical thinking skills, which in turn predicted the achievement in liberal studies; (3) the Relation aspect had no significant effects on critical thinking skills and student achievement in liberal studies. Suggestions on enhancing students’ high-order thinking skills and achievement in interdisciplinary subjects were provided.     

Executive functions as predictors of critical thinking: Behavioral and neural evidence

Theories of critical thinking suggest that executive functions play crucial roles in students’ critical thinking performance. However, very little empirical research has examined the potential confounding factors of fluid intelligence and thinking dispositions on the relationship between executive functions and critical thinking. Study 1, based on a large sample of university students, filled this gap by exploring how three core executive functions (updating, inhibition, and shifting) predicted critical thinking after controlling for fluid intelligence and thinking dispositions. The results showed that updating and inhibition predicted critical thinking over and above fluid intelligence and thinking dispositions. In Study 2, we explored the neural basis of the relationship between executive functions and critical thinking. We found that low-level critical thinkers exhibited higher P3 amplitudes than their high-level counterparts when completing updating and inhibition tasks. These results suggest that critical thinking relies on both updating and inhibition processes indexed by the P3 ERP components.     

批判性思维研究概述

批判性思维研究在一些基本问题上还存在分歧。本文在相关文献、资料的基础上,对批判性思维的涵义、本质、研究现状、相关理论及批判性思维的培养等方面进行了综述。     

Effect of a blended learning environment on student critical thinking and knowledge transformation

With the development of information technology and popularization of web applications, students nowadays have grown used to skimming through information provided through the Internet. This reading habit led them to be incapable of analyzing or integrating information they have received. Hence, knowledge management and critical thinking (CT) have, in recent years, become important topics in higher education. However, there are many web applications that may serve as effective teaching and learning tools. This study therefore proposed a blended learning environment that incorporated useful web applications within a knowledge transformation model to create an educational environment capable of improving CT and knowledge transformation for student users. A semester-long experiment was then conducted to evaluate this learning environment. Results revealed that the proposed approach was effective in improving student CT and knowledge transformation. Students were also satisfied with the courses and teaching methods used by the proposed learning environment which also effectively improved their learning motivation.     

教师批判性思维倾向量表(TCTS)的修订

本研究的目的在于以分析教师批判性思维倾向(Teacher Critical Thinking)的结构为基础,制订教师批判性思维倾向的测量工具。原始问卷根据台湾学者朱苑瑜、叶玉珠编制完成的《批判性思考倾向量表》及教师批判性思维倾向的理论定义而构造。489位中小学教师参加了测验。要求被试在6点量表上评定问卷的每一个条目是否适合描述他们自己,“1”代表非常同意,“6”代表非常不同意。测验结果得到了一个由12个条目构成的四因素结构的教师批判性思维倾向量表,该因素解释总变异的74.2%,量表平均分为27.12,标准差为10.98,无显著性性别差异(t=.336,P=.737)。统计分析还表明:该量表具有较好的内部一致性信度(a=.9496)和折半信度(r=.9384)。本量表适合在中小学教师中使用,稳定性较强,项目较少,简便易行。     

Investigating critical thinking and knowledge construction in an interactive learning environment

Critical thinking and knowledge construction have become essential competencies for people in the new information age. In this study, we designed an interactive learning environment involving three forms of interaction: individual reflections, group collaboration and, class discussions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the three forms of interaction promoted students' critical thinking and knowledge construction. Seventeen students at National Institute of Education of Singapore participated in this study. Their reflections and discussions were analyzed by following a content analysis approach. Results showed that writing reflections had potential to promote critical thinking but, not all students thought critically. Knowledge construction in groups and in class discussions happened at lower levels. This paper presents the conceptual framework, design specifications and evaluation results of the ILE. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Investigating the quality of project-based science and technology learning environments in elementary school: a critical review of instruments

This paper provides a systematic review of instruments that have the potential to measure the quality of project-based science and technology (S&T) learning environments in elementary school. To this end, a comprehensive literature search was undertaken for the large field of S&T learning environments. We conducted a horizontal bottom-up analysis of the aspects measured by the retrieved instruments and their operationalisation. We distinguish 11 components. The most frequently evaluated components are prior knowledge and backgrounds, connection with reality, science as inquiry and level of initiative and group work. Overall, the results suggest a considerable diversity in the operationalisation of the components found. Particularly, for connection with reality, science as inquiry and level of initiative and group work, this is related to (1) the object of measurement (e.g. variety in aspects evaluated) and (2) the extent to which the used concepts are clarified. Consequently, some scales, items and questions were found to be a closer fit with aspects of project-based learning environments than others. Additionally, most of the retrieved instruments cover science and not technology or project-based education. This review can be used when searching for a scale, item or question to measure particular aspects of S&T learning environments.     

Establishing enabling conditions to develop critical thinking skills: a case of innovative curriculum design in Environmental Science

This paper considers a curriculum design motivated by a desire to explore more valid pedagogical approaches that foster critical thinking skills among students engaged in an Environmental Science course in South Africa, focussing specifically on the topic of Citizen Science. Fifty-three under graduate students were involved in the course, which was run over a two week period. Data were generated from several sources, including individual student evaluations, a focus group discussion, lecturer reflections and summative assessment results. During the course, the development of critical thinking skills was scaffolded by different thinking approaches to the possibilities and problematics of student-selected case studies, followed by a collaborative re-examining of ‘what is known’ about Citizen Science. Spiralling engagement with various resources harnessed the diversity of the class, as they drew on their personal and disciplinary backgrounds. The insights highlight possibilities for alternative higher education teaching models for emerging subjects such as Environmental Science, where the competencies required of graduates, such as critical thinking and coping with uncertainty, differ significantly from traditional ‘science’ competencies, and therefore require a departure from traditional teaching methods.     

Online professional development for environmental educators: strategies to foster critical thinking and social interactions

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) offer opportunities for professional development of environmental educators globally, yet we lack understanding of participants? cognitive and social learning processes and of how instructors can enhance these processes. Based on the Community of Inquiry framework, we used a survey and coded participant discussion board and Facebook posts to examine the cognitive, social, and teaching presence in the Environmental Education: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Addressing Wicked Problems MOOC, offered by Cornell University. Rather than train educators in a specific curriculum, the goal of the MOOC is to expand educators? critical and transdisciplinary thinking about the field of environmental education and to enhance social interactions to support learning, educators, and knowledge co-creation. Results indicate that cognitive presence is higher on the discussion board whereas social presence is higher on Facebook. Over half of cognitive posts focused on exploration, a lower level of learning, whereas just less than a fifth reflected higher level integration, suggesting room for enhancing cognitive learning. Our results suggest strategies to encourage higher levels of thinking and more meaningful social interactions to foster learning, educator support, and co-creation of knowledge, thereby improving online professional development.