DOCUMENT RESUME

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AUTHOR Walsh, Debbie; Paul, Richard W.TITLE The Goal of Critical Thinking: from Educational Ideal

to Educational Reality.'INSTITUTION American Federation of Teachers, Washington, D.C.PUB DATE [86]NOTE 68p.PUB TYPE Viewpoints (120)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS Cognitive Processes; *Critical Thinking; *Curriculum

Development; Elementary Secondary Education;*Evaluative Thinking; Higher Education; Inquiry;*Intellectual Development; Logical Thinking; *ProblemSolving; Teacher Education

IDENTIFIERS *Thinking Skills

ABSTRACTThis monograph examines the issues surrounding the

educational movement toward emphasizing critical thinking in ourschools. The emergence of the critical thinking movement in educationin today's schools is discussed in the light of the historical roleof schools in our society and the developing complexity of.educational needs. The concept of critical thinking is defined andresearch findings on the importance of early development of criticalthinking skills in children are reviewed. The responsibility of theschools in developing sound approaches to.teaching children to thinkfor themselves in creative ways is underscored by a discussion oninstructional and curriculum improvement. A section of the monographis devoted to means for evaluating critical thinking skills.Recommendations are made for changes in educational policy andpractice and the increasingly crucial role of the professionalteacher is discussed. Sample questions requiring critical thinking invarious disciplines are appended as well as a glossary of criticalthinking terms and references for further reading. (JD)

***************************w******************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made ** from the original document. *

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The Goalof

Critical Thinking:from

Educational Idealto

Educational RealityDebbie Walsh, Ph.D.

andRichard W Paul, Ph.D.

American Federation of TeachersEducational Issues Department

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the thoughtful suggestions and recommendations to improve the manuscriptfrom the following:

Theodore R. Sizer, Chairman, Education Department, Brown University

Marvin Lazerson, Visiting Professor, Harvard Graduate School of EducationRobert Wood, Teacher, Fairfax County (VA) Federation of Teachers

Joyce Hathaway, Teacher, Fairfax County Public Schools

Fielding Gentry, Teacher, Washington, D.C. Public Schools

MOUT THE AUTHORSWalsh is Assistant Director of the American Federation of Teachers Educational Issues Department and a former

elementary school teacher in Chicago, IL.

Richard W. Paul is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Critical Thinking and Moral Cntique, SonomaState University, Rohnert Park, CA.

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The Goal of Critical Thinking: from

Educational Ideal to Educational Reality

I. CRITICAL THINKING: THE STATE OF THE ARTA. IntroductionB. Historical Role of the SchoolsC. The Present SituationD. From "Knowledge" to "Knowing"E. The Need for a Transformation of EmphasisF. The Emergence of the Critical Thinking Movement in Education

IL CRITICAL THINKING: HOW THE CONCEPT IS DEFINED AND WHAT THERESEARCH SAYS

A. Approaches to the Concept of Critical ThinkingB. Critical Thinking Dispositions and AttitudesC. Critical Thinking Skills and AbilitiesD. Research on Critical Thinking Issues

III CRITICAL THINKING: TEACHING CHILDREN HOW TO THINK FOR THEMSELVFSA. Beginning the Transformation of EmphasisB. The Paideia Approach as a Frainework for Thinking About Critical ThinkingC. Essential Elements of Critical Thinking InstructionD. Writing and Critical ThinkingE. Reading and Critical ThinkingF. Critical Thinking and the Disciplines

IV. CRITICAL DUNKING: EVALUATION OF SKILLSA. Reassessing Current Assessment MeasuresB. Nationally Available Critical Thinking TestsC. The Essay as a Measure of Critical Thinking SkillsD. Considerations for Assessing Critical Thi Acing

V. CRITICAL THINKING: RECOMMFXDATIONS MR POLICY AND PRACTICEA. Directions for ChangeB. Towards a Vision of Teachers as ProfessionalsC. Teacher Education: Preservice and InserviceD. Organizational ConsiderationsE. Critical Thinkins: Turning an Ideal into a Reality

VI. APPENDIXA. Sample Questions from the DisciplinesB. Definitions of Critical Thinking Terms

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CHAPTER 1: CRITICAL DUNKING:THE STATE OF THE

A. IntroductionWe live in a rapidly changing and unpredictable society

in a rapidly changing and unpredictable world. To surviveeconomically we need the kind of generalized thinkingskills that cannot become obsolete with the ever-changingdemand for new specialties and the obsolescence of oldones. To survive politically and personally we need thekind of generalized thinking skills that enable us to pene-trate the complex nature of the information, misinforma-tion and disinformation around us. We need to be able tothink perceptively and critically about issues both withinour own personal lives andmore problematicallyInthe larger world beyond. Never before has flexibility ofthought been so essential in view of the complexity andthe magnitude of the social Issues of the day. Never beforehave critical thinking skills been more necessary forsurvival.

An implicit purpose of the schools is to prepare studentsto meet the challenges of their world. We hope to preparestudents to meet these challenges, to live productive andsatisfying lives and to participate in a democratic society.Such is the ideal of education in a democratic society.

A genuine commitment to schooling based on the valueof critical-analytic thought at the heart of everyday lifeand decision requires a profound transformation of em-phasis in the schools of today and tomorrow. This commit-ment requires a transformation from what Hilda Taba hascalled a stress on isolated bits of Information which bur-den the student's memory with an "unorganized, perisha-ble and obsolescent assemblage of facts," to an emphasison what Matthew Lipman calls "communities of inquiry":classrooms committed to the process of intellectual in-quiry and rational thought.

What is meant by critical thinking? As a working defini-tion, Robert Ennis defines It as "reasonable and reflectivethinking that is focused on deciding what to believe anddo. Robert Glaser says that it involves three principle ele-ments: 1) an attitude of being disposed to consider in athoughtful, perceptive manner the problems and subjectsthat come within one's range of experiences, 2) knowledgeof the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and 3)skill in applying those methods. Barry Byer describes itas assessing the authenticity, accuracy and worth ofknowledge claims, beliefs or arguments. This meansteaching children to "think for themselves". to developcritical habits of thought. It requires an integration ofknowledge into a perspective of what we do with knowl-edge. It requires emphasizing the intellectual tools andskills that process and organize knowledge. It means help-ing children develop into adults who are critical thinkers.who seek reasons, who can weigh, reconcile and assess ar-guments and points of view, who can analyze conclusions.

Philosopher Harvey Siegal calls it the "critical spirit":certain attitudes, dispositions, habits and character traits

which can be fostered and developed. The critical spirit orattitude entails a real commitment to the objective evalua-tion of evidence, a willingness to conform judgement tomindful principles and a pronounced disposition to seekreasons for what is done. There is hard evidence to indi-cate that emphasizing thinking not only encourages chil-dren to be rigorously critical and imaginatively specula-tive, but also correlates with success in basic academicskills. There is evidence, however, that although mostschool systems espouse the goals of reasoning, inquiryand critical thinking, few systems accomplish these goals.

This is not to say that everything is open to questionthat all positions are morally equivalent and that there areno beliefs and values that can be justified, agreed uponand cherished, which was the emphasis of the failedvalues clarification movement of the 1970s. The ideal ofdemocracy, for example, is a shared value that can be jus-tified as being the highest form of human governance. TheAFT believes that the schools have a responsibility for de-veloping democratic values in our childrenthat devo-tion to human dignity and freedom, to justice and truth, toequal rights, to the rule of law, to tolerance and mutual as-sistance, to personal responsibility, to self restraint andself respectall must be taught and practiced. These arenot values that can be taken for granted or offered asmerely one set options against which any other must be.regarded as equally The issue here is that one's be-liefs and values must be based on reflective inquiry,thoughtful analysis and reasoned judgement.

B. Historical Role of the SchoolsThe deepest roots of the critical thinking mLnement are

traceable to the teaching practice and vision of Socrates.By a probing method of questioning, Socrates discoveredthat many of the authorities of his day could not justify onrational grounds their confident claims to knowledgeConfused meaning, inadequate evidence, or self-contra-dictory beliefs were often lurking underneath smooth butlargely empty rhetoric.

Initially, the schools in this country were established totransmit beliefs conducive tuiight conduct and successfulIndustry." As late as 1840, American schools taught stu-dents the three R's and some basic catechism, along with asmattering of patriotic history. The school term was shortand attendance irregular. In 1800, for example, the aver-age American attended school only 82 days out of his en-tire life. By 1840 that figure had increased to 208 days, by1860 to one year, and by 1900 to two years.

The schools never appear, either in purposes or practices, to have been much concerned w ith critical thought.

Horace Mann describes the nature of the learning of hisday:

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I have devoted especial pains to learn, w ith some de- 1

gree of numerical accuracy, how far the reading, inour schools, is an exercise of the mind in thinkingand feeling and how far it is a barren action of the or-gans of speech upon the atmosphere . . . more than11112ths of all the children in the reading classes donot understand the meanings of the words they read;and that the ideas and feelings intended by the au-thor to be conveyed to, and excited in, the reader'smind still rest in the author's intention, never hav-ing yet reached the place of their destination. (Sec-ond report to the Massachusetts Board of Educa-tion, 1838.)

The history of the teaching profession fits easily intothis picture, as expectations about teachers were driven bythe purposes and practices of schooling. In the early daysthe teacher was any adult who had no other job and couldread, write, and cipher. From the very beginning teachingwas characterized as low in prestige, low in pay, and lack-ing in personal freedom.

Teachers were not expected to demonstrate the ability tothink critically and analytically about the issues of the day.What was sought was not an independent thinker with"scholarly scruples" but a disciplinarian who could makesure the correct answers were learned. Far from theteacher being allowed to function as an independentthinker or professional, the teacher was cast into the roleof transmitter of information and a follower of orders ofcommunity authonties. In 1903, for example, MargaretHaley wrote that:

The teachei [is] an automaton, a mere factory hand,whose duty it is to carry out mechanically and un-questioningly the ideas and orders of those clothedwith the authority of position. . . . The individual/ity of the teacher and her power of initiative are thusdestroyed, and the result is courses of study, regula-tions, and equipment which the teachers have hadno voice in selecting, which often have no relationto the children's needs, and which prove a hindranceinstead of a help in teaching.

Today these factors continue to contribute to the. diffi-culty of finding the talent to educate children in a societythat does not make teaching attractive.

Other more recent events have molded and shaped theaims of U.S. education. The development of the highscnool evolved from the teaching of a select group, tocompalsory schooling for all, creating a large captive au-dience and a custodial function for the schools. Thisperiod marked the beginning of an ongoing debate, saysResnick (1985) over what the appropriate curriculum forsecondary schools that serve everyone should be. Thisforced the schools to try and interest the young by varyingthe curricula.

In the early 20th century two opposing factions com-peted. those who favored "mastery of subject matter" ver-sus those who favored meeting "the needs of children."The increased regard for "child development" increasedthe demands that "mastery" be dropped so that studentswere free to choose their own subjects. New educationalobjectives of the time did not even mention the develop-ment of the intellect or mastery of subject matter. These

"life adjustment" and "progressive" education move-ments, however, have largely passed as forces in Amer-ican education. This has been due to the changes in oursoc;a1 system, a more educated public with its own ideasof education, and the demands for increased rigor afterSputnik.

We are now beginning to realize, however, that the "fac-tory model" upon which the schools are based, is in-adequate to meet the requirements of survival in a con-stantly changing and increasingly complex world. Onlyone-half of the engineering knowledge learned in collegestoday for example will be valid in five to ten years becauseof the rapid changes and discoveries occurring in ourtechnological world. The implications of such societalchange for education are enormous.

C. The Present SituationThe lack of attention to critical thinking has continued

to the present day, yet the issue emerges in many of the re-cent education reform reports. For example, Ernest Boyer(former Commissioner of the Department of Educationand President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advance-ment ofTeaching), in his study HIGH SCHOOL (1984) ar-gues that our high schools lack a clear and vital mission,and, as a result, our students lack the capacity to think crit-ically and communicate effectively. In countless hours ofstudy, in hundreds of schools throughout the country,Boyer found little evidence of the goal of emphasizingcritical-analytical thought being accomplished:

In most classrooms, discussion, when it occurs,calls for simple recall . . . serious intellectual discus-sion is rare . . . how can the relatively passive docilerofr of student prepare them to participate as in-formed, active and questioning citizens? . . . howzan we produce critical and creative thinkingthroughout a student's life when we so systemati-cally discourage individuality in the classroom?

The National Commission on Excellence in Educationfound that many of our high school students do not possessthe "higher order" intellectual skills we should expect ofthem: nearly 40 percent cannot draw simple inferences,only one-fifth can write a persuasive essay, and only one-third can solve a mathematic problem requiring severalsteps. This report described our nation as "at risk" and in theprocess of "unthinking, unilateral disarmament." It calledon the schools to equip graduates to comprehend, interpretand evaluate what they read, to write well-organized, ef-fective papers, and to listen effectively and discuss ideasintelligentlyall aspects of critical thinking.

The 1985 Council oil Economic Development Report,"Investing in Our Children," concluded that:

Mastery of the old basics of reading, writing, andarithmetic may be sufficient for entry level jobs, butbecause of the constantly changing nature of work,minimum skills are not sufficient preparation fortamer advancement. Schools must make a greatereffort to develop higher-level skills, such as prob-lem solving, reasoning, and learning ability.

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The 1985 NAEP (National Assessment of EducationalProgress) Report also concludes that while we have im-proved the basic reading skills and abilities of our studentsacross the board (increased their zbility to read the NewYork Daily News, for example) their "higher order" read-ing and thinking abilities have not increased. The numberof students who are capable of reading the equivalent ofthe New York Times is very small, and the number whozan handle the equivalent of a technical college textbookis miniscule. These findings continue to support previousNAEP findings that show, for example, that we are notadequately engaging students' interpretive and meaningconstruction capacities, and that traditional rcte learningdoes not develop the higher order capacities.

John Goodlad, in A STUDY OF SCHOOLING (1984),also found little evidence of critical thinking instruction.He points out that only five percent of instructional time inschool is spent on direct questioning of students, and lessthan one percent of instructiona! time is devoted to thekind of open questioning that calls for higher level studentskills beyond memory:

It becomes apparent that the range of pedagogicalprocedures employed in academic subjects is verynarrow . . . the teaching observed in our currentstudy was characteristically telling or questioningstudents, reading textbooks, completing work-books and worksheets and giving quizzes. This pat-tern became increasingly dominant with the pro-gression upward from primary to secondary classes.

The Paideia Proposal, (Adler, et.al., 1984) an "educa-tional manifesto" calling for a radical restructuring of theschools, states that:

an important end of schools is the development ofintellectual skillsskills of learning by means ofreading, writing, sneaking, listening, calculating,problem solvingexercising critical judgments.These skills are the ones everyone needs in order tolearn anything, in school or anywhere.

The Paideia group maintains that this does not occur inthe present system and contends that there are major errorsin the existing educational structure which contribute tothis fact. One error the schools too often make is in em-ihasizing only one kind of teaching and one kind of learn-ing: the didactic process of the teacher talking and the stu-dents listening. Theirproposal maintains that there are twoother kinds (coaching and discussion) and that they are asimportant as didactic and more effective in developing in-tellectual skills and enlarging understanding of knowledge.

These three types of teaching and learning are seen asequally important and mutually supportive. Coaching isseen as necessary because well-formed intellectual habitsare highly desirable. Socratic teaching and learning,which avoid sophistry, are even more durable. Further(and most helpful in making the case for integrating criti-cal thinking into the school curriculum), the knowledge tobe acquired through the help of didactic teaching must bemade secure by the skills to be developed by coaching andthe understanding throu,,h discussion and guided practice.

Another major error the schools make is in thinking thatteachers are the sole cause of the learning that occurs instudents. The primary cause of learning is the activity ofthe learner's own mind. Teachers are a secondary cause,an instrumental aid, assisting the process by occasioningand guiding students' mental activ ity. A recognition of thisfact and the fact that we must have all three kinds of teach-ing and learning thoroughly integrated with each other andintegrated throughout the K-12 curriculum, is essential.Radical reform is necessary says the Paideia group toeliminate the overwhelming over-emphasis on didacticteaching, which focuses primarily on lower -order think-ing skills.

Many of the current reports and studies imply funda-mental problems in the status quo. Again and again we aregiven new evidence about the failure of students to devel-op crucial "higher level" skills and abilities to criticallyread, write, speak, listen and reason.

There is also, however, a tendency to idealize the past,to suggest glory days of the past wherein education was"in order" and students "learned as they ought to," and tooveremphasize the power teachers have been allowed toexercise. The result is the tendency to suggest that more orless immediate and direct quantitative "cures" can be ef-fected: that it is simply a matter of more of one kind ofcourse and less of another, or more homework or moretime in school. The question should not be simply morestandards, but better standards.

If an implicit, if not explicit, purpose of education is to"teach" students to think, how has this "unthinking, uni-lateral disarmament" come to be? Primarily it is due to thefact there never has been an effective systematic emphasison the development of critical thinking skills. Perhaps theissue is not even disarmament since some would say thatschools have never rea!ly beer. "armed." But to date therehas never been a concerted, systematic approach to"teaching for thinking."

While critical thinking skills have always been an inher-ent goal of education, what is new about the current atten-tion to thinking skills, says Resnick, is the aspiration tomake thinking and problem solving a regular part of aschool program for all or most of the population. "What isnew and extremely challenging," she states, "is the notionthat everyone, not just an elite, can become a competentthinker." Unfortunately, there are many .obstacles tcachieving this goal. Teachers have indicated that their col-lege educations prepared them most inadequately for ap-praising and encouraging the processes of thought. LouisRaths concludes that a "theory of thinking" in teacherpreparation has been conspicuous by its absence. Lipman,et. al. (1980) claim that:

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"existing ieadter training prt.grams completely fallto prepare the teacher for this responsibility . . . if.eachers are to conduct dialogues, they must be pro-vided with the opportunities to engage in philo-sophical discussions and be exposed to models w huknow how to facilitate discussions . if they are ex-pected to elicit questioning behav 'ors or the part oftheir students, they must be taught by educatorsthemselves who model such be.hav for if teachers

are expected to teach children how to reason, thenthey must be given practice in reason such as theyexpect of their students."

Our institutions of higher education simply perpetuatetraditional approaches of elementary and secondary edu-cation: lecture, memorization and recall. At the presenttime, there is little or no emphasis on critical thinking inmost teacher education programs and no integration of theconcepts, dispositions, or skills into education courses.Lecture continues to be the predominant teaching mode.In other words, while most teachers are committed to theconcept of inquiry, most literally have had no exposure tocomprehensive principles of rational thought and how toinfuse them into their curriculum.

The educational system itself is often an obstacle in fos-tering environments conducive to critical thinking. Giventhe current organizational constraints on teachers, saysStanford's Larry Cuban (1985), reasoning/critical think-ing may be impossible to teach. He claims that how class-rooms are staffed, organized and governed within institu-tional arrangements that stretch from the school to thesuperintendent's office to the state capital, is an arehitec-ture that drives most teachers (but by no means all) towardpedi.gogies that prize content coverage, recall of informa-tion, facile performance on multiple choice test items, andfew student questionsapproaches that seemingly runcounter to the development of reasoning.

Textbooks consistently give meager attention to thinking, and have, in fact, grown less intellectually rigorousover time.

The way we assess student progress has also contri-buted to the under-emphasis on higher levels of thinking.Benjamin Bloom claims that 95 percent of standardizedtest questions in the U.S. is devoted to recall and memori-zation, and neglects the higher level thinking pocesses.He decries this overemphasis on the lower level thinkingskills of recall and rote memory as one out of all propor-tion to its usefulness or relevance to the development ofthe individual. Because it is easier to develop tests of infor-mation that have statistical reliability, however, cur-riculum and instruction have become oriented aroundsuch tests.

Accountability for student achrwement un tests ofknowledge has dramatically mu-eased in recent years andwith renewed vigor in the current era of eduk..atiunal re-furm. Standards have been changed, muddied, tightened,improved, adapted ant, ..1k..reased in desperate effurts toubtain higher achievement sores, frequently with eduk-a-tiunally unsound appruak-hes to LuerLe, induce, ur man-date such score increases.* These effort to increase testscores raise an ideological dilemma in terms of criticalthinking skills: higher scores and/or higher quality oflearning? With advances in the instruments available fortosting and measurement, this dilemma need no longer bean obstacle.

In 'A Nation Prepared. Teachers for the 21st Century"the Carnegie Forum un Education and the E-Lunumy(1986) called, nut fur the repair, but fur the rebuilding ofthe present eduk-atiunal system. The Forum stated that tuumany students lack the ability to reason and perform corn-

plex, nun ruutine intellectual tasks and that we are doingbetter un the old goals often at the expense of making pro-gress on the goals that count the most: "this demands a re-definition of the purposes of schooling, one that goes waybeyond the inculcation of routine skills and the acquisitionof a stock of facts . . . (people) who think for a living re-quire schools dedicated to the creation of environmentsin which students become very adept at thinking forthemselves."

D. From "Knowledge" to "Knowing"It is important to stress hew that in questioning the tra-

ditional reliance of the schools on a one-right-answermodel of learning, the critical thinking movement is notdenigrating the importance of knowledge in learning.Knowledge is essential and intrinsic to learning of allkinds. One cannot think critically without knowledge.When we think, we must always think about something.The development of critical thinking, says Cornbleth(1985), is highly knowledge dependent: we cannot thinkcritically about the ideas we encounter unless we knowsomething about the area in question.

There is a difference, however, between memorizationand understanding, in moving from "knowledge" arid know-ing." It is difficult to remember what you do not under-stand. Much of what we remember is remembered because the information has been place in some context: ithas been organized to give it meaning. We need to focuson memory in conjunction with understanding. Memoryis not a passively acquired storehouse of information ashas been assumed, notes Cornbleth, but an actively con-structed more or less organized interpretation of experienceShe notes that rote memorization is usually an inefficientmeans of information acquisition and does not promote afunctional knowledge base for critical thinking: long-termmemory involves the conversion of external informationinto an internal one. Conversion to "knowing" rangesfrom superficial rote forms to deeper interpretive oneswhere we attempt to make sense of or give meaning to ex-perience, often by relating information to what we alreadyknow. We develop our "memory" through developing ourorganized bank of knowledge and understanding.

Much of our essential knowledge is in large part "concep-tual Fur example, know ledge of the concept of democracy,the ability to use the word and its synonyms effectively andcritically, is much more important than rule memorization ofisolated facts about a given democracy. Furthermore, ran-dom Etas about a given nation are themselves best learned,not as miscellaneous items to be ommitted to memury, butas part of learning general concepts.

A child understands what "democracy" means not onlyby memorizing the words "government of, by, and for thepeople," but when she begins to appreciate to what extentit makes sense to apply it and where, and to what extent itdoes not make sense to apply it. This does not mean onlymemorizing sentences like "The U.S. is a democracy,""The U.S. has a government ruled by its people," "Thepeuple run the government by choosing for whom tovute." You v.uuld memorizc endless such sentences andnot grasp what "democracy" means.

While Mt AFT .suppurb .nondindb,cd tr.ing ua un tallow ttttt I rail .0i munii.nin& Jhuhni pt us, c4a, as, ULU afoot,' unin u sits CAtaisng tn.,ttuntent3nhs,h do not metoure Inghet le,c1,rtmal thatit tg Agit). A., :ht. ktsunkdge btac un ,t.L.r.tng Liana thtnians in., informationshould be put to use in improving the tests. The ETS has already begun this process.

But suppose the child is asked questions tha, lead her toreflect upon the situations in her on life in which he is apart of a group that "democratically" decides what hap-pens. St,ppose further that sittn tions are described to herin which the .irrangement is onl, partially democratic andshe is asked to figure out what is democratic and what isnot. By integrating questions which encourage such rit.cal thinking, the student develops a deeper understandingof the concept and will begin to gain more and more skillin the use of the concept.

As things stand now, facts are often separate from thissort of basic conceptual learning, yet research tadkatesthat more successful students are more likely to use mean-ingful rather than r elaboration strategic,-.. How infor-mation is elaborated a.'.d organized in memory appears toaffect its accessibility and usefulness, says Cornbleth. Shenotes that in studies of problem- solving skills Lomparingnovices and experts, it has been found that expertiseseems to rest on a sophisticated knowledge base of domain-specific and general knowledge, reasoning skillsand problem-solving strategies. Teaching for criticalthinking can help students develop and use meaningfulconstructions of knowledge and effective strategies forusing their knowledge.

E. The Need for a Transportation ofEmphasis

Some children are luckier than others in the present sys-tem. The "luckiest" learn how to play the game, how toidentify and study for what will be expected of them, aswell as how to forget the information when they don't"need it" anymore. The less lucky are those children whoare not as proficient at memorizing isolated facts but whoOW along, figure out some of the rules as they go along,get average test results, and believe for the rest of theirlives that they are just average, because that's what theirgrades implied. Then there are the unfortunate "failures,"those children who never learnor refuse to learntherules of the game. These are the children, who after yearsand years of failure and frustration, internalize their "fail-ure" labels and either rebel or continue to submit in sullendefiance or worse, defeat.

Yet are any of these children lucky? In an environmentover-valuing rote learning, will students come to value theauthority of their own reasoning capacnies?Will they learnto reason in a thoughtful and reflective way? Will theylearn how to draw inferences, identify assumptions, orchallenge one another for reasons? Will they engage incritical intellectual interactions with one another? Aren'tthese the kind of adults we would hope they would be?

Those students, the lucky and the unlucky, the succes-ses and the failures, ail came to school with a natural senseof wonder and inquisitiveness. Somehow that naturalwonder gradually diminishes. Need this be so?

Matthew Lipman, developer of a critical thinking pro-gram for elementary and high school students, commentson the child's natural wonder and the present system:

Since our culture characteristically defines interngence in terms of ability to answer questions rather

than the ability to ask them, and in terms of t.ompeteme in sots ing problems rather that umpetent.y inreorganizing and formulating them, it is little wonder that (thinking) and childhood are thought to bemutually exclusive; ... the intellectual progress typ-ically credited to children occurs, not when theylearn to think for themselves, but when we note w ithsatisfaction that the content of their thought hasbegun to approximate the content of our on . . . Ifwe can somehow preserve their natural sense of won-der, their readiness to look for meaning and theirhunger to understand why things are the way they am,then them might be some hope that at least this upcom-ing generation will not serve as models of unquestioning acceptance to their own children . . .

Of course there is fear on the part of some that if chil-dren arc encouraged to think and to question, they mayquestion things we don't want them to. To fear the possibil-ity of students questioning is to fear the possibility of stu-dents learning. Genuine. learning is nut something that ,. anbe turned on and off like a faucet. You cannot become alearner without becoming a questioner. You cannot learnwithout considering tclea. But every idea conflicts withvarious other ideas. New ideas conflict with old ones.Many old ones conflict with each other. To accept any ideais to reject the ones inconsistent with it. Learning is a pro-cess of accepting and rejecting, finding and abandoning,constructing and reconstructing ideas. To take the ques-tioning out of the process is to kill the process at its heart.

The "critical spirit" or "spirit of inquiry" does not devel-op automatically. It is a dangerous myth to think that as wegrow and mature, thinking and reasoning skills will naturally increase and improve. As Lipman points out, in sarious studies the mean scores of college f,,shmen are lessthan one point above the mean scores of sixth graders onthe New Jersey Test of Reasoning skills. In other sords,the basic repertoire of reasoning skills of the adult is relatively unchanged from that of a sixth grade child.

Many students get through theirbasic courses with onlysuperficial understandings of what they have learned, un-digested learning which either atrophies or becomes thebasis of stereotype or distortion. They develop little abilityto apply what they have learned to their on lives andproblems. Children "learn" historical facts but do notthink historically; they "know" scientific facts but do notgrasp how to think scientifically. Lipman states that whilethinking is natural, it can also be recognized as a skill capable of being perfected and that to teach critical thinkingwe need to capitalize on and maximize the w antler and theinquisitiveness that the child initially brings to st.ho61.Thechild who has gained proficiency in thinking skills is notmerely a child who has grown, but a child whose very cap-acity for growth has increased, as children who have beentaught to be systematically inquisitive and reflective tendto import such behavior into the rest of their learning.

Our children are faced with the task of coping with a de-luge of information in a constantly changing society. Theability to cope with rapid change in an increasinglytechnological vt urld vt ill require problem solo ing and analytkal skill that an emphasis un ..ritit.al thinking engenders.

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The complexity and the challenges of the social, politi-cal and personal issues of the day do not submit to inciden-tal learning. They demand the use of independent thought,reasoned judgment and the ability to think analytically andrationally. "Decisions on crucial issues," says MichaelScrivcn, "are being made by people who are ignorant ofthe relevant facts and untrained in coping with controver-sial issues. Remedying this is the printery task of trainingin critical thinking and such training should be the primarytask of education."

F. The Emergence of the CriticalThinking Movement in Education

Critical thinking, then, while often considered to be acentral ideal of the educational endeavor, has not fullytaken root in the reality of the educational process, butthere is now a robust critical thinking movement develop-ing. California, for example, is one of a number of statessaid to be at the very beginnings of a series of reforms inthis direction. The college and university systems inCalifornia have instituted a graduation requirement in crit-ical thinking for off students. The California State Dcpart-mcnt of Education has initiated a series of reforms in crit-ical thinking in the elementary and secondary schools,including projected re.visions in textbooks curriculum,staff development and teacher education. The state is pres-ently developing new tests in language arts, math and so-cial studies in which from 30 to 60 percent of the itemswill be designed to test critical thinking skills. Many otherstates are incorporating critical thinking in statewide cur-ricula and testing programs.

In 1985 the AFTconducted a 50-state survey of criticalthinking initiatives being developed by State Departmentsand Boards of Education.The responses yielded a range ofinitiatives on the issue from no activity, to legislation man-dating the teaching of critical thinking skills (California.South Carolina, Wisconsin. Connecticut, New York,Texas), to state level recommendations, conferences, surveys, newsletters and teachers' guides (Pennsylvania,Vermont, New York). Of the 50 states queried, twenty -eightre, ponded. Many responses suggested an assumption thatcritical thinking was automatically occuring in theschools:

. not currently involved in 'critical thinking' as aseparate issue ."". .. this is a high priority skill hopefully identifiedin all content areas . . ."" to date we have not published any formal statc-mcnt related to critical thinking, but assume that theimportance of critical thinking will be addressed inongoing curriculum development projects ."" . there is no current state level activity directedto this area. We believe that critical thinking skillsare incorporated into teaching strategics in manycurriculum areas . ."" critical thinking skills are believed to be part ofthe curriculum frameworks developed in all subjectareas . . ."

.3

". . . the state has not made any recommendations ormandates tit the area of developing critical thinking

Twenty-seven states reported that they arc now takingsteps to initiate reforms geared to bolstering students'thinking skills. For example:

Connecticut

There is draft legislation which recommends that:

"Instruction in all areas should 1)e designed tofoster thinking skills such as recognition of facts,critical reasoning and problem solving."

The Department of Education is developing mas-tery tests for 4th-, 6th-, and 8th -grade students withitems within the content areas that focus on reason-ing skills.

New York

The action plan adopted in 1984 includes genericchanges in instruction, one of which is to "ensurethat all students are learning to think logically andcreatively and to apply reasoning to issues and prob.leme in all subjects at all grade levels." The planstates that nothing is more important to the qualityof what students learn than the extent to which theylearn to think in disciplined ways about what theystudy The Education Department (working withteachers and administrators) is identifying specificreasoning and problem-solving skills with specificsequential student objectives for all relevant sub-jects at all grade levels to ensure that students ac-quire these skills and learn to apply them within thesubjects they study and to issues and problems inlife outside school.

Pennsylvania

Thinking is unc of the state's 12 educational goals.A statewide survey on thinking is being conductedand 100 schools with thinking progrtms have beenidentified. Additionally the state has developed anewsletter, will be co-sponsoring a conference onThe Student As Thinker" and will be publishing a

resource guide.

South Carolina

The legislature passed an Education ImprovementAct (1984) which provides that:

"Section 4. The State Department of Educationand all school districts shall emphasize higherorder problem- solving skills in curricula at alllevels."

Wisconsin

The state enacted a statute s.118.01(2)(a)2, with thefollowing requirement for students.

'Analytical skills, including the ability to thinkrationally, solve problems, use various learningmethods, gather and analyze. information, makecritical and independent judgment and argue per-suasively."

11

Critical thinking, while addressed in some way in mustrecent reform reports, has not been a major issue in thefirst wave of reform efforts at the state and local levels. Yetthese responses to AFTqucries suggest the beginnings of amajor critical thinking movement. One crucial issue iswho is going to direct the movement? Real leadership onthis issue in education is beginning to emerge. One rimm-ing initiative is a collaborative effort of 20 national educa-tional organi.zations interested in promoting student think-ing as a priority. This collabor...tive was launched by theAssociation for Supervision and Cumculum Develop-ment (ASCD) and is examining the ways that such organi-zations working together can have a positive influence onthe direction of the movement and prevent it from becom.ing another educational fad. A "National Council for Ex-cellence in Critical Thinking" is being established by theCcntcr for CriticalThinking at Sonoma State University inCalifornia which run, an annual interrvgional multidisciplinc K-U conference on Critical Thinking and providesin-service training and rcsout,:es to schools. This councilhas a membership that crosses disciplinary boundaries. TheUniversity of Massachusetts at Boston boasts the onlymasters degree program for tcacherc in critical and crea-tive thinking, and the Illinois Thinking Project, located at

the University of Illinois. Champaign-Urbana, IN imreasing its research and consultation efforts.

Reform efforts by politici: ns and state legislatures raisean ideological dilemma for the teaching profession: eitherto be reactive, and accept refonnr in this and other areasimposed by others (governors, legislators, businesspeople and state school superintendents) or, as a truc pro-fession, to take a proactive, leadership role in defining thenecessary changes to take place in education. The AFTbe-lieves that teachers have to be involved and provide leader-ship in defining our profession and our practice. The pro-fession needs to play a leading role in the development of':ritical thinking initiatives to ensure the sound develop-ment of such programs.

In the chapters to follow. we will examine the issues re-lated to sut.h leadership, the issues related to transfoi mingcritical thinking from educational ideal to cdmationei re-ality. Ti,c following sections include. CRIT.THINKING: DEFINING THE CONCEPT, TEACH-ING CHILDREN TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES,ASSESSING AND EVALUATING CRITICALTHINKING SKILLS, and RECOMMENDATIONSFOR POLICY AND PRACTICE.

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CHAPTER .2: CRITICAL THINKING: HOWTHE CONCEPT IS DEFINED AND WHAT THERESEARCH SAYS

A. Approaches to the Conceptof Critical Thinking

Defining critical thinking can seem as challenging asdefining love. The "critical spirit" is composed of at-titudes (or dispositions) and skills, both of which are es-sential to the process. Simply mastering a set lf discretethinking skills (recognizing assumptions or drawing con-clusions, for example) does not a critical thinkr make.This would be critical thinking in the "weak sen.,e" merelylearning the micro-skills. Critical thinking ia the "strongsense" occurs when both the skills and dispositions are in-tegrated and intrinsic ultimately to the character of a per-son It is knowing not only how, but when to questionsomethin,j, and knowing what kinds of questions to ask.

As described in Chapter 1, this critical spirit is an at-titude toward inquiry, a knowledge of the methods ofreasoning and inquiry, and skill in applying them. This isakin to Dewey's description of reflective thought as "ac-tive, persistent and careful consideration of any belief orsupposed form of knowledge in the light of the groundsthat support it and the further conclusions to which ittends."

Cornbleth (1985) identifies the essence of critical think-ing as informed skepticism, as active inquiry rather thanpassive at,ceptance of tradition, authonty or "commonsense." "It is," she says, "a dynamic process of question-ing and reasoning, of raising and pursuing questions aboutour own or others' claims and conclusions, definitions andevidence, beliefs and actions." She rightly notes that crit-ical thinking is not limited merely to the evaluation ofstatements or arguments, as some narrower views have it,but th. , depending on the situation, it involves questionraising, seeking information, reasoning, evaluating op-tions, reflecting on one's thinking, and raising and pursu-ing further questions. The concept is used in its broadestsense here. While critical thinking is not necessarilysynonymous with ail thought proLesses beyond memory,or problem solving, or decision making, or the suentifit.,method, or reasoning, ,riti,a1 thinking skills used fair-mindedly underlie, overlap and Lomplement these proLes-ses. "All thought proLesses beyond memory" Lould in-clude creative thinking which involves some elements ofcritical thinking (ideas once generated need to beevaluated for the best possible combinations) and someunique unto itself (generating the ideas). Problem-solvingtheory involves a series of steps from problem to solution.Critical thinking encompasses these steps, but it also goesbeyond procedural thinking and cannot be reduLed tk, for-mula or list of steps to follow because it is also generativeand creative. The scientific method consists primarily ofverification skills whereas critical thinking is a broaderconcept that includes additional skills. Reasoning in-

volves inferring from premises to conclusions, while crit-ical thinking encompasses this process and also includessuch skills as assuming and interpreting.

The concept of critical thinking used here, while notsynonomous with creative thinking, emphasizes the use ofimagination and the attitudes and skills that are commonto both.

There is a danger, however, in serrating critical think-ing from creative thinking, says Robert Swartz, Co-Direc-tor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston's master'sdegree program in Critkal and CreativeTialiking. He saysthat in developing good thinking skills, students must alsodevelop a sense of where these skills can be most approp-riate and effectively used in dealing with problems and is-sues that call for clear thinking. "We should stand backfrom these 'skills' approaches and look holistically atgood thinking . . . taking a broader perspective means thatthese lists (e.g., critical thinking, creative thinking, prob-lem solving, decision making) should be viewed as com-plementing each other . . . in situations where they are bestused, the norm, not the exception is to use them in combi-nation, not in isolation."

Seeking an explanation of some event, for example,will be furthered if we consider a number of possible ex-planations (creative thinking) and sort out the best ones(critical thinking).

This conception of critical thinking is eclectic in thesense that it draws on several disciplines for their contribu-tions to the knowledge on this issue: the social sciences,philosophy, cognitive science and psychology. Theoryand research on problem solving, cognition, metacogni-tion (thinking about thinking), or the inquiry method, allcontribute something to our understanding of thinkingskills in general, and critical thinking in particular. Thesecontributions are included throughout this discussion.

In summary then, the concept of critical thinking asused here can be defined as fainnindedly interpreting,anal)zing or evaluating information, arguments or experi-emes with a .set of reflective attitudes, skills and abilities toguide our thoughts, beliefs and (loons. This conceptualiza-tion can be illustrated by the model in Table 1.

B. Critical Thinking Dispositions andAttitudes"The importance of critical thinking can best be

,ted by the undesirable attitudes and beliefs it1 eliminate. Biases and prejudices distort the

peit.eptive and reasoning abilities of students to ap-praise situations, beliefs and arguments accurately."(D'Angelo, 1971)

Table IModel of CriticalThinking in theStrong Sense

Critical Thinkingin

Belief and Action

Skills/Abilities-----_---Dispositions/Attitudes

(Overcoming fear, prejudice,egocentricity, ethnocentricity)

The Domain of Knowledge

Thinking critically begins with an attitude of being dis-posed to consider in a thoughtful, perceptive manner theproblems and subjects of one's life. In thinking about in-fusing critical thinking into schooling, it is as important toconsider, emphasize, model and encourage this attitudethe critical thinking dispositionsas well as the skills inclassroom instruction.

An attitude is a mental posture; a disposition a naturaltendency. D'Angelo (1971) identifies the following au'tudes as necessary conditions for the development of crit-ical thinking:

1. Intellectual Curiosity. Seeking answers tovarious kinds of questions and problems. Investigat-ing the causes and explanations of events; askingwhy, how, who, what, when, where.

2. Objectivity. Using objective factors in theprocess of making decisions. Relying on empiricalevidence and valid arguments, and not being influ-enced by emotive and subjective factors in reachingconclusions. (Objectivity can be confused withneutrality, however. It is not necessary that one beneutral to freedom over tyranny, for example, or tothe rule of the law over rule of the mob in order to beobjective and accurately describe these differentsystems and their human consequences.)

3. Open-Mindedness. A willingness to con-sider a wide variety of beliefs as possibly being true.Making judgements without bias or prejudice.

4. Flexibility. To be willing to change one's be-liefs or methods of inquiry. Avoiding steadfastnessof belief, dogmatic attitude, and rigidity. A realiza-tion that we do not know all the answer.

5. Intellectual Skepticism. Postponing theacceptance of a conclusion as being true untiladequate evidence is presented.

6. Intellectual Honesty. The acceptance ofstatements being true when there is sufficient evi-dence, even though it negates some of our cherishedbeliefs. To avoid slanting certain facts to support aparticular position.

7. Being Systematic. Following a line ofreasoning consistently to a particular conclusion.Avoiding irrelevancies that stray from the issuebeing argued.

8. Persistence. To persist in seeking ways of re-solving disputes. Supporting certain points of viewwithout giving up the task of finding evidence andarguments.

9. Decisiveness. To reach certain conclusionswhen the evidence warrants it. To avoid unnecessar-ily drawn out arguments, snap judgments, and de-lays in reaching decisions until all necessary infor-mation is obtained.

10. Respect for Other Viewpoints. A will-ingness to admit that you may be wrong and thatother ideas you do not accept may be correct. Listen- 9

ing carefully to another point of v iev, and respond-ing accurately to what has been said.

We need to examine the way that our educational sys-tem, as currently designed, either fosters or inhibits theseattitudes in our students and ultimately define the purposeand goal of schooling. Olson (1985) describes presentschooling as "obedience training." "Education tends toteach us to conform, to solve non-creative problems (thosewith the answer at the back of the book), to reward comingup with an idea and not taking the action required to imple-ment our idea. It makes us trust written material such asbooks too much, leads us to believe that others who aremore wise have the real answers and separates learningfrom doing our educational sy stem leads us to believ ethat failure is wrong and of no value."

Many of these accusations have validity. When the sys-tem overemphasizes content coverage, performance onstandardized tests which primarily measure the lowerorder thinking skills of recall and rote, and unquestioningacceptance and docility in students, then that is what theschools will continue to produce.

Other obstacles to effective and creative thinking includehabit, limited availability of time, need for immediate solu-tions, criticism by others, fear of failure, and complacency.Much of our thinking is subconscious and automatic and isbased on our conditioning and biases. We hear only what wewant to hear, and believe only what we want to believe. Irra-tional thinking is based on self-deception, fear and selectiv-ity of information to fit our beliefs. Habits are reactions andresponses which we learn to perform automatically withouthaving to think and decide. It is usually very hard and un-comfortable to change bad habits.

An emphasis on rational thinking versus irrationalthinking in school and throughout life t..an help studentsrecognize self-deception, selei.tivity of information, andthe fallacious arguments of others. Rational thinking isbased on evidence and fair-minded thought. It involveslearning the bases of our ideastheir motivationalsources. It involves going beyond looking just for the evi-dence to support our beliefs, being able to analyze argu-ments and assess the validity of contusions, being able toreason fairly within opposing viewpoints.

One's approach to the world, or "world view" is aphilosophy or set of background beliefs which provide afilter through which we perceive the world. Reasoningbased on a distorted or inaccurate world view yields dis-torted and inaccurate conclusions no matter how good ourreasoning, says Kahane (1983). There is a difference be-tween thinking critically and using critical thinking skills.The skills can be used to support prejudices and narrow-mindedness unless we learn how to identify our point ofview and protect against just assuming its correctness.Reasomble people have always differed seriously in theirworld view even when they are exposed to the same evi-duce. It is their use of the evidence that fits their world viewthat makes a difference. What people remember about anepisode is the product of their own construction of the world,their experiences, attitudes and expectations.

The schools should play the vital role of helping stu-10 dents develop accurate world views so that they may be

r_ /5

able to assess information ,nA..urately and fairly, whether itbe a history lesson or an incident in their daily lives,thereby becoming more aware of and hopefully reducingthe effects of bias, prejudice and self-deception in theirthinking.

St.hools need to begin to explode the myth of the "oneright answer" as part of its effort to foster ann.al thinking.This myth simply misrepresents the real world wheremany questions do not have rightor even goodanswers. There are issues in the logically messy "realworld" of everyday life where one has to deal with oppos-ing points of view and L.ontradictory lines of reasoning.This requires a willingness to listen and analyze contend-ing perspectives on an issue. Not all issues k..an be reducedto a single point of view. This type of "reasoned judgment"is akin to the jury we expect to enter empathetically intothe arguments of both the prosecution and defense. Wewant the strongest possible case to be made on both sides.The schools can work toward developing such reasonedjudgment. This need is perhaps the most challenging sincethese dispositions and skills are not acquired naturally, au-tomatically.

We may also need to reexamine an environment wheremistakes are equivalent to sins, the impact of this environ-ment on risk-taking with one's thoughts and ideas, and therole that competition plays in fostering or inhibiting criti-cal thinking. In some experimental studies specifically de-signed to reduce competitiveness and increase coopera-tion in learning (Johnson and Johnson, 1981), cognitiveoutcomes included retention, application and transfer ofinformation, concepts and principles; problem-solvingability and success; creative ability; and divergent andrisk-taking thinking. Affective outcomes included accep-tance and appre:iation of cultural, ethnic and individualdifferences, reduction of bias and prejudice, pluralisticand democratic values, valuing education, and positive at-titudes toward school and self.

Raths says that when teachers emphasize thinking inconjunction with subject matter, students' thinking im.proves and learning is enhanced. When there is an accep-tance and discussion of the thinking of students, they be-come less dogmatic, less rigid, less impulsive and willsuspend judgment and deliberate and examine alternativesbefore reaching a conclusion.

Robert Ennis, Professor of Education and Director ofthe Illinois Thinking Project at the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign, who has been engaged in the studyof critical thinking ability (what it is and how to teach andtest for it) since the mid -1950s has developed what he calls"Goals for a Critical Thinking/Reasoning Curriculum"(1985). His definition of critical thinking ("reasonableand reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what tobelieve and do") involves both dispositions and abilities.The essential dispositions he has identified for thinkingcritically are the tendency to:

I Seek a clear statement of the thesis or question

2. Seek reasons

3. Try to be well informed

4. Use crediole sources and mention them

5. Take into account the total situation

6. Try to remain relevant to the main point

7. Keep in mind the original andfor basic concern

8. Look for alternatives

9. Be open-- ..ided

a. Consider seriously other points of view thanone's own (dialogical thinking)

b. Reason from premises with which one disag-reeswithout letting the disagreement inter-fere with one's reasoning

c. Withhold judgement when the evidence andreasons are insufficient

10.Take a position (and change a position) when theevidence and reasons are sufficient to do so

1 I. Seek as much precision as the subject permits

12.Deal in an orderly manner with the parts of acomplex whole

13.To be disposed to use the listed critical thinkingabilities

14.Be ser.,:tive to the feelings, level of knowledge,and degree of sophistication of others.

These dispositions and attitudes must be Included inany approach to Infuse the curriculum with thinking skills.They can be modeled, discussed, emphasized, their userewarded, their misuse identified. Teachers have incredi-ble power and this "affective" component of teaching forthinking is as Important as the cognitive. Kahn and Weiss(1973), for example, have found that It is the quality of cer-tain tea:her interactions that determine the degree of trust,risk - faking, level of cognition, warmth, rapport, opennessand psychological safety in the classroom. Lowery (1979)even found that the way the teacher responds is more inf-luential in determining students' behavior than what theteacher asks or tells the students to do. We know that chil-dren acquire much of their behavior, feelings, attitudesand values through imitation of significant adults in theirlives. Teachers can use this power to transform their class-rooms into true communities of inquiry.

Paul (1982, 83, 86) has written a series of articles whichstress the need to link curricular reform with a special em-phasis on dialogical thinking. In this model students learnto role-play and reason within opposing points of view,both with respect to disciplinary issues and those which gobeyond or cross disciplinary lines. He calls this kind ofthinking multi-logical (in crossing domains and points ofview) and contrasts it with monological thinking (thinkingthat is exclusively within one point of view or beliefsystem).

Paul argues that most present instruction, most textbooks, and most student thinking are monological whilemost of the important issues of everyday life are multi-logical. He argues that prejudice, bias, and irrationalitycan be overcome only by cultivating the art of thinkingdialogically.

Paul developed an explicit, "strong sense- approach tocritical thinking. By creating opportunities for students to

reconstruct the points of view of others, Paul believessimultaneous intellectual and affective growth will besignificantly promoted. He, like Piaget, believes thatempathetically entering into the reasoning that supportsbeliefs other than our own and experiencing the case thatcan be made for and against them dialogically helps the;tudent to separate his identity from the particular contentof beliefs. He encourages students to focus instead on theprocess of rationally establishim their beliefs, encourag-ing them to develop a conceptior.. .hemselves as open tonew and different ideas and not as uncritically fried in anybeliefs. For Paul whether or not students ego-identify withparticular beliefs (become so personally identified withthem as to perceive a challenge to them as a challenge tothemselves) is a crucial determinent in whether or not theyhave learned to think critically in the strong sense.

To maximize this kind of global change, Paul em-phasizes providing students with micro-skill practice inthe midst of macro-ability use. He reduces micro-skilldrill to a minimum and focuses classroom activities onmajor macro-abilities: 1) the ability to question Socrati-cally (students learn how to question each other's beliefsand reasons, probing for evidence, reasons, assumptions,implications), 2) the ability to reconstruct the thinking ofothers (reciprocity), and 3) the ability to engage in thegive-and-take of intellectual exchange (students learn nothow to score points or to defeat other perspectives, butrather how to gain a clearer grasp of strengths and weak-nesses within opposing viewpoints). Paul views egocen-tricity and sociocentricity as the major impediments tostrong sense critical thinking. His emphasis on dialogicalassignments and dialogical teaching is designed to breakdown these deep-seated structures and make possible thedevelopment in the student of a more "rational" self.

The significance of the dialogical approach is suggestedby recent studies by David Perkins of Harvard who foundthat there was no significant correlation between intelli-gence and open-mindedness. He found that intelligentpeople have as strong a tendency to closedmindedness asthose less inte!ligent. His conclusion is that if we wantopen-mindedness we need to teach for it through some-thing like a dialogical approach. This point is further illus-trated by a recent study of attitudes toward dissent amongWest German youth, reported by Summers, et.al. (1986):

"The central finding of this study was that youngpeople who showed high tolerance for viewpointsdifferent from the majority on specific subjects hadbeen more exposed to controversy or conflict thanthose who had little tolerance for dissenting views.Even more to the point, the greater the reported fre-quency with which controversial topics had been en-tertained in classrooms, th higher the tolerance ofstudents toward dissenting viewpoint."

Tack Easley has pioneered the application of dialogicalinstruction to the domains of math and science, arguingthat even when issues are monological it is essential finchildren to build their understanding of them throughclassroom instruction that is dialogical:

"Those few students who do truly master mathematical or scientific subjects do so through a long pro-

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cess of doubting and challenging authority . . .

Teachers of regular primary grade classes shouldtrain group leaders on a regular basis to provide ap-propriate challenges for every member of theirgroup . . . Primary children should strive first todevelop expression in some form by working inheterogeneous groups, trying to convince eachother by clear speaking and writing . . . As childrendiscover they have different solutions, differentmethods, different frameworks, and they try to con-vince each other, or at least to understand eachother, they revise their understanding in many smallbut important ways."

Paul asserts there is a pressing need to develop more cur-riculum which emphasizes multi-logical issues as well asclassroom strategies that focus on dialogical reasoning,and that only when more classroom emphasis is place ondialogical thinking will we be able to fully appraise its po-tential impact.

C. Critical Thinking Skills and AbilitiesRalph Johnson and Anthony Blair, two leaders in the

critical thinking movement from the University ofWindsor, Canada have integrated the disposition:skillsparallel by describing the critical thinker as a person whois disposed to ask the following questions and has theskills to pursue their answers:

I. Is it clear? (What does it mean?)

2. Is that right? (true? plausible? likely?)

3. How can anybody know that?

4. What is the evidence for it?

5. What is the negative evidence for it? (What otherpossibilities are them?)

6. What are its implications? (or consequences?)

7. What are the unstated assumptions at work here?(Johnson and Blair, 1985)

The abilities that Ennis identifies are classified accord-ing to five different categories:

I. Elementary ClarificationI. Focusing on a question2. Analyzing arguments3. Asking and answering questions of

clarification

H. Basic Support4. Judging the credibility of a source5. Observing and judging observation reports

III. Inference6 Deducing and judging deductions7. Inducing and judging inductions8. Making and judging value statements

IV. Advanced Clarification9. Defining terms and judging definitions

10. Identifying assumptions

V. Strategy and TacticsI I. Deciding on an action

12 12. Interacting with others

17.E

A summarization of many cunent lists of Lrint..al think-ing skills would include the following skills.

I . Identifying central issues2. Recognizing underlying assumption3. Recognizing stereotypes and cliches4. Recognizing bias, ethnocentricity, propaganda,

or emotional factors in a presentation

5. Distinguishing between verifiable andunverifiable data

6. Distinguishing between relevant andnonrelevant data

7. Distinguishing between essential andincidental

8. Recognizing the adequacy of data9. Determining whether facts support a

generalization10. Checking consistencyI I . Drawing warranted conclusions or inferences12. Formulating or evaluating hypotheses13. Reference skills14. Evaluating reliability of data15. Distinguishing facts from opinion and

reasoned judgment16. Determining validity or soundness of an

argument17. Judging whether a theory is warranted18. Exhibiting explanatory skills19. Judging whether a statement is overvague or

overspecific20. Comparing similarities and differences among

ideas or events21. Classifying items according to rational criteria22. Making informed judgments23. Drawing applications to a different context24. Relating cause and effect25. Making decisions26. Evaluating questions27. Building theories(California Assessment Program (CAP), CaliforniaState Department of Education, 1984)

An emphasis on these skills and abilities is quite differ-ent from the current emphasis in most schools. Schoolpractices have resulted in teachers for the most part usingthe expository, or didactic mode of teaching (telling,explaining, showing). The teacher is active, the studentpassive. While these techniques are important, fosteringthinking skills further requires that students actively dosomething with the information. Knowledge presupposescomprehension and rational assessment.

The question is, however, how do we move from a listor lists of critical thinking skills to actual "infusion" ofthese skills into the various disciplines and at the variousage and developmental levels of our students? While spe-cific teaching strategies and examples will be described inChapter 3, it may be useful at this point to study one exam-ple of a state-wide effort to identify and define critirp!thinking skills at various grade levels K-12 to provide an

overall framework for educators from which to workthereby building some continuity into school-wide ordistrict-wide approaches to teaching for thinking.

As mentioned, California is considered to be at the be-ginning of a series of reforms directed toward enhancingstudents' critical thinking skills. An advisory committeeusing member input, the state's curriculum framework,teacher survey results and consultation with prominent crit-ical thinking experts, identified skills that they perceived asessential for critical thinking. According to '<needier (1984),the skills are presented as elements of a much larger processin solving problems or reaching conclusions. Though theskills are presented serially for clarity and understanding,there is a recognition that students do not necessarily thinkthis waythat these and other skills are used in a variety ofcombinations to solve problems.

Tables I V illustrate the skills and levels of their useat grades 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12. The skills that were decidedupon are clustered into three broad categories: Clarifyingissues and terms, judging and utilizing information, anddrawing conclusions. The generic skills remain the samethroughout the grade levels but the levels of sophisticationand transfer are expected to progressively develop.

Under clarifying issues and terms there is the follow ingsequence:

3rd grade - makes careful observations6th grade - can distinguish clear from unclear for-mulations of simple issues or problems8th grade - can identify central issues or problems10th grade can delineate controversialcomponents12th grade - can distinguish real and unstatedproblems

Under judging and utilizing information:

3rd grade - identifies obvious stereotypes6th grade understands the idea of a stereotype andcliche8th grade - can recognize stereotypes and cliches

10th grade can recogniz, subtle manifestations ofstereotypes and cliches

12th grade - can distinguish between images andreality

And finally, as an example of skill in drawingconclusions:

3rd grade - recognizes the adequacy of data6th grade understands the idea of drawing conclu-sions from evidence8th grade - can identify reasonable alternatives10th grade - can justify the selection of analternative12th grade - can generate reasonable alternatives

While listing essential skills involved in critical think-ing is helpful, a problem with lists, steps and procedures isthat they imply that critical thinking is or should be linearand step-by-step which it rarely, if ever, is. The kind ofquestioning and the means to pursue the answers dependto a major extent on the situation. the ideas encountered,the social context of the encounter, and the prior knowl-edge and values of the questioner. Critical thinking, con-cludes Cornbleth, cannot be reduced to a universallyapplicable formula of skills or steps to follow but is a crea-tive or generative process in ways analogous to writing orsculpting.

Thinking is natural, but uufortunately critical thinkingis not. It is a skill capable of being perfected. It is also amatter of degree. No one is without any critical skillswhatsoever and no one has them so fully that there are noareas for improvement. It is also important to remember that

critical thinking is not the equivalent of intelligence. Per-sons of average intelligence can be trained to use theirmental ability more productively. The evidence suggeststhat these skills and abilities can be taught, that criticalthinking skills can increase aczdemic success, and that theearlier the skills are incorporated throughout a child's edu-cation the better.

Table I - Third Grade Critical Thinking Skills

I. Clarifying Issues and TermsA.B

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.H.

Makes careful observationsIdentifies and expresses main idea,problem, or central issuesIdzntifies similarities and differencesOrganizes items into defined categoriesDefines categories for unclassifiedinformationIdentifies information relevant to aproblemFormulates questionsRecognizes different points of view

II. Judging and Utilizing Information

A. Identifies obvious stereotypes

B. Distinguishes between fact and opinionC. Identifies and explains sequence and

prioritizingD. Identifies evidence that supports

!or is related to) a main ideaE. Identifies obvious assumptionsF Identifies obvious inconsistency and

contradictionIdentifies cause and effect relationshipsG.

III. Drawing ConclusionsA. Recognizes the adequacy of dataB. Identifies cause and effect relationshipsC. Draws conclusions from evidenceD. Puts simple hypotheses into "if, then"

sentences

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13

14

Table II - Sixth Grade Critical Thinking Skills

I. Clarifying Issues and Terms

A. Can distinguish clear from unclear formulations of (simple) issues and problemsB. Notes obvious similarities and differencesC. Understands the concept of relevance and irrelevanceD. Can recognize simple appropriate and inappropriate questionsE. Able to express problems and issuesF. Can recognize obvious individual and group value orientations and ideologies

II. Judging and Utilizing Information

A. Understands the idea of a stereotype and clicheB. Understands the idea of bias, propaganda, semantic slantingC. Understands the idea of fact, opinion, and reasoned judgmentD. Understands the idea of inconsistency and contradictionE. Understands the idea of assumptionF. Understands the idea of evidence

IV. Drawing Conclusions

A. Understands the idea of drawing conclusions from evidenceB. Understands the idea of predictory consequencesC. Understands the concept of hypothesizingD. Can put simple hypotheses into "if, then" sentencesE. Understands the idea of an analogy, and a generalizationF. Understands the idea of implication

Table III - Eighth Grade Critical Thinldng SIdlls

I. Clarifying Issues and Terms

A. Can identify central issues or problemsB. Can identify similarities and differencesC. Can determine which information is relevantD. Can formulate appropriate questionsE. Can express problems clearly and conciselyF. Can recognize individual and group value orientations and ideologies

II. Judging and Utilizing Information

A. Can recognize stereotypes and clichesB. Can recognize obvious bias, emotional factors, propaganda and semantic slantsC. Can distinguish among fact, opinion and reasoned judgmentD. Can recognize simple inconsistencies and contradictionsE. Can recognize simple unstated assumptionsF. Can recognize clearly insufficient data

III. Drawing Conclusions

A. Can identify reasonable alternativesB. Can predict possible consequencesC. Can test conclusions or hypothesesD. Can reason hypotheticallyE. Can identify causal claims/generalizations/analogiesF. Can recognize immediate implications

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Table IV - Tenth Grade Critical Thinking Skills

I. Clarifying Issues and TermsA. Can delineate controversy components

Can identify criteria that best organizes dataCan identify fallacies or relevanceCan formulate appropriate questionsCan paraphrase accuratelyCan distinguish among diverse viewpoints

B.

C.1).

E.F.

II. Judging and Utilizing InformationA. Can recognize subtle manifestations of stereotypes and clichesB. Can recognize subtle manifestation of emotional factors, propaganda and semantic slantsC. Can distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in subtle casesD. Can recognize subtle or indirect inconsistenciesE. Can recognize subtle or "buried" assumptionsE Can recognize subtle differences in judging the sufficiency of data

III. Drawing ConclusionsA. Can justify the selection of an alternativeB. Can distinguish between possible and probable consequencesC. Can tailor conclusions strength to evidenceD. Can reason within opposing points of viewE. Can recognize fundamental problem in causal claimslgeneralizations/analogiesF. Can recognize indirect or extended implications

Table V - Twelfth Grade Critical Thinking Skills

I. Clarifying Issues and TermsA. Can distinguish real and stated issuesB. Can identify the most satisfactory interpretation of dataC. Can determine degrees of relevanceD. Can formulate appropriate questionsE. Can articulate positions and supportF. Can compare political economic, legal and social systems

II. Judging and Utilizing InformationA. Can distinguish between images and substanceB. Able to write sentences and material into "unbiased" formC. Able to use facts, opinions, and reasoned judgments in an effective manne in speeches and

writingD. Demonstrates a sensitivity to subtle inconsistencies in reading and writingE. Demonstrates a sensitivity to questionable assumptions in reading and writingF. Demonstrates an ability to marshall data and use it effectively in coming to reasoned

judgments

III. Drawing ConclusionsA. Can generate reasonable alternativesB. Can anticipate desirable and undesirable consequencesC. Demonstrates the ability to come to a reasoned judgment in reading, writing, and speechD. Demonstrates a sensitivity to the "strongest" forms of opposing points of viewE. Can develop and assess causal claimsF. Can develop an extended line of reasoning, taking into account problematic implications

(CAP, 1984 reprinted with permission).

20

16

D. Research on Critical Thinking IssuesThe research on critical thinking and related issues (de-

cision making, problem solving, etc.) is diverse but sub-stantial. Little attention, however, has been given to re-lated research on classroom practice (teaching and assess-ment). There appears to be an urgent need for useful re-search in this area. The available data, now, suggests 1)that the earlier critical thinking skills are introduced, thebetter; 2) that instruction in critical thinking correlateswith increases on tests of thinking and reasoning, and 3)that instruction in critical thinking has also resulted in increased student achievement in academic subjects.

As early as 1919, studies of children, ages 7 through 14,that incorporated items and problems designed to testreasoning abilities, found that 7-year olds seem to possessall the fundamental abilities required to reason success-fully. White, in 1936, when testing the significance oflogic and reasoning instruction with 12-year olds, foundevidence of applicability and demonstration of transfer oflearning from the training material to a typical school task(writing an essay). He found that grammar, if supple-mented by instruction in reasoning, could improve thelearner's quality of written expression.

Fawcett (1938) embarked on a two -year project teach-ing critical thinking in geometry. The study was based onthe assumption that if critical thinking ability was to be im-proved and extended to non-mathematical activities aswell, experiences in the classroom must highlight tl-ebasic continuity of thinking processes across activities.The teacher continuously shifted from the mathematicstext to applications to everyday life. As a result, the stu-dents scored at the 80th percentile in geometry achieve-ment, even though less time was devoted solely togeometry curriculum. The students also demonstrated sig-nificant improvement in reasoning skill.

In 1941, in an experiment in the development of criticalthinking, Glaser (co-author of the Watson-Glaser CriticalThinking Test) studied the effects of an eight-week pro-gram of instruction for secondary students. He found sig-nificant improvement in the scores of experimental class-es on tests of critical thinking.

D'Angelo (1971) has identified the following sevenstudies as having made a contribution to our knowledge ofintegrating critical thinking into the content areas:

Blair and Goodson (1939) conducted an experi-ment using two different teaching methods to devel-op scientific thinking in general science. Threegroups of ninth grade students were involved in thestudy. The science and non-science control groupswere taught by traditional methods, and the experi-mental group was taught by procedures designed topromote scientific thinking. The students in the ex-perimental group were given exercises to determinetl- assumptions in statements, hypotheses and con-clusions warranted by the available facts, the testa-bility of certain hypotheses, and the analysis of ad-vertisements in terms of definitions, assumption,and arguments. The Noll What Do You Think? testwas t' led to measure growth in scientific thinking.

21

The results of this experiment showed that the ex-perimental group made significantly higher scoreson the Noll test than the science and non-sciencecontrol groups. It was concluded that the study ofgeneral science does clot in itself contribute to thefostering of scientific thinking. Improvement in sci-entific thinking is achieved in general sciencecourses when experiences and exercises are pro-vided in the classroom to achieve this objective.

Ulmer (1939) conducted an experiment in sevenhigh schools w ith 1239 students to determine the ef-fects of using a reflective method in the teaching ofgeometry. This study involved an experimentalgroup and two control groups. The experimentalgroup consisted of students in geometry classeswhere the emphasis was placed on studying the prin-ciples of critical thinking in both geometric andnon-geometric situations. The geometry controlgroup studied geometric facts and relationshipswithout the emphasis on critical thinking. The non-geometry control group consisted of students whowere not studying geometry. The results of the testshowed there was no measurable gain in criticalthinking in the non-geometry control group, a slightgain in the geometry control group, and a considera-ble gain in the experimental group. This study alsoindicated that high school geometry teachers canteach to promote critical thinking without sacri-ficing an understanding of geometric facts and prin-ciples.

Suchman (1963) investigated the procedures forteaching the skills of scientific inquiry to elemen-tary scl:ool students. This is sometimes known as in-quiry training. The purpose of inquiry training inthis experiment was to focus on the process of in-quiry in processing data, verifying hypothesesthrough verbalized experiments, isolating vari-ables, and investigating causal relationships. Theaim of this study was to determine whether inquirytraining produced changes in the method studentsused in the process of inquiry. Twelve teachers weretrained in inquiry training during an eight-weeksummer session. The following school year theseteachers conducted a twenty-four week program ofinquiry training with groups of children in theirschools. The experimental group was given inquirytraining, while the control group was taught by ex-pository and didactic methods. This study showedthat the gains made by the experimental group inmastering inquiry si.!lls were greater than the con-trol group at a level of significance just short of .05.It was concluded that inquiry training does producesignificant procedural changes in the scientific in-quiries used by elementary school students.

Kastrinos (1964) compared the effectiveness oftwo methods of teaching biology relative to de-veloping critical thinking in the classroom. The stu-dents involved in this experiment were high schooljuniors and seniors who were enrolled in an ad-vanced biology course. Two groups were used inthis study, and they were taught by different

methcds. The text17004-recitation group vt... taughtby means of recitations and lec'ures that em-phasized factual materials in the textbook. Tne grinciples-critical thinking group wa' taught wit;, theemphasis on concepts and principles. The problemsthat were analyzed required the use of such skills asa recognition of the nature of the problem, an evaluation of the data, and the use of the scientificmethod. There were no significant differences be-tween the two groups in their mastery of the factualmaterial, however, the principles-critical thinkinggroup had a signficantly higher mean score than theother group on a critical thinking test constructed byKastrinos.

Cousins (1963) conducted a study to determinewhether students in an eighth grade social studiesclass could master certain critical thinking skillswhen the class was taught by the reflective method.The model of critical thinking included defining keyterms, evaluating generalizations, validating causeand effect relationships, and tracing logical deduc-tions. Gains in critical thinking were measured bythe Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal,the Cooperative Social Studies lest for Grades 7,8, 9 and a special test constructed by the teacher.Statistical analyses of the scores on these testsshowed that students improved significantly in theirability to use these critical thinking skills. The taperecorded discussions and the teacher's anecdotal re-cord also showed an improvement in the use of theseskills. The improvement in critical thinking variedfrom student to student and from skill to skill.

Creutz and Gezi (1965) conducted an experimentto c.:termine whether critical thinking could be de-veloped through current events discussions in ninthand tenth grade classes. The skills emphasized inthis study were. ev a:uating assumptions and infer-ences, interpreting points of view, identify ing causeand effect relationships, and drawing conclusions.Two world history-geography classes were chosen tocomprise an experimental and control group. Dur-ing a ten-week session the control group studied cur-rent events without the stress on critical thinking,while the experimental class used worksheets andexercises designed to foster the skins being studiedin this experiment. Each class was given a pre-testand post-test based on the Watson-Glaser CriticalThinking Appraisal with the content area drawnfrom current events. The scores on these testsshowed that the experimental group gained in theseskills, whereas the control group did not show anygain. It was concluded that critical thinking skills incurrent events can be improved by instruction whichstresses critical thinking in the classroom.

Richert (1967) studied whether the critical think-ing abilities of students can be improved signifi-cantly by a physical science course that emphasizedproblems, assumptions, data, and hypotheses.Three college freshman physical science classeswere used in this experiment. One class was a tradi-tional physical science class using standard lectures

*Reprinted by permission of the author.

and demonstrations. Another class was a surveycourse where the concern was with the applicationof facts and principles. These were the controlgroups. The expel imental class was concerned withstudents analyzing problems, collecting and or-ganizing data, and testing hypotheses. The. Amer-ican Council on Education lest of Critical Think-ing, Form G and pencil and paper tests were used todetermine gains in critical thinking. The experimen-tal data shov,.-,, a statistically significant improve-ment in criticai thinking in the experimental group.as compared to the control groups. The results ofthese tests support the hypvhesis that critical thinking abilities can be improved in a one-semestercourse in physical science when one teaches specifi-cally to develop these abilities.*

More recent research on specific program designed toteach critical thinking, the Philosophy for Children Pro-gram, of the Institute for the /Ay ancement of Philosophyfor Children, has been c.G.:ducted since 1970. Lipman et.di. (1980) hypothesized that children needed help tG improve their reasoning and that such an improvement wouldin turn be reflected in the enhancement of other academic'skills. A 1970 experiment demonstrated that a nine-weekprogram could produce impressive gains not only inreasoning, but Aso in reading. Student reading results onthe Iowa Test of Basic Skills showed statistically signfi-cant differences. These reay..og gains remained highly significant two-and-a-half years later. A later study (1975) ofsixth graders in the program found substantial improve-ments in reading, significant improvements in criticalthinking involving listening, and highly significant gainsin interpersonal relationships. The children in the experi-mental classes gained an average of eigh. months in read-ing ability against five months for the control group.

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) evaluated atwo-year Lipman experiment in teaching thinking whichsought improvements in reasoning, academic readinessand basic skills. ETS concluded that the o.erallPhilosophy for Children Program's effect on reading andmath was highly significant. In math, the experimentalgain was 36 percent larger than the control, in reading theexperimental gain was 66 percent larger. Additionally, theteachers vier. J the program as having a very favorable offect upon student motivation and interpersonal attitudes,and as resulting in a marked improvement in children'scommunication skills. The length of the program wasfound to be of critical importance, suggesting that thegreater the exposure, the better the. students performed.The overall impact of the Philosophy fat Children Programon the reading and math performance of the children in theETS study, was at the highest possible level of : ignifi-Lance (.0001), with highly significant improvement inreasoning in the majority of grade levels.

Project IMPACT (Improv e Minimal Proficiencies by Ac-tiv ating Critical Thinking), an Orange County, CaliforniaDepartment of Education program designed to improveability in critical thinking, language arts and mathematies, also reports positive and significant results. From Oc-tober 1981 to February 1982 over 698 students in grades 79 in four school districts field-tested Project IMPACT. The

2217

.MINM=MMEIMIE1410

students qualified to participate in the project by failingthe district's proficiency tests. Tests evaluating reading,math and critical thinking skills were administered in 0tober 1981 Project students received a min:mum of 301essons and were post-tested in February 1982. The experi-mental groups achieved significantly more than the ontrol groups in all areas (reading. 19% to 4%, math. 16% to3%, and critical thinking: 12% to 1%).

Not only is there evidence that instruction in thinkingskills improves thinking behaviors, but additional re-search in this area (Worsham and Austin, 1983) suggeststhat a structured thinking skills program in the languagearts curriculum significantly improves student perfor-mance on aptitude tests, such as the SAT (Scholastic Ap-titude Test). In this study, highly significant differences(.001) were found between the scores of experimentalgroups who received instruction on thinking skills in theirlanguage arts program and control gmuci on all three SATverbal measures: vocabulary, reading comprehension, andtotal score. Worsham and Austin say that their findingslend support to the inclusion of a third dimension to thecorrelatio.. between aptitude and achievement. facility inthe application of thinking skills.

Worsham (1983) notes that research has shown thatthinking ability can improved through instruction andpractice and states that the total absence of explicit instruction in cognitive skill development from most standardschool curricula seems incomprehensible. Her studies demonstrating statistically significant differences in SATscores of low SES high school students who received training in thinking skills in their language arts programs, compared to those who did not imply that:

additional instruction time in thinking skill de-velopment would improve verbal aptitude andachievement;

students are able to transfer and apply thinkingskills learned in the classroom to comparable testquestions; anda thinking skills program may provide a tangiblemeans of lessening the disparity between theSAT scores of high and low SL3 students.

There is some contradictory evidence with regard tothinking skills. Stallings and Kaskowitz (1973) found thatthe frequency of factual single-answer questions at thetwo lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy (knowledge andcomprehension) is positively related to gain in achieve-ment. Rosenshine (1979) states that although teachershave been urged by teacher educators to ask higher levelcognitive questions, some research does not support thisemphasis. He cites findings where the frequency of open-ended questions was negatively related to gains inachievement, where asking different numbers of higherlevel questions had no measurable effect on performanceon essays or on tests containing higher level questions.

But Rosenshine also agrees that there is confusion overAltai is meant by highci level ugnitiN e questions. Hestates that questions k. cued as "higher level" m thestudies may really be personal questions Of opinions. The

18 studies he cites as non-supportive of higher order em-

phasis du not focus un systematic umprchensive an, diIto emphasis on thinking skills. Terms appear vagt., andundefined, and include such 'higher level thinking"strategies as teachers reading questions to children fromscripts with predetermined questions. The bottom line insuch contralictury findings may well be the fact that test

questions requiring critical thinking skills and the use ofhigher cognitive abilities simply do not appear on achieve-ment tests. Most current tests simply do not require in-terpretive or critical thought.

Darling-Hammand, et. al. (1933) support this asser-tion. They say that a problematic research finding is thatthe effectiveness of two very distinct sets of teaching be-haviors vary depending on the goals of instruction: manyof the behaviors that seem to result in increased achieve-ment on standardized tests and factual examinations aredissimilar, indeed nearly opposite from, those that seem toincrease complex cognitive learning, problem-solvingability and creativity.

Centra et. al. (1983) say further that higher order skillsare not particularly likely to be acquired (and certainlywill not be demonstrated) by students whose teachers askonly lower order questions. When the measure of studentachievement is multiple choice, factually oriented testing,it is not possible to assess the effects of a teachers higherorder questions, and no conclusions regarding the effec-tiveness of teacher questioning should be drawn from suchstudies. Some research suggests that desirable outcomesof educationindependence, curiosity, and positive at-titudes toward school, teacher and selfseem to resultfrom teacher behaviors that are different from those pre-scribed for increasing student achievement on standar-dized tests. These issues need to be studied further. Thisdoes not mean that testing is never justified, but thatwe need to reex?.. . rw!i tests truly measure and,where necessar NC .em.

In a synthesis of the research on teachers' questioning,Gall (1984) found that research prior to 1970 has providedfew answers for practitioners since there was conflictingevidence. However, more recent studies have found thatthe predominant use of higher level questions during in-struction has a positive effect on student achievement. Thisresearch appears to support the emphasis on higher cogni-tive questions as generally producing better learning thanemphasis on factual questions. Yet improving the qualityof teacher questions is not sufficient. While skill in the artof Socratic questioning requires considerable emphasisand practice, students also need to learn the response re-quirements of different types of questions. Lipman (1980)and others have established that a preference for criticalquestioning over rote memorizationoften referred to as"intellectual curiosity"--is associated with higherachievement even when achievement is measured by testsof factual knowledge. Yet so far there have been no studiesthat relate specific questioning strategies to the develop-ment of the critical questioning habit. Common sense tellsus however that questioning will be infectious if the childid, ntifies with a questioning person. It also follows thatwhen questioning is rewarded, it will increase.

23

The research on teaching effectiveness tends to supportthe use of questionini, and discussion as methods to increse student achievement. The findings of direct instruc-tion/interactive teaching have highlighted patterns of in-struction which are more effective in producing studentgains. teacher-directed learning and high levels of teacher-student interaction. The more effective teacher places aclear focus on academic goals, structures the learning ac-tivities, actively presents the concepts, as.,..sses studentunderstanding and progress, and provides immediate cor-rective feedback to student responses (Rosenshin' 1979,Good, 1979, and Brophy, 1979). Learning occur, whenstudents read aloud, ask questions and receive feedback,and hear others ask questions and receive responses. Moreeffective teachers are more active and have more interac-tion with students. High levels of teacher-student interac-tion mean that during most of the day or period, studentsspend their time interacting with the teacher either indi-vidually or as part of a group. In addition to lecture anddrill, the teacher leads discussios, solicits studentsponses to questions and provides feedback to students.

There is evidence from recent experimental studiesin the classroom that critical thinking can be substantiallyimproved "y certain kinds of instruction and guidancewoven intr. the regular school curriculum (Glaser, 1985).For example, Glaser conducted controlled experimentswhich called for defining, teaching, and evaluating theimpact of specially designed instruction on certain aspectsof critical thinking. This instruction was integrated intothe regular English class curriculum and presented to twoclasses of high school students in each of two separateschool systems. Students receiving instruction in criticalthinking were then compared with similar classes that didnot receive this special instruction. (The research in-volved a total of four experimental and four control class-es.) Both high schools participating in the experiment hadthe development of critical-thinking skills ,ts an officiallystated educational objective. The most important findingfrom this study was that critical thinking can be substan-tially improved as an outcome of instruction designed todevelop these skills within the existing curriculum.

Combleth (1985) describes findings in problem-solvingresearch which have implications for teaching for think-ing. This tesearch examines experts' and novices' meansof problem representation, solution and justification.Whereas experts give considerable attention to problemrepresentation, novices only give only superficial atten-tion and jump to conclusions about sdlutions with little ar-gument development or use of knowledge specific to thesituation. Expertise seems to rest on a sophisticatedknowledge base of domain-specific and general knowl-edge, reasoning skills and problem-solving strategies: ex-perts have procedural as well as empirical and conceptualknowledge that enables them to systematically integrate,elaborate, clarify and evaluate proposed solutions, supporting them with reason and evidence (essential criticalthinking skills). So It appears that expertise is nut merelyinformation acquisition (which is how our schools currently function), but also the construction, expansion andrefinement of conceptual networks that interrelate factualinformation, concepts, principles and procedures. We

should also not forget that many of the must importantquestions we face cross disciplin, .) lines and cannot besettled by "experts" in a particular field.

The resear.;:. related to critical thinking, while not definitive and specific e..ough to guide. instructional decisions, does pnav ide us with some proof that efforts to infuse..eachiug and learning with a critical thinking emphasishas some positive effects. The studies mentioned heresuggest that:

11 explicit instruction can improve children's abilayto do certain kinds of critical thinking and reason-ing;

that critical thinking/reasoning skills andabilities can be improved through an emphasison these skills in the subject areas (e.g., math,science, social studies .:

to that young children possess the fundamentalabilities required for thinking critically (ThePhilosophy for Children Program, for example,begins at the kindergarten level);

or that teaching for thinking appears to have a corre-lation with certain academic skills (writing, read-ing, math);that teaching for thinking correlates with com-munication skill improvement: listeningabilities, verbal aptitude and interpersonal re-lationships;

m that the length of time for an effort infusing criti-cal thinking into subject areas is a factor: thelonger the exposure, the larger the gain; that concerted efforts to improve the thinking skills oflow achievers can be successful in increasingacademic achievement;that knowledge acquisition alone will not develop critical thinking skills, abilities and dispositiolis, they need to be specifically cultivated,

II that expertise consists of a sophisticated know Iedge base of domain six :ific and general know Iedge and critical thinking:reasoning skills andproblem-solving strategies.

This section has described various definitions, descrip-tions and characterizations of the dispositions and skillsfor thinking critically. Critical thinking has been discussedin its "weak" sense (a set of discrete, vocational thinking,.tills), and in its "strong" sense (integrated skills intrinsicto fairmindedness). It has been defined as "fairmindedlynn zpreting, analyzing or evaluating information, argu-ments or experiences with a set of reflective attitudes,skills and abilities to guide thoughtful beliefs and actions."A brief sketch of the diverse research on this issue wasgiven, leading to the conclusion that more research on crit-ical thinking instruction in the K-12 setting is urgentlyneeded.

We now turn to the esscntialpruce.sa of the critical thinking movement. the teaching of critical thinking. In orderfor inquiry to thrive, certain conditions must be present inthe educational environment, amoi.c then A genuinesystem-A ide commitment tc the concept of the school as acommunity of inquiry and teachers committed the process of inquiry who are encouraged in their efforts.

.s. 24

19

CHAPTER 3: CRITICAL THINKING:TEACHING CHILDREN HOW TO INKFOR THERSELVE, S

A.. Beginning the Transformation ofEmphasis. . . Teachers who can model an endless quest formeaning, for more comprehensive answers in life'simportant issues, are the most important ingredient.Since thinking is an art, the teacher of any art mustbe able to discern the creative dispositions of thechild and encourage their f ailment . . . must beprepared to nurture and culti.ate a rich profusion ofthinking styles, yet all the while insist that eachchild's thought be as clear, consistent and com-prehensive as possible so long as the 4. onLat ut thcchild's thought is not compromised . . . the properrole of the teacher is to encourage intellectualcreativity as well as intellectual rigor . . . to listenscrupulously to what children actually say and aretrying to say, the ability to recognize the logical pattern of children's discourse, the ability to orchestratediscussions, and the ability to encourage children tothink for themselves.

Lipman et. al. (1980)

There-are major issues facing teachers and policy makers who live daily with the contradictions between districtand school organizational arrangements on the one handand the theories if thinking as an active holistic, inquiryprocess demanding the students' total involvement on theother, says Larry Cuban (1985). He recognizes thatteachers and administrators arc "less than captains of thenfate as they an: entangled in the consequ,-nces of past solu-tion; to problems, conflicting expectations, and persistentdemands."The current a.-chitecture of schooling producesclassrooms where the teacher is both leader and captive.He believes that nothing Short of a major, intense,

supported national ..luvernent to alter existing waysof operating schools bc able to transform criticalthinking from ideal to reality. Until then the probabilityis that incremental modifications v continue to be thepattern.

All is not lost, however, concludes Cuban, as teachersdo have some discretion, and within that margin of free-dom many teachers invent, adapt, maneuver and createclassrooms where reasoning is prized and nourished. Asyet, there is a lack of a large body of research-generatedknowledge on which to build an instructional technol-ogyand much work is needed in this arca. Conventionalwisdom at least provides us with generally agreed uponprinciples as to how to proceed.

Integrating Thinking Skills Into theCurricula.

Most proponents of critical thinking, including the20 AFT, believe it should be a planned part of the total pro

gram, done "thoughtfully" within the framework of theexisting curriculum (Raths et. al. 1967, Lipman et. al.1980, Fraenkel 1980, Beyer 1983, Paul 1984, amongothers). "If what we want ultimately are thoughtful, in-quisitive, imaginative, reasonable children," says Lip-man, "then thinkin, ills must be Integrated into virtuallyevery aspect of the elementary educational process." Theintegration of thinking skills into every aspect of the cur-riculum, he contends, sharpens children's capacity tomake connections and draw distinctions, to define andclassify, to assess factual information objectively and cnt-ically, to deal reflectively with the relationships betweenfacts and values, and to differentiate their beliefs and whatis true from their understanding of what is logically possi-ble. AFT President Albert Shanker concurs. "I believe it isextremely important that critical thinking not be viewed aspurely a formal skill, just as reading at the eighth gradelevel doesn't enable you to necessarily read anything. I be-lieve very strongly that critical thinking has to take placein social studies and has to take place in mathematics, inall the disciplines. It has to be an integral part of the cur-riculum not something separate from it. The AFT is mak-ing the infusion of critical thinking in thc basic curriculumone of its top priorities."

Such an education structured for thoughtfulness, promisesto be au, academically supeivi education in behaviorallymeasurable terms and as an instrument for life experience.Research on Lipman's critical thinking prcgram indicates

children cv hu have been encouraged to bc systemati-c...Hy inquisitive and reflective naturally tend to importsuch behav iur into the remainder of their teaming ac-tivities. Thus, the classroom as a community of in-quiry" -committed to the procedures of inquiry, to re-sponsible sean.h techniques that presuppose an opennessto evidence and reason will foster teaming and thinkinghabits for meaningful lifelong learning.

Scriven (1985) has noted that the very concept of cur-riculum is in trouble. This is due to the fact that criticalthinking skills are not commonly recognized as a neces-sary part of the basic curriculum, whereas they are in factthe glue that connects knowledge of facts with any appli-cation of that knowledge. He stresses the need for enorm-ously improveil analytical capability with respect to con-temporary problems:

25

"My sense is that is we spent half the time onanalysis of contemporary problems that we do onnational history in the schools, we would double thechances of there being a national history this timenext century . . . Contrary to the popular diagnosisof how small a part reason plays in human life ... onthe limits of human capacity to be rational, I take the

much si, der view that this just shows how littleskill in reasuning we teach. Reasoning takes teaching, and reasoning about practical problems takesteaching reasoning easing tough, practical, control.crsial problems as examples ... we have set our primary and secondary schools up so that with rev, cxccptions it is professionally impossible to su, v ivc asa tcachcr or administrator if you insist )n theexplicit use of tough, practical, controversial exam-pies. That mils! be changed if we are to survive."

Bcrcitcr (1984), in writing on how to keep thinkingskills from going the way or all frills, identifies approachcs to teaching thinking skills that usually donut suemed. treating thinking skills as enrichment and treatingthinking skills as separate subject matter. Instead, thepromotion of thinking skills should be deeply embeddedin the "whole fabric of an instructional program." Themain ways to guard against failure are to make thinkingskill activities an integral part of other, already acceptedinstructional objectives, and to permeate the instructionalprogram so thoroughly with thinking skills that they cannot be isolated and reduced to verbalized subject matter.The strength of integrating these skills is that the existingcurriculum and texts can be used. The rocas of teachingchanges, not necessarily the content, although concertedefforts are being made by the ASCD Collaborative of 20national educational organizations to influence publishersof textbooks and instructional materials :o more effec-tively infuse thinking skills into their materials.

Exposure to subject matter alone will not improve eritical thinking ability. The content ,done of any subject is notlikely to develop a generalized ability to mason logicallyand productively, says Glaser. He notes that.

A student does not tend "naturally" to develop a gen-eral disposition to consider thoughrully the sub-jects and problems that conic within the range of hisor her experience: nor is he or she likely to acquireknowledge of the methods of logical inquiry andreasoning and skill in applying, these methods, sim-ply as a result of halving studied this subject or that.There is little ev idenee that students aequirc...kill incritical thinking as a necessary by-product of thestudy of ate, given subject. On the other hand, al-most any subject can be taught in a manner designedto put students on guard against hasty generaliza-tion, contradictory assertions, uncritical acceptanceof authority, and common foveal fallacies in reason-ing. Thus, transfer of training from the study of log-ical reasoning and methods of evaluating the ade-quacy of evidence in a subject-matter field such asgeometry or general science can be brought about,but it does not occur automatically.*

These skills donut develop automatically. Studies usingthe New Jersey Test of Reasoning with college freshmenand elementary bawl children found that the mean storesof the college students were less than Jne point above themean scores of sixth graders, suggesting that the bask repertoirc of rcasonina skills of the adult is relatively unchanged from that of the sixth grade child. A major national reading and literatufe assessment of ONCI 100,000U.S. school children found that although students at each

age level had little diffieulty making judgments aboutwhat they read, most lacked the problem solving and entieal thinking skills to explain and defend their judgments.This was found nut to be a eugnitivc inability of students torespond analytically, but a result of current c.mphasis intesting and instruction solely on multiple aim c and shortanswer nooses where students are Nimpli unused todoing tali squiring critical thinking.

In their development of a critical thinking program,Falkof and Moss (1984) found that most students are un-aware of their thinking processes, but that even from veryearly ages, can think about their thinking. For example, asearly as kindergarten, ..hildn:n can understand and use theword infer- provided they have experiences that lead:and reinforce thc concept. They believe that we often dunot given children enough credit fur their inatc reasonin.ability.

Piagct has noted that the ch"J is zul active, construingcreature, inherently predisposed to thinking activities.There is a developmental sequence in the growth ofthought from the concrete to the abstract and the basicskills are the foundation for the higher level abilities. In-structional strategics purposefully designed to develop.foster and enhance critical thinking with respect to the stu-dents' developmental levels must be carefully Hegratedthroughout the elementary and secondary curriculaCombleth warns, however, that there is a myth that cnticalthinking is wholly dependent on stages of cognitive de-velopment and that this myth negatively affects expecta-tions about Students' ability 1 disposition to engage incritical thinking. Then; are quc,tions about the ..unsistent.), of developmental stages across tasks and subjectareas, however. task-relevant knowledge rather than developmental stage may better explain identified itge differ-ences in students' reasoning.

Support for 'leachers.At the system level, teachers have to be. involved in

shaping the discussion on critical thinking. The evidenceshows that the importance of critical thinking is be;ngICN.ogniLed and that the necessary reexamination is beginning. The massive efforts in California io rewrite studentassessment tests is a good examptc, since California ha,led the way on many recent reforms. Critical thinkingeummittees with teacher representation are metingthroughout the Mate to develop goals and objectives and ,set the uti,-se for the massive reforms to be implementedin textbooks, curriculum, staff development and teachereducation.

Teacher involvement is imperative in such initiatives. ifthe professionals uitimately responsible for implementingthe concept are to have any identification, ownership ora..t.eptsn..c of it. Te.....hers ..an highlight potential impktnentation ubsta..les and make suggestions for redefiningpractice in this area They can arts ulate the eonstraintsof current test emraases and eurrent curricular mandatesand requirement:., and define the support systems neLessary to ensure the success of this transformation of emphasic. Much ...arc, time and planning is necessary to keepthe critical thinking movement from going the way of cducational fadism.

'reprinted by permission of National Forum:The Phi Kappa Phi Journal. Vol. UV. No. I.l26

21

The development of classrooms where inquiry and crit-ical thinking are valued requires much a-lure than indi-vidual teachers being committed to the quest for the "crit-ical spirit" Such development requires school-wide andsystem-wide commitment and rational thinking. This in-volves not only valuing teachers and students as criticalthinkers, but calls for concerted efforts to create climatesconducive to these efforts: long term and meaningful staffdevelopment activities to encourage critical thinkingrather than tradition! one-shot inservice programs whichsuperficially address issues; access to resources and mater-ials to enhance and expand critical thinking instructionwithin the curriculum and across disciplines, rather thangimmicky pre-packaged panaceas; time for teachers tomeet, interact and model effective strategies and explorenew ways to enhance their professional skills in this arearather than Increased demands with no time to effectively"think" about them. In other words, school systems neednot only to profess commitment to critical thinking as aneducational goal, but need also to back up such commit-ment with the necessary resources for teachers and stu-dents to make achieving this goal a true possibility.

B. The Paideia Approach as a Frame-work for Thinking About CriticalThinking

The Paideia Proposal provides a framework for concep- .

tualizing and fostering the critical thinking process. Thissection will describe the Proposal as it relates to criticalthinking. It is premised on the idea that all three kinds ofteaching and learning (didactic, coaching and discussion)are equally valuable and should be thoroughly intergratedwith each other. The kinds of knowledge to be acquired arelearned by didactic teaching (lecture and textbook assign-ments). The intellectual skills to be developed are learnedby coaching. The understanding or insights to be gainedfrom the knowledge occur by Socratic teaching (question-ing and discussing). This section summarizes these threetypes of teaching and learning.*

The proposal's authors also believe that the three kindsof teaching and learning should run concurrently throughall 12 grades. Knowledge to be acquired through didactic.instruction must be made secure by the skills to be de-veloped by coaching, and understanding through discus-sion and guided practic. Radical and fundamental changeswill be required to make this ideal a reality in today'sschools.

The basic precept of Paideia is that "all genuine learn-ing arises from the activity of the learner's own mind."Learning may be assisted, guided and stimulated by theactivity of the teachers, but when teacher activity rendersstudents passive, they cease to be learners. The teacher'sactivity in telling students what they should know may re-sult in their remembering information, but it does not re-sult in genuine knowledge unless what is to be known is"actively grasped by the mind rather than passively re-tained by the memory." To grasp it requires some criticalassessment.

Didactic Teaching.

22 An important point is that students need to be active in

didaLtk instruction also. they must think as they listen. Toelicit attire listening, students must expert questioning bythe teadier in the same Mass period as the lecture and inlater periods. Not more than one-half of the class timeshould be devoted to "telling." The other half should bedevoted to "asking."

The question and answer period should always be two-way talk and should involve questions asked by studentsand teacher. Classroom talk should begin by telling listen-ers what they can expect to learn and why they should payattention to it. On the whole, the rule of thumb should be"less is more." Didactic lessons should not aim to cover acertain amount of material regardless of whether the stu-dents truly "understand" it, but instead should cover asmuch material as the students are able to absorb. Writtenmaterial, also, should always be accompanied by ques-tions because in no other way can students fully under-stand what they have read.

Coaching.Coaching forms the habits through which all skills are

possessed. Theodore Sizer illustrates the technique in thefollowing example:

A ninth grader algebra class. Carl writes on thechalk board.

2x + 6 = 82x = 2x = 0

Carl's teacher: Carl, check it for me.

2(0) + 6 = 80 + 6 = 86 = 8

Carl: (pause) It doesn't work.

Write out your steps.

2x + 6 = 8(2x + 6) 6 = (8) 62x = 22 2

x = 0When you divide 2 by itself, do you get zero?

Umm.

Write it out.1

212So .. .One.

Right! Now go back to your problem.

2x + 6 = 8(2x + 6) 6 = (8) 62x = 2x = 1

So far so good. Now give it another check.

2(1) + 6 = 82 + 6 = 88 = 8

It works.

*The Paideia Program by Mortimer J. Adler, Copyright '" 1984 by the Ills:aide fur Philosophical Research. Reprinted with permission ofthepublisher. le ')0

Why does it work?

I subtracted 6 from each side of the equation.

Yes . . . and you divided 2 by itself properly . . .

Now, could you solve this equation another way?

Umm.

Try.

to long pause. Doodling on the chalk board.)

Remember, as long as one treats each side of theequation similarly, one can perform unlimitedoperations . . . you tried subtraction, and ithelped you to solve the problem. Could someother operation work equally well?

(A pause. Scribbling.) Take 2 out.

What's that mean?

You know, take it out.

You mean, subtract 2 from each side?

No, divide by 2.

Write it out . now, let's see your work.

2x + 6 = 82(x + 3) = 2(4)2(x + 3) = 2(4)

2 2x + 6 = 4x = I

So ... it works. But it didn't work for Eddie here.Look at Eddie's problem and tell him why.

(Eddie's solution, adjacent on the chalkboard.)

2x + 6 = 82x + 6 = 8

2 2x + 6 = 4x = 4 6x = 2

Umm . . . it should work.

But it doesn't, and yours did. Why?

You see . . . the 6. It should be three.

Ok . .. now, here's another one: 10 + 2x = 30 .. .Eddie, show Carl how to do it.(p. 32-34)

In this coaching example, Sizer demonstrates that thestudent is learning algebra, but he is also learning about"observing, calculating and about how to trouble-shoot,how to identify errors and figure out what caused them.He is learning, fundamentally, how to thinklogically,resourcefully and imaginatively." These skills can belearned only through trial and error. In coaching, the stu-dent is the key worker and the subject matter is the "stuff"with which he is developing his skills.

To effectively coach, 1) the teacher must know the stu-dent, 2) the material of coaching must be the students'work, 3) immediacy is crucial (teachers must have time tocorrect student work thoroughly and promptly), and 4)shrewd criticism is essential. Coaching requires time anda class size small enough so that a teacher can learn how

each pupil's mind works. In essence, coaching heips stu-dents mold their thinking skills and habits of inquiry.

Socratic Teaching.Socratic teaching develops the understanding or In-

sights from the knowledge acquired. It moves the learnerfrom "knowledge to knowing." The questioning of stu-dents helps them improve their understanding. The pri-mary goal is to bring out and clarify issues raised in whatthey've studied. We don't learn "knowledge" in a vacuum,but in the context of other knowledge and understandings.New knowledge is integrated with past !earnings formingan ever increasing storehouse of knowledge. Often ques-tions used in the Socratic method are "the questions towhich there are no 'right' answers." It is a mode of ques-tioning to lead more deeply into the meaning, order or jus-tification of knowledge.

The Paideia group asserts that Socratic teaching shouldstart in kindergarten and continue throughout schooling,and that it is simply wrong to think that young children areincapable of considering and talking about ideas and is-sues. Discussions should be joint searches, the best ofwhich result in "something new and unexpected being dis-covered." The teacher needs to:

Pit ask a series of questions that define the discus-sion and give it direction;

ill examine or query the answers by trying to drawout the reasons for them or the implications theyhave;

IS engage the students in two-way talk when viewsappear to be in conflict.

The teacher needs to be as exact in listening as in ques-tioning. The state of mind of students and teachers is animportant element in effective teaching: those engaged ina discussion should be open-minded, prepared to changetheir minds as a result of what happens, and willing to con-sider new opinions. Such discussions improve and en-hance the learning that didactic teaching is concerned withby making the learners' minds more active and more in-volved with the knowledge. The Paideia Proposal offers aframework for integrating the three types of teaching andlearning.

C. Essential Elements of CriticalThinking Instruction

There are classroom essentials involved in a commit-ment to truth and inquiry, a commitment to nurturing thedevelopment of critical thinking abilities in students.There are essentials for teaching children how to value theauthority their own reasoning, for encouraging "self-formed, self-reasoned conviction." These essentials in-clude the classroom climate, discussion and questioningstrategies, an_ the design of lessons and activities.

Classroom Climate: Nurturing the CriticalThinking Dispositions

Helping children believe in themselves has been said tt,be one of the most valuable gifts we can give them. Thesearch for significance and a sense of belong;ng are basicneeds of human beings, The school has a significant ef

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fect on the need to belong, to feel worthwhile, since achild's identity is so deeply associated with success inschool and image in the peer group. The significance of anencouraging environment is crucial to critical thinkingand the development of confidence in one's reasoning.The loss of confidence in one's self and one's ability leadsto discouragement, or the absence of courage. Children in-ternalize the expectations of the significant adults in theirlives. If we communicate to them that we believe in them,they will begin to believe in themselves. If we hope to en-able children to value the authority of their own thinking,encouragement is vital to helping them gain confidence intheir own reasoning.

Trust and mutual respect go hand in hand in an en-couraging environment. A classroom that frees children toexpress themselves is grounded in the notion that childrenare equal to adults in terms of human worth and dignity. Ifwe want children to see themselves as worthwhile per-sons, we have to let them know we accept them as theyare, while at the same time creating an environment inwhich they feel free to risk being themselves, to make mis-takes and learn from them, and to grow and to become in-dependent thinkers. Mutual respect also involves the abil-ity to be a good listener.

Critical thinking dispositions and attitudes need to beencouraged, modeled and reinforced in every aspect ofclassroom life. A classroom environment which promotescuriosity, objectivity, flexibility, informed skepticism,persistence and respect will produce students excitedabout learning, students who fee free to take risks withtheir thoughts, students who approach ideas imagina-tively, and students who value and respect the contribu-tions of others. These students will be less rigid, less dog-matic, less biased and less afraid of exploring their onpotential.

The affective domain is as important as the cognitivedomain in thinking critically. Students need to integratethese dispositions and attitudes into their "world views" asas much as they need to know what the "tools" of criticalthinking are. Without empathy, open-mindedness and In-tellectual honesty, the most skilled rational thinker cannotmake informed decisions, but merely uses these tools tosupport prejudicial positions.

How can we "teach" the dispositionscritical thinkingin the "strong" sense? In addition to modeling them, hav-ing certain ground rules for discussion and activities areuseful. For example, when using brainstorming to gener-ate alternate solutions to a problem, a general rule is thatthere is no criticism of Ideas until the stage for evaluatingthem. All contributions are respected with even the mostfar-out ideas considered of value in generating even moreideas or another approach to the problem. This respectful-ness of the contributions of others can be applied across allclassroom activities. Another classroom "rule" might bethat the teacher will accept student answers or positions fthey are supported by defensible reasons. Lockwood andHarris (1985) say that it is important for students, at timeswhen appropriate, to understand that they are not going tobe graded for a particular position they take but on thedepth of thought they show in supporting their statements.

24 The teacher may grade using some or all of the following

aiteria. the Writ), of expression, reler ame, consistencyand aLLuracy of logic or responsiveness to opposingpoints of v ievt. In disLussions, the teacher may want todevelop a r.heLklist of desirable and undesirable types ofdiscussion behar for and these aiteria might inLlude. stick-ing to the questions at Issue, responding to the argumentsexpressed by others, and supporting one's views withreasons and evidence.

The teacher's own risk-taking ability is at issue here.Under the one-right-answer model, the teacher and thetextbook are perceived as the ultimate authorities. Howcomfortable teachers feel with students questioning thingsin the classroom is an important factor. Many teacherswelcome the lifting of the burden of "knowing all" the an-swersbeing the ultimate expert. Not all answers areknown, and no one can be an expert on all things. Beingable to admit that you don't know the answer to a particu-lar question but would be happy to help the student find it,is difficult but necessary and realistic. This teaches the stu-dent that mistakes are a part of being human and are oppor-tunities for learning.

The teacher who is able to admit making a mistake alsoteaches students a valuable lesson: that mistakes aren'tsins, that anyone can make one, and that we can learn a lotfrom our mistakes. The teacher does not gi,,e up authorityin a classroom designed for thinking, but increases her au-thority when, through respect of student ideas and ques-tions, she helps make learning more meaningful for them.

Discussion and Questioning StrategiesFrom dialogue we learn ways in which people

draw inferences, identify assumptions, challengeone another for reasons and engage in critical intel-lectual interactions with one another . . . critical at-titudes toward what other people say are developedin the participants of a discussion. These critical at-titudes are turned upon one's own reflections. Oneconsiders carefully what others might say aboutone's contribution, once one has learned thetechniques of critical examination of others' think-ing processes and modes of expression . . . thinkingis the internalization of dialogue . . . the role ofclassroom discussion in motivating children to en-gage in academic activities has often been under-estimated. (Lipman, et. al.)

This description does not mean just any type of class-room discussion. It calls fora careful nurturing of criticalhabits of thought, of giving children the tools by whichthey can assess the information that comes to themtoolsto help them discover they can think about their thinkingin an organized way. This includes the development of asystematic presentation of ideas, the ability to examineone's own thinking and the thinking of others (movingback and forth between opposing viewpoin ), and de-veloping conclusions and convictions based on reason andevidence.

The questioning techniques of the teachers and the stu-dents are the basic factors. Fraenkel t 1980) believes thatthe essence ef:Ltire teat-lung strategies is in the ques-tions that the teach asks. He cites the need for a varietyof interesting, Larefuli, thought ovt, well-designed learn-

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ing activities to involve or engage students in subject mat-ter. The development of good questions which promote in-quiry is no easy task, but a skill that requires a level ofsophistication not only with the subject matter but with theessentials of critical thinking so the teacher knows thekinds of questions to ask and how to formulate them effec-tively. Fraenkel also focuses on student questioning, em-phasizing that the ability to ask significant questions is animportant skill for students as well as teachers.

Frances Hunkins (1985) has devised strategies for help-ing students ask their own questions. One strategy is iden-tifying an issue or topic in material the students are study-ing, and having them plan the investigation using a ques-tioning cycle. the planning phase, the implementing phaseand the evaluating phase. For example, he raises the issueof investigating the Canadian culture and testing thehypothesis of some experts that despite its apparent unity,Canada is actually struggling to attain a cohesive and rec-ognizable identity.

The students then brainstorm possible guiding ques-tions for testing this hypothesis. Together or in smallgroups they identify the most important questions and aredirected to assess the reasoning embedded in theirsequencing of questions. Here is a sample of questionsthat students came up with for the planning phase of theirinvestigation:

What is the current makeup of the Canadianpopulation?What is the current government?What are the sources of the view that Canada hasproblems attaining a national unity?Specifically what is being said?Are these sources qualified to make such state-ments?

What are the bases for these statements?Are these statements examples of bias?Do these examples really support the argument?

When formulating the right questions is as important asformulating the right answers, thinking critically aboutsubject matter is enhanced. Students continue to developconfidence in their own thinking. With continuing prac-tice and application of these skills to the students' ownlives, they will be more likely to know the right questionsto ask on the important issues of their lives.

Teachers also need to give students sufficient time tothink before responding to questions. Research findingsindicate that most teachers wait only one second before re-peating a question or calling on another student. By ex-tending "wait time" for several seconds, teachers achieveimprove student engagement and verbal responses. theamount and quality of the discussion increases and there ismore talk at a more elevated cognitive level. Students tendto respond with whole sentences and complete thoughts.There is an increase in their creativity, in their speeulativ e-ness and in the number of questions they ask (Rowe,1974). Good and Brophy (1973) found that extending waittime serves other purposes. By waiting for an answer,

teachers demonstrate not only that they expect an answer,but also that they have faith in the students' ability to an-swer given enough time.

Research has shown also that active learning has a posi-tive effect on student's development of decision -riaingskills and their attitudes toward school, teachers, contentto be learned, and learning itself (Kahn and Weiss, 1973).Others have found that students learn more in a questionand discussion strategy (Gage, 1976). Greater gains werefound for 5th grade reading when teachers spent time dis-cussing, explaining, and asking higher level questionsand stimulating cognitive processes.

In Developing Minds, the ASCD resource book on stu-dent thinking (1985), editor Art Costa also cites research onthe effectiveness of asking questions for students to clarifytheir thoughts. He notes that Flanders (1960) foundachievement higher in classrooms where teachers use,build on extend or clarify students' ideas; Kleven (1968)found that when teachers use clarification, students tendto increase their consistency in Clinking and become morepurposeful in their thinking, and, finally, Rosenshine andFurst (1976) found that when a teacher responds to stu-dents' comments by eneouraging them to elaborate, thereis a significant and positive correlation with studentachievement.

Costa notes that clarification contributes to the develop-ment of students' abilities to think about their thinking(metacognition) and says that there is much evident iosuggest that causing students to talk about their thinkingprocesses and problem-solving strategies (having them ex-plain their answers and how they arrived at them or sharethe rationale behind them) before, during and after, en-hances their ability to think.

Yet, Falkof and Moss (1984) find that 80-85 percent ofall questions asked by teachers are on a factual level andthat the questions posed determine the level of thinkingand the quality of the responses. Good teacher modeling isthe first step in helping children create good questionsthemselves. Brooks (1984) notes that it is no secret that thevast majority of questions asked in a classroom have onlyone correct answer which the teacher already knows.Most students, he says, being both intelligent and sensi-tive to their environments, understand these dynamics andoften decide not to waste time pondering questions, but toquickly determine the answers valued by the teacher.These dynamics, unfortunately, serve not only to stiflethinking, but to thwart risk-taking.

In addition to a sound know ledge base in their ownfields, teachers need to be able to think entieally withintheir disciplines. Teachers need to know the essential ele-ments of ermeal thinking and when the situation, den% fly,discussion cal!s for a comment or question encouragingcritical thought, how to structure an activity or assignmentto promote the application of these skills to the subjeetmatter, how to design assessment instruments to observeand measure a student's extended thought. An over-em-phasis on the "right answer" doesn't necessarily em-phasize learning or thinking things through, but an abilityto memorize the "right answers."

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Problem-solving theory based on research ex...inningexperts' and novices' ability to represent problems andidentify solutions (with justification) supports the notionthat more than information is necessary to effectively solveproblemsa dimension of critical thinking. Experts giveconsiderable attention to problem representation. Theyrely on a sophisticated knowledge base, on reasoningskills and on problem-solving strategies. They systemati-cally ask themselves questions that integrate, elaborate,clarify and evaluate proposed solutions, supporting themwith reason and evidence. (Combleth, 1985).

Learning depends on how meaningful the material isand on the student's understanding of the material and thefit of the material into the student's existing knowledgebase. The teacher's role is to assist students to express andextend their own ideas and to clarify those ideas until thepurposes of learning have become clear for them. Facts,concepts, relationships, principles are learned more effec-tively, more meaningfully if the student plays an activerole in discovering their relationships than if they aremerely told. When learners play an active role in proces-sing and reorganizing the information to be learned, thehighest level of learning occurs.

Effective use of discussion and questioning strategieshelp students make those connections, discover those im-portant relationships between ideas and concepts. Ques-tions that get students to seek evidence, to ask questions,to examine their own reasoning, to explore alternatives, toevaluate consequences are questions that develop and en-hance critical thinking.

We can begin encouraging critical thinking by havingchildren actively involved in exploration that will leadthem to see the connection between their lives and theirlearning. We begin by encouraging students to search outunderlying assumptions, guiding reasons, possible impli-,ations and alternative criteria. This approach focuses notmerely on learning historical or scientific facts, but on em-phasizing life's connections so that children ,,an come tothink historically or scientifically.

Keeping in mind the limitations of questioning luerar-cies which will be discussed in the next section (that theyshould not be prescriptions for questioning strategies, thatone category is not superior to another, that learning is notlinear in an orderly progression from level to level), theycan be useful in enhancing a teacher's questioning reper-toire. Approaching lessons in the context of these cnticalthinking skills allows emphasis on these skills to becomeautomatic and gives students an opportunity for consistentpractice. The appendix examples illustrate various typesof questions in different subject matter areas, at both theelementary and high school levels. They are presented solelyto Illustrate the application of a range of skills to differentsubject matter and grade levels. These sample questions gobeyond simply recalling information. (See appendix).

Kownslar (1985) has developed YO generic key ques-tions to engage students in critical thinking skills. He be-lieves that once students gain experience in using thesegeneric questions, they can continue to use them for any

26 topic. They are:

*Reprinted with permission of the author.

1. What were the main point(s) stressed within eachsource?How would you define value claim? Did thesource use any?

3. What is the main difference between relevant andirrelevant information, claims or reasons? Howwould you classify the source accordingly?

4. What is bias? Do you detect bias in the source?Explain.

5. What is an unstated assumption? Are there any inthe source? Explain your reasons by indicatingpossible counter points to the arguments.

6. Define the words ambiguous and equivocal. Didthe source contain any ambiguous or equivocalclaims or arguments? Explain.

7. What is a logical inconsistency or logical fallacy?Are there any such lines of reasons in the source?Explain.

8. What is the main difference between a warrantedand unwarranted claim? Does the source haveeither? Explain.

9. How would you go about determining thestrength of claims made? Why? What possiblecounterpoints came into play?

10. What would you now decide about the issueraised? Why? Is your decision a hypothesis orconclusion? Why? Evidence for your findings?*

Lockwood and Harris (1985) maintain that properly leddiscussion of various issues can help students advance thequality of their reasoning. Fair and open discussion per-mits the natural development of mature thought and stu-dents' thinking becomes less self-centered, less conform-ing. Students who have an opportunity to regularly engagein such discussions are likely to develop more ethicalreasoning than those who do not. They claim that these,.,.dents are. 1) better able to express coherent and jus-tified punts of view about responsible action, 2) developmore complex and systematic reasoning, 3) gain deeperunderstanding of issues, 4) increase their ability to expressclearly reasoned judgments, and 5) become more effec-tive participants in productive discussions.

Lockwood and Harris maintain that while discussionthe crucible of pitmic debatetests the clarity of one'sthinking, discussior skills require practice. They say that acommon roadblock to classroom discussion is a belief bythe teacher that students have already mastered discussionskills. Instead these skills need to be an explicit goal ofinstruction.

Characteristics of productive discussions include:

student interaction. students actively listening toeach other and responding to each others ideas;the teacher can promote student-to-studentdialogue by challenging their reasoning, by ask-ing for paraphrasing or for a response toanother's position;questioning. students should be urged to posequestions to each other and to the teacher, withtiming allowing for students to prepare thought-ful responses;

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concluding effectively: time is needed to reviewthe course of the discussion, address the points ofdisagreement and the reasoning underlyingthem, finding out what the students learned thatwas new, and drawing conclusions.

The skillful teacher anticipates student responses to theopening question and prepares follow-up questions tobroaden students' thinking about the issue by stimulatingthem to reflect on their initial responses. Five types of fol-low-up questions, each type addressing a particular criti-cal thinking skill, include:

clarifying terms: asking for a definition of a termused by a student to clarify meaning;examining consistency: asking students to recon-sider an apparent contradiction in what was said orto apply a position expressed to a similar situation;

seeking relevance: asking the student to reiate aconcept, the relevance of which is not appLrentto the issue being discussed;raising a competing issue or value: asking the stu-dent to consider an aspect or value not recog-nized in their initial comments;role taking: asking the student to assume thepoint of view of either a different character in astory or of a hypothetical figure. (Lockwood andHarris, 1985).*

What we ultimately should be seeking as teachers is thesophistication of thinking critically within our disciplinesso that when the situation warrants it, we know what questions to ask, in what direction to lead the discussion, whattasks to assign which to foster thinking critically about thesubject or issue.

Students who use questions learn more subject matterthan students who do not. Questions help students com-prehend content and give teachers immediate feedbackabout student comprehension and learning. It is said thatwhen questions are given after a reading and require thestudents to construct answers rather than choose from mul-tiple choice answers, the benefits tend to be stronger.Questions which are interspersed in reading passages andwhich require students to apply what they have read lead tosuperior results. The application forces readers to processthe content more deeply, increasing their ability to com-prehend and remember it.

The teacher therefore needs to become facile with thefollowing questioning skills:

asking questions in a logical format that is part ofan overall plan;dealing creatively with insufficient answers, noanswers, or incorrect answers;encouraging student responses;helping students generate questions.

"Your teaching goal should be to get each student to askquestions, questions, questions," says Anita Harnadek,author of critical thinking textbooks. In her teacher'sguide, she makes the following suggestions for discus-sions fostering critical thinking:

Do give "open book" tests and quizzesifyou're really testing students on their abilities tothink critically, then the answers won't be in thetextbook or their notes.

Do have students give their own answers but theyhave to back them upif their reasons can't berefuted, then why shouidn't their answers beaccepted?Don't assume that students who are fast or slowat other subjects will be fast or slow in thinkingcritically.

Don't assume that all of the students who give acertain answer will have the same reason forgiv-ing that answerquestion them to bring out theirreasons.

E Don't hedge about admitting that you're wrongwhen you're wrongand tell your studentswhen their good arguments have made youchange your mind. By modeling such open-mindedness you are teaching them another valu-able lecson.Don t assume that some things are too obvious tobe discussedwhat may be obvious to you andsome of your students :nay not be obvious to all.Don't let the class be one-sided in a discussiontake an opposing viewpoint even if you agreewith the class: there can be no critical thinkingwhen only one side of an issue is presented.Take advantage of the fact that every highly con-troversial issue has good points on at least twosides (otherwise it wouldn't be highly controver-sial) and encourage your students to discover allthe good points for each side and then figure outwhy the opponents of that side disagree.

al Don't allow students to be discourteous to eachotheran unkind statement should be backed upor apologized for. Students need to learn to disa-gree without being unkind to dissenters.Do pay close attention to everything that's beingsaid, including comments muttered by studentsnot participating in the discussionsubtle pointswhich might be lost if the teacher was not listen-ing carefully should be acknowledged andexplored.

E Don't be either stingy or falsely lavish with com-pliments on good reasoning and don't point outevery flaw in your student's thinking.Don't think that you have to know all the an-swersthat is not an admission of stupidity. Crit-ical thinking cannot flourish when someonethinks he knows everything or thinks he has toact like it.

The Relationship of Bloom's Taxonomy toCritical Thinking.

What is the relationship between critical thinking andBloom's taxonomy, a conceptualization of thinking thatcomes to mind for most teachers? Many programs on stu-dent thinking currently being developed are based on thistaxonomy. What is it? How is it useful in ethical thinking

*reprinted by the permission of the publisher from LoLkwood and Harris, Reasoning with Democratic Values. (Nen York, Teachers CollegtPress, Copyright 1985 by Teachers College, Columbia UnivPrs16. All rights reserved). 32

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curriculum development? And what are its limitations?This section will summarize the taxonomy and describe itsusefulness in enhancing one's questioning repertoire.

To begin with, the taxonomy is a ground-breaking workfilled with insights Into cognitive processes and their Intel-relations. The taxonomy arranges the cognitive processesessential to higher order thinking Into a hierarchy of skills.Each classification builds on the skills and abilities lowerin the scheme. The taxonomy is presented and describedas a one-way hierarchy of learning, which lessens its use-fulness because in reality, learning is not hierarchical inthe sense implied (more on this later.)Table I illustrates theelements

thatBloom's hierarchy. The table and the sum-

mary that follows are summarized from the Taxonomy ofEducational Objectives: Cognitive Domain by BenjaminBloom, et. al. (1956).*

Knowledge.The "knowledge category includes those behaviors

and test situations which emphasize remembering ofideas, material or phenomena either by recognition or re-call. It goes from the specific and relatively concrete typesof behavior to the more complex and abstract. Knowledgeof specifics refers to types of information or knowledgewhich can be isolated and remembered separately, whilethe knowledge of universals and abstractions emphasizesthe interrelations and patterns in which information can beorganized and structured.

Comprehension.This category includes the largest general class of intellec-

tual abilities and skills emphasized in schools and colleges.Bloom's definition of comprehension is broader than the fre-quently associated reading comprehension. The use of theterm includes those objectives, behaviors or responses

which represent an understanding of the literal message con-tained in any verbal or written communication.

Application.Application goes a step beyond comprehension where a

student will apply the appropriate abstraction to a newsituation Application olves the use of abstractions (inthe form of general ideas, pales, generalized methods orprinciples, ideas, and theorits) which must be remem-bered and applied.

*Example: The ability to predict the effects of a dramaticchange of climate on the Florida orange groves.

Analysis.Analysis emphasizes breaking down material into its

parts and detecting the relationship of the parts and theway they are organized. It can be used as an end (in deter-mining the structure or organization of a communication)or as an aid to fuller comprehension or evaluation of mat-erial It includes such skills as hypothesizing, drawingconclusions, generalizing, distinguishing.

*Example: The follow ing statements are either facts orhypotheses. Read each one and identify each.

Synthesis.Synthesis is the putting together of elements and parts

to form a wholecombining them in such a way as todevelop a pattern or structure not there before. This in-volves recombining parts with new material into a new"more or less well-integrated" whole. This is the categorythat provides for creative behavior, though the studentmust work within the limits set by particular problems,material, or framework. Whereas comprehension,analysis, and application involve study ing a whole to un-derstand it better, synthesis requires drawing upon ele-

Table I

1.00 Knowledge1.10 knowledge of specifics1.11 knowledge of terminology1.12 knowledge of specific facts1.20 knowledge of ways and means of dealing

with specifics1.21 knowledge of conventions1.22 knowledge of trends and sequences1.23 knowledge of classifications and categories1.24 knowledge of criteria1.25 knowledge of methodology1.30 knowledge of the universals and abstrac-

tions in a field1.31 knowledge of principles and generalizations1.32 knowledge of theories and structures

2.00 Comprehension2.10 translation2.20 interpretation2.30 extrapolation

3.00 Application4.00 Analysis

4.10 analysis of elements4.20 analysis of relationships4.30 analysis of organizational principles

5.00 Synthesis5.10 production of a unique communication5.20 production of a plan or proposed set of

operations5.30 derivation of a set of abstract relations

6.00 Evaluation6.10 judgments in terms of internal criteria6.20 judgments in terms of external criteria

*reprinted with permission of the publisher, Longman Inc.. Whiie Plains, N).

s3

ments from many sources and putting these together in anew structure.

*Example: If you surveyed all the grades in our schooland they all felt happy about the new rules on the newplayground, what does that tell you about the rules?(Elementary) Since the elections for student council wereso polarized, what does that tell you about the generalclass sentiment? (Secondary)

Evaluation.Evaluation involves making judgments about value for

some purpose. This involves the use of criteria and stan-dards for appraising the extent to which criteria are met.This skill encompasses all the other skills in the hierarchy.Judgments may either be quantitative or qualitative, andcriteria can be set for a student or determined by the stu-dent. Judgment involves taking into consideration a greatvariety of facets of the phenomena to be evaluated, withclear criteria and frames of reference. It is different fromquick, impulsive decisions that are mere opinion. Judg-ments can be made on the basis of internal evidence (logi-cal accuracy, consistency, etc.) or external criteria(techniques, rules or standards by which such works ateusually judged).

*Example: Please indicate whether the following animalsare mammals (Elementary). Using the following charac-teristics of a profession, determine whether teaching qual-ifies. (Secondary)

The taxonomy, though not designed to further criticalthinking instruction as such, contains a wealth of informa-tion for use in such instruction. Most of the 1- -itive pro-cesses characterized as essential to "higher Vider" ques-tions in fact presuppose the use of the basic concepts ofcritical thinking. assumption, fact, concept, value, con-clusion, premise, evidence, relevant, irrelevant, consis-tent, inconsistent, implication, fallacy, argument, infer-ence, point of view, bias, prejudice, authority, hypothesis,and so on. This is clear, for example, in the explanation ofanalysis:

Skill in analysis may he found as an objective of anyfield of study. It is frequently expressed as one oftheir important objectives by teachers of science,social studies, philosophy, and the arts. They wish,for example, to develop in students the ability to dis-tinguish fact from hypothesis in a communication,to identify conclusions and supporting statements,to distinguish relevant from extraneous material, tonote how one idea relates to another, to see what un-stated assumptions are involved in what is said, todistinguish dominant from subordinate ideas orthemes in poetry or music, to find evidence of theauthor's techniques and purposes, etc.

In other words, if the ability to analyze typically re-quires students to do such things as distinguish facts fromhypotheses, conclusions from evidence, relevant from ir-relevant material, to note how one idea (concept) relates toanother, to probe and detect unstated assumptions, then itseems essential that students become not only familiarwith these words (by teachers introducing them frequentlyinto classroom discussion) but also comfortable with

using them as they think their way through "analytic"problems or write out an analysis on paper. Students (andexperts) who do the best analyses, syntheses, and evalua-tions tend to do them mindfully with a clear sense of theircompoi,-..nt elements. So, if the concepts of critical think-ing are presupposed in mindful analysis, synthesis, andevaluation, we can best heighten that mindfulness by ris-ing those component concepts to a conscious level.

Similarly, in the Taxonomy of Objectives in the Affec-tive Domain, many of the examples of higher-order valu-ing are illustrations of values intrinsic to a critical thinkingmodel of education. The student:

1) deliberately examines a variety of viewpoints oncontroversial issues with a view to forming opin-ions about them,

2) [develops] faith in the power of reason and inmethods of experimental discussion,

3) weighs alternative social policies and practicesagainst the standards of the public welfare ratherthan the advantage of specialized and narrow in-terest groups,

4) [achieves] readiness to revise judgments and tochange behavior in the light of evidence,

5) judges problems and issues in terms of situa-tions, issues, purposes, and consequences in-volved rather than in terms of fixed, dogmaticprecepts or wishful thinking, [and]

6) develops a consistent philosophy of life.

Ai,,,,g with the usefulness of Bloom's cognitive and af-fective taxonomies, it is important to be aware of the limi-tations for critical thinking curriculum i-onstrui-tion. Thecategory of "knowledge" is analyzed in a restricted wayand the relationship of the categories is assumed to behierarchical in only one direction. Bloom implies that"comprehension" presupposes "knowledge" but that"knowles.,," does not presuppose "comprehension."

The taxonomy, seen as a one-way hierarchy, leads thereader to conclude that knowledge is always a simpler be-hav ior than comprehension, and comprehension a simplerbehavior than application. There is a significant sense inwhich this view is misleading. The achieving of anyknowledge always presupposes some, at least minimal,comprehension, application, analy sis, synthesis andc,aluation. This insight is essential for well-planned andrealistic curriculum designed to foster i.ritkal thinkingskills, abilities and dispositions. Stk.i.essful (-mical think-ing instruction requires that:

I) teachers have a full range of insights into the cog-nitive processes and their complex interrelations;

2) Bloom's hierarchy should be seen as two-sided;and,

3) rational learning is viewed as process as well asproduct oriented, a process that brings com-prehension, analysis, synthesis and evaluationinto every act of the mind.

Christenbury and Kelly (1983) concur in this view ofthe use (and potential misuse) of questioning hierari-hies.

34

29

They suggest that the hierarchy should be viewed as a de-scription of cognitive processes and not as prescriptionsfor classroom questioning strategies. They cite an obviousdrawback in practical usage in a dependence on extensivelists of questions prepared by the teacher so that each cate-gory or level is sufficiently "covered." They note thatthere is uo evidence to support the implication of question-ing hierarchies that one category is superior to another.Hierarchies also suggest an orderly progression from onelevel to another in all discussions, a progression that doesnot always occur in "real classrooms." And, finally, theyobject to rigid implementation of hierarchies (which oftenbecome prescriptions rather than suggestions orguidelines). Hierarchies imply a linear or sequentialtheory of learninga theory, questionable at best.

Bearing in mind its limitations, the taxonomy can beuseful in enhancing the teacher's questioning repertoire.By approaching each lesson in the context of critical think-ing skills, a teacher can begin incorporating emphasis onthese skills into his or her own style until they become au-tomatic. By approaching lessons this way the teacher be-gins to consistently give students practice using theseskills throughout the content areas. Students are then re-quired to do something with the new information they arelearning They are mentally stretched in ways that makethem interact with knowledge. Teachers should realizethat they are not teaching critical thinking simply becausethey can ask questions that fall within different Bloomiancategories. Teaching in a critical manner, in such a way asto foster the critical spirit, requires that each question beframed with judgment to encourage and probe the think-ing of students. There are no rigid rules or sure fire recipesfor doing this.

Structuring Lessons to Integrate CriticalThinking Skills.

Cornbleth (1985) notes that "we can teach for criticalthinking by providing opportunity and support for studentquestioning and by providing instruction as needed forraising meaningful questions and pursuing well reasonedanswers." The questions raised and the means needed topursue them are "domain-specific". the various fields ofknowledge have different logics or modes of reasoning.Given that fact and our still limited knowledge in this area,concludes Cornbleth, it is not possible to provide a blue-print for teaching for critical thinking. In fact, criticalthinking by its very nature resists prefabrication. It cannotbe reduced to a "universally applicable formula of skills":knowledgeable, thoughtful teachers have to make theirown "situation-specific and appropriate decisions ratherthan relying on the dubious prescriptions of others."

The AFT supports this view that them is no one rightway to teach for critical thinking, that the nature of one'sdiscipline, the diversity of student learning needs and theteaching style of the teacher are all significant factors inteacher decision making and the selection of appropriateteaching strategies. The AFT also believes that manyteachers are already successfully integrating critical thinking skills into their instruction and that opportunities forpeer interaction to focus on this issue and share ap-

30 proaches and techniques will expand and enhance their

abilities to extend students' thinking.

Such ideas and strategies as Bloom's taxonomy or the:Aka! thinking lessons to follow should be viewed not asprescriptions for teaching, but as useful tools to guideone's practice. The professional discretion and integrity ofthe teacher (who on the average makes ten major instruc-tional decisions per hour!) needs to be carefully guarded inany school-wide or district-wide approach to integratingcritical thinking into the curriculum.

Edys Quellmalz of Stanford University has developedan approach that provides direct instruction of an explicitset of strategies. Her model offers one way to integratecritical thinking skills into the existing curriculum. Shetoo argues that contrary to current practice and some edu-cational philosophies, children at all age levels are capa-ble of thinking critically. As part of the Higher OrderThinking (H.O.T.) Project, she has developed model les-sons designed to guide students through a process of pur-poseful information gathering, analysis and interpreta-tion, and explanation of conclusions.

The predominant approach is to have students writeabout material they read as part of their usual class assign-ments with the objective of the lesson emphasizing fourcritical thinking skill areas. analysis, comparison, infer-enceiinterpretation , or evaluation. The approach generallyinvolves eight components:

1. Goal. telling students the focussing question forthe lesson;

2. Introduction/Plan: a) discussing the relevanceand importance of the thinking skill; b) explain-ing and modeling use of the thinking strategies;c) reviewing background experiences relevantto the story; and d) reviewing appropriate infor-mation gathering strategies;

3 Read/Gather Information: guiding studentsthrough a process of purposeful reading (orremembering, if the assignment draws primarilyupon background experience);

4 AnalyzeInterpret: analysis, comparison, inter-pretation or evaluation of information;

5. Write:Synthesize. writing (or presenting) thegeneralization,'interpretatwn, ev aluation andreasons supporting it;

6. Assess. evaluating/reviewing the essays/presentations;

7. Revising/Reviewing: discussing ways toimprove the particular assignment and approach-es to similar ones.

8. Transfer: discussing how the thinking strategiescan be used in other academic and practical areas.

A lesson developed for third grade illustrates the ap-proach. Students read a ....rsiun of Jack and the Beanstalkin their Junior Great Books series to interpret Jack'scharacter. (See Tables I and II) The assignment askedwhether Jack was a greedy ur curious person. The discus-sion and two sample essays dearly Illustrate students'lively and imaginative, yet reasoned, interpretations ofJack's actions. The lesson is designed as t.illows.

35

Table I Table II

J. AtpiL ,adet:d- tr4.

Act, .'60"tise)4

aLz.. 744,034.ra.e-ver ..xtte

IA -.lige- -cm-,

t

0

_

4.

383 7

Table Ill

FAO,

\ la are T15 AoLo W ,/Ittiec yO cr. fc,,.

/ 1-6(A,Chs_kp. v.reNla,rri :1-1711

1,101 Polly

LtIC2424eD-CA,Y6 te.aCIA5_17"0.1Inst.__Z-b.Lhorpy

Table IV

e'reP ho wlc

S eS r ctre et" tasa_cleSkoivAr9 pko,bP

311Cotoctr 1(.11 p ie v\ce

3R 30

A SAMPLE FROM THE HIGHER ORDER THINKING (H.O.T.) PROJECTGRADE 3

Thinking Skill Objective: Infer; Interpret

Lesson Objective: Studer.. infer a character trait by writing an essay in which they explain whether Jack (lack andthe Beanstalk) was a curious or a greedy boy.

Materials: Jack and the Bwrstalk in Junior Great Books, Series 3. Planning sheets.

LESSON ACTIVITIES

Set the Goal: Tell students that they will be reading the story, Jack and the Beanstalk and writing a Lumposition rnwhich otey figure out and explain whether Jack is a greedy or curious boy.

PlaitinntiTAUCe:

Introduce the lesson by explaining to students the importance and reler arm of being able to INTERPRET k figureout/think about) elements of a story 't as character traits (what a character is like), or the relationship of settingto the plot in order to understand and appreciate the story. Suggest some pr eausly read or well known stoneswhere knowledge of the character trait helps the reader to understand the story. Suggest personal and Lummunitysituations where knowing how to figure out a character trait is relevant, e.g., choosing friends, voting.

Discuss the strategy appropriate to the thinking skill. Identify the possible traits, decide what informa.,:m aboutthe character is relevant, read to gather information about the character, sort and judge er idcriLe that relates to oneof the traits, explain how the ev idence supports selection u: a trait, reLognir.c plausible alternative interpretations.

Model or review the process for a well known character.

Review background knowledge about the story. Ask students to summarize briefly What they remember about thestory.

Review strategies for getting information from the story. Ask students what kinds of things people du who arcgreedy or who are curious. Suggest that students watch for curious or greedy beh; ars as they mad the story.

Read/Gather InformationAsk students to read the story silently.Review. Ask students to discuss the main events in the story. Write. map these events, in sequence, un the board.

Analyze/InterpretWrite two headings on the board, "Jack was carious." "lat.}, was greedy." Ask students to suggest things that LAdid or felt that they think fit under one heading or the other. Encourage them to speLulate about why Jack did eachthing,

Write/Synthesize

Plan

On the board write the assignment, "Write an essay in which you explain whether Jack was a greedy or a t. cal iousboy."

Distribute the Planning Sheets and ask students to suggest tupic sentences that will tell the reader which trait theyhave picked. Circulate and help students as they write their topic sentences next to the Lading -Top. Sentence"on their Planning Sheet.

Ask students to write two or three supporting sentences next to the heading "Support" un their Planning Sheet.Circulate and help students to list and explain how Jack's actions relate to the chosen character tra.t.

Hate students write a summary sentence next to the heading "Conclusion" on their Planning Sheet.

WriteiPresentNow ask students to write their compositions. Circulate and ...1p.

Read students' compositions and comment on the topic sentences, supporting sentences and Lont.lusiun Be JUit..supporting sentences present both what Jack did and why it is an example of a t-ait.

33

40

Review/ReviseRevise: Return the compositions. Read some particularly strong masons and or selected elements. Ask students tosuggest alternative explanations. Ask students to suggest ways to strengthen or replace wed& reasons. Circulateand help students as they revise their compositions.

Review. Ask students to review and discuss the thinking strategies they used to infer (figure out) a character trait.

TransferDiscuss how students could use the same thinking strategies to figure out character traits in other stories, e.g. , WasJason (in Jason and the Argonauts) a lucky or brave person?

Discuss other areas of application, e.g., Is the new coach mean or just tough? Was Columbus heroic or greedy?

Another second grade lesson calls for students to re-spond to the statement, "Children spend too much timewatching TV. If we unplugged all the TV sets in America,children would be better educated."

The second graders discuss the structure of an argu-ment: position and reasons, as well as strong vs. weakreasons, (facts, examples, vs. personal preference,generalizations). They then create on a planning sheettheir position and the names of three shows and reasonswhy each is useful or harmful. The two examples show thatsecond grade children can marshal! support for their posi-tion. (See Table III-IV)

The ideal is to take those first steps that initiate theteaching of relatively "self-contained" critical thinkingskills: testing for inferences that explicitly do or do not fol-low, for recognition of assumptions and clear-cut :on-tradictions, for reasons to support conclusions, for consid-erations of evidence rather than reliance on authority. Inthe process, wherever possible, students should be givenopportunities to advance ideas of their own and to givereasons to support them, as well as opportunities to hearthe objections of other students. If this is done carefully inan atmosphere of cooperation and support, the studentswill begin to use critical distinctions in defending theirjudgments. When this integration begins, a very healthyprocess has been set in motion which, properly nurturedcan lead to critical thinking in the "strong" sensean In-ternalization of the "critical spirit."

D. 'Writing and Critical ThinkingIn researching the development of children's writing,

Lucy McCormack Calkins, director of the writing projectat Teachers College, Columbia University, had many ob-servations about the way we teach writing, and about thedevelopment of students' thinking through writing.

In a two-year study of third and fourth graders, Caul-kins (1984) made several observations. "Youngsterswhipped off papers in quick bursts, writing without muchforethought or deliberation. 'Get it done' seemed to be themotto. The pace is one we all know well, for ours is a first-draft-only society, a land of frozen waffles, easy divorces,of commercials every seven minutes. Detachment is builtinto a time frame like this."

She found the teaching of writing of little priority ortime investment. Many teachers did not feel comfortableteaching writing. When new or fresh approaches were at-tempted, the students (used to being told what to do and

34 write, having their thinking done for them) were lost:

41

"Children who are fed topics, story st ters, lead sen-tences . . . as a steady diet ... rightfully panic when topicshave to come from them. The anxiety is not unlike that ofthe child whose mother has just turned off the televisionset. 'Now what do I do?' bellows the child. Suddenly theiract depends on them and they are unused to providing theirown motivation and direction."

She notes that according to the Piagetian growth model,organisms do not just grow on their own, but in responseto interactions which challenge them, interactions whendislodge one equilibrium so a new one can be reached.One of the tasks of the writing teacher is to intervenewith sensitivity and a sense of timing so as to nudge chil-dren toward new discoveries.

By designing writing activities to "nudge" children,such as the above Stanford example, we help childrendevelop their critical thinking skills by having them thinkabout their writing. By asking questions of their work(What problems are you trying to solve? How did you goabout doing that?) we are developing students' metacogni-tive strategies. They think about their thinking, they thinkabout ways in which to expand and refine their ideas inwritten form. Some of the questions teachers used to helpstudents "think through" their writing (clarificaticA) inCalkins' study were:

Helping writers focus. What is the most importantthing you are saying? Why did you choose thistopic? Why is it important to you? Which is the mostimportant part of the story? Why? (evaluation) Isthere anything that doesn't seem to fit? (consistency)

Helping writers shownot tell: Read me the placeswhere you're pleased with your description. Whatmakes this section better than others? (evaluation,analysis) Are there places you could describe more?

la Helping writers expand their pieces. What questionsdo you think people will have for you? (predictin_ )Why don't you try reading your story over and put adot over 'he page that needs adding? (evaluation)

By infusing thinking skills into writing assignments,we develop both the writing and the thinking of our stu-dents. Some forms of writing lend themselves to the de-velopment of critical thinking as such (as in the sampleStanford lesson), yet in , ther types of writing which donot explicitly call for specific critical thinking skills (crea-tive writing), fundamental critical thinking skills asshown here, can he applied to the process of improving,refining and extending the writer's work.

E. READING AND CRITICALTHINKING

In their classic text How to Read a Book: The ClassicGuide to Intelligent Reading, Mortimer Adler and CharlesVan Doren (1972) say that "good books are over yourhead. They wou'id not be g o o d for you if they were not . . .

only books that are beyond you will make you stretch yourmind." Reading can be more or less acts' z, the more ac-tive the better. Active reading involves the asking of ques-tions. To be informed, they say, is to know simply thatsomething is the case; to be enlightened, however, is toknow in addition, what it is all about, why it is the case,and what its connections are with other facts. In otherwords, to be enlightened one needs to read critically, orthink critically while reading.

The effectiveness with which we read, as in anythingelse, is determined by the amount of effort and skill we putinto it. These authors continue: "Our continuing educationdepends mainly on books alone, read without a teacher'shelp, therefore if we are disposed to go on learning anddiscovering, we must know how to make books teach usewell." If our ultimate goal in school is to nurture lifelonglearning, we cannot better serve our children than by giv-ing them the tools to do so. Thinking critically while read-ing moves us from "knowledge" to "knowing," frombeing "informed" to being "enlightened."

Adler and Van Doren identify four levels of reading.They are:

I. Elementary Reading - the rudiments, theinitial reading skills learned in elementaryschool.

II. Inspectional Reading - characterized by anemphasis on timea set time to complete anassigned amount of reading. The aim is to getthe most out of a book within a given timeskimming systematically.

III. Analytical Reading - more complex andmore systematic, a thorough and complete"chewing and digesting" of a book, preemi-nently for the sake of understanding.

IV. Syntopical Reading - the most complex andsystematic type; also called comparative read-ing: reading many books in relation to oneanother and to a subject about which they allrevolve; the syntopical reader is able to con-struct an analysis of the subject that may notbe in any of the books; the highest, most ac-tive and effortful type.*

Just as we make the claim that we overemphasize didac-tic instruction to the detriment of coaching and discus-sion, we might also claim that the "higher order" readingskills of analytical and syntopical reading are also ne-glected. These levels involve the application of criticalthinking skills to reading, a skill essential to all disci-plines. Yet if we are not fully developing and nurturing theseskills in our instruction, in our questions, in our tests, are weemphasizing them enough in teaching reading, in using read-ing as a vehicle for acquiring knowledge?

To do this we must help students !elm the "rules" foranalytical reading. We need to incorporate the skills therules cover into our expectations for our students and pro-vide many opportunities for practice and discussion. Aswas noted in the "Discussion" section, by discussing ideasand concepts gleaned from reading, the student develops athorough understanding of the material, is required to pro-cess the information more deeply.

Research has suggested that questions which are in-terspersed in reading passages and which require studentsto apply what they have learned leads to superior results incomprehension and retention. Regular and frequent use ofquestions in reading material has been shown to improvestudent mastery of content. Students score better on testsgiven at the end of a reading assignment if they have beenasked questions as they go along. This may also increasetheir ability to ask questions themselves when the ques-tions aren't there anymore.

Some of the "rules" of analytical reading include thecritical thinking skills discussed here:

defining the problem the author has tried to solve;

interpreting the author's key words and use ofterms;identifying the author's arguments and overallpoint of view;

recognizing the difference between knowledgeand personal opinion by presenting good reasonsfor critical judgments;showing where the author is uninformed, misin-formed, illogical or incomplete;determining which of the problems the author hassolved, and which he has not.

These skills need to be developed early and built uponin every grade level and every subject area. The followingare some questions from Calkins' study to help elemen-tary school children to begin to look critically at storiesthey read:

The Lead: Does the author make me want to readon? How? When I read it, what do I expect willfollow in the book?The Characters: Which of the characters seemsmost real? Why? What makes some of the charac-ters work better than others?The Point-of-View: Who tells the story? Whymight the author have decided to do it this way?Does this way work? How else might it havebeen done? What can I learn from the author'streatment of point of view?The End: Does the end relate back to the begin-ning? Does it feel like "The End"?

These approaches can entice children to like books that are"over their heads."

F. CRITICAL THINKING AND THEDISCIPLINES

Teachers lament the fact that virtually no commercial

reprinted by permission of Simon and Schuster, inc. 0 1972 by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. 42

35

materials are available on how to teach critical thinkingskills. O'Reilly (19F5) says that in history, for example,despite the fact that historians rarely agree with each other,it is extremely difficult to recognize any arguments at allin most textbooks. They generally do not present rival in-terpretations. Just the revelation that there are conflictingviewpoints at all, he says, is a surprise to many studentsand serves to counter the "textbook truth" syndrome.

While textbooks and instructional materials have beendeficient in their attention to thinking skills, things do ap-pear to be changing since the emergence of this recent"critical thinking movement." The ASCD Collaborativeof 20 national education groups intends to influence pub-lishers with standards and criteria for infusing thinkingskills meaningfully into their publications. In the mean-time, teachers have to "make do" with existing curriculaand materialsin a sense building the airplane as we fly.This includes a thorough understanding of the criticalthinking skills and dispositions, but also the ability tothink critically within their disciplines.

As noted, critical thinking is domain specific andknowledge dependent. Various fields of knowledge havedifferent logics or modes of reasoning (Combleth, 1985).Critical thinking varies with the domain being investi-gated, and an effective teacher needs to understand the do-main in this way and develop a sense of when the situation(concept, discussion, activity) warrants the use of a par-ticular thinking skill or skills. The teacher needs to knowhow to present and use the subject to build an organizedrepresentation and interpretation for students. Informa-tion that is organized and elaborated with a predispositionto thinking critically about it enables students to concep-tualize it, make relationships with it and draw connectionsfrom it, thereby making it much more meaningful and last-ing.

Here are some examples of various critical thin!ingskills which can be successfully developed in these .-n-ple subjects, taken from D'Angelos' The Teaching of Criti-cal Thinking (1971).

Language ArtsSample Skills: the meaning of concepts

analyzing the use of languageidentifying faulty reasoninginfering meaning from a storyidentifying the use of bias,emotive language

Sample Activity: The use of thought-provokingstatements as topics for writingcompositions: Socrates said, "Theunexamined life is not worth liv-ing." What is an unexamined life?Is it possible for someone to leadan unexamined life? What argu-ments can be used to justify this be-lief? Are there any justifiable argu-ments for the contrary position?These questions involve the use ofdefinitions, evidence and analysisof arguments.

43

Social StudiesSample Skills: analyzing issues and social

problemsdistinguishing fact from opinionexamining assumptionsseeking evidencedrawing conclusions

Sample Activity: Using a newspaper editorial as thefocus of evaluating evidence, hav-ing th'e. students ascertain the fol-lowing: Did the writer actually ob-serve and describe the event? Didany emotional factor interfere withhis observations? Is the observercompetent to make this judgment?Or using an election year as an op-portunity to encourage criticalthinking by having the studentsseek answers to the following ques-tions: How do you establish criteriafor selection among candidates?What qualities do you look for?How do you determine whether thecandidate has the ability to governwisely? What are the relevant andirrelevant factors in judging theability of a candidate?

Mathematics

Sample Skills: the use of definitionsidentifying assumptionsmaking deductive proofsdistinguishing between relevantand irrelevant evidencerecognizing fallacious reasoning

Sample Activity: Having the students teach some ofthe concepts to each other, therebypromoting discussion of the con-cepts, clarification of the conceptsand a deeper understanding of them.Proposing a problem and its solutionand having students in small groupsidentify the evidence available for itssolution and then distinguishingwhich of the evidence led themathematician to the correct solu-tion. Giving students examples ofproblems with correct and incorrectanswers and having them detect cor-rect and incorrect reasoning leadingto those with errors.

ArtSample Skills: interpretation

analyzing the components of acompositionevaluating the uses of variouskinds of mediarecognizing appeal to emotionsmaking inferences on the artist'sintentions

Sample Activity: Presenting an art object to the classwithout introduction and havingthem develop the questions thatthey might like to ask about it.Then they are to evaluate the ques-

tions they have posed and suggestways to answer them.

In this chapter the process for beginning a transforma-tion of emphasis toward infusing our curricula with criti-cal thinking was described. The Paideia Proposal and itsusefulness in thinking about critical thinking wereexplained. Essential components of "communities of in-quiry" were described: classroom climate, questioningand discussion strategies and the design of lessons to in-tegrate critical thinking skills. Actual examples for build-ing these skills into classroom lessons were given. Thistransformational process is a long termperhaps neverendingone as we strive to make the subjects we lovemeaningful for our children.

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CHAPTER 4: EVALUATING CRITICALTHINKING

A. Reassessing Current AssessmentMeasures

Benjamin Bloom (1984) has noted that 95 percent ofour standardized test questions are devoted to testing forknowledge and recall, and neglect the higher level think-ing processes. This is due in part to the fact that it is easierto develop tests of knowledge and information that havestatistical reliability than those that measure critical think-ing ability. If we are to emphasize critical thinking as thecentral endeavor of the educational process, then areexamination of our assessment measures is necessary.We must develop new, better and more extensivestrategies for assessing critical thought.

As with the emergence of the critical thinking move-ment itself, a reassessment of achievement testing is al-ready underway in many places. Connecticut, Michiganand California, for example, are developing new tests orredesigning existing tests to assess critical thinking. TheCalifornia State Department of Education is preparingtests in reading and writing, math and social studies incor-porating critical thinking skills in 30 to 60 percent of thetest items (30 percent in the early grades, 40 percent atgrade 8, and 60 percent at grade 12). State-wide commit-tees are working with teachers throughout the state todevelop items to be used in the California Assessment Pro-gram (C.A.P.) tests. In 1985, 300,000 California eighthgrade students, for the first time, took a history/social sci-ence test in vt .nich 40 percent of the test items (which weremultiple choice) focused on critical thinking skills.

According to Kneedler (1984), the C.A.P. program isnot meant to replace teacher-made assessment instrumentsor observation, but to provide school personnel with infor-mation on program strengths and weaknesses, and infor-mation on the performance of different groups. He notesthat one of the dangers of any testing prograin that asses-ses knowledge is the tendency to trivialize the t ontent areaand narrow the curriculum. Recall questions are easy towrite and if what is tested is all that is taught, teachers maybe forced to address only factual knowledge and studentsto become solely concerned with memorization. Proces-sing information and solving prol.lems are neglected.Tests, like textbooks, that cater to a large and varied audi-ence, often regress to a narrow mean. What suffers is crit-ical thinking.

Cognizant of these dangers, Kneedler says, thestatewide asses, ..ent advisory committee decided toplace a heavy emphasis on critical thinking skill items thatrequire process, not recall. The committee decided that 40percent of the assessment questions should address criticalthinking skills at grade 8 and 60 percent at grade 12. Theyused three different approaches to assessment: objectivequestions, the critical thinking skills (CTS) vocabulary,

38 and the student essay.

The major part of the CTS assessment consists of objec-tive questions (see below) but there is also 4 critical think-ing writing requirement that will be an integral part of theassessment. (The writing exercize will be optional for dis-tricts and scoring will be, done at the local level.) Theassessment coll:ponent of the CTS vocabulary requiresstudents to demonstrate their understanding of terms as-sociated with critical thinking such as generalization,hypothesis, inference, prer..ise, etc. The following 12 crit-ical thinking skills are included in the C.A.P. socialstudies test.* Sample items are given for each:

A. Compare similarities and differencesThe ability to compare similarities and differenceamong two or more objects, living things, ideas,events, or situations at the same or different points intime. Implies the ability to organize information intodefined categories.

SAMPLE ITEM:

In the late nineteenth century, western vigilantes andsouthern Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members were similarin what way?

a. Both took the law into their own hands.b. Both were concerned with jury trials.c. Both were against violence.d. Both found jobs for immigrants.

B. Identify central issues or problemsThe ability to identify the main idea or point of a pass-age, argument, or political cartoon, for example. Atthe higher levels, students are expected to identifycentral issues in complex political arguments. Im-plies ability to identify major components of an argu-ment, such as reasons and conclusions.

SAMPLE ITEM:

It used to be said that "the sun never set on the BritishEmpire." What does this saying mean?

a. The sun shines 24 hours a day in England.b. The British had colonies around the world.c. The future looked bright for the British.d. It is always very warm in England.

C. Distinguish among fact, opinion andreasoned judgmentDefined as the ability to apply criteria for judging thequality of observation and inference.

SAMPLE ITEM:

Which one of the following statements about theUnited States Congress is a FACT rather than anopinion?

a. Congress works too slowly.b. Congress is overpaid.

*From Assessment of the Critical Thinking Skills in HistorySocial Science, California Assessment Program. 1984.t ..# 1.........,-. 45

c. Congress wastes money.d. Congress makes our laws.

1). Recognize stereotypes and clichesDefined as the ability to identify fixed or conven-tional notions about a person, group or idea.

SAMPLE ITEM:

Patrick has always liked typing and shorthand. Al-though his parents wanted him to learn computer sci-ence, Patrick went to a clerical instructor to discuss asecretarial career. Ms. Rodriguez laughed at him andsaid, "Patrick, why on earth do you want to t:.-.come asecretary? You can make a lot more mon2.3, in men'sfields."

What stereotype is implied in the above statement?

a. A computer technician career is better than asecretarial career.

b. Shorthand instructors do not make much money.c. A secretarial career is for women.d. Secretarial tasks are difficult to learn.

E. Recognize a bias, emotional factors. prop-aganda, and semantic slantingThe ability to identify partialities and prejudices inwritten and graphic materials. Includes the ability todetermine credibility of sources (gauge reliability, ex-pertise, and objectivity).

SAMPLE ITEM:

A juror may be excused from serving on a jury for"just cause." A just cause might include bias, pre-judice, knowledge of the defendant, or personal ac-quaintance with the crime.

Which of the following jurors would be acceptable inthe trial of a white defendant for the murder of a blackpolice officer?

a. Alex Peters, the husband of one of the witnesses tothe shooting.

b. Karen Marley, who works for the police depart--gent as a dispatcher and has taken up a collectionor the dead officer's widow and children.

c. Lois Adams, who lives in the same neighborhoodas the defendant, but who has never met him.

d. Mark Jones, a member of a white supremist or-ganization called "The Knights of White Power"

F. Recognize different value orientations anddifferent ideologiesThe ability to recognize the similarities and differ-ences among different value orientations andideologies.

SAMPLE ITEM:

Suppose that a journalist around the turn of the cen-tury asked, "How -an labor's aims be met in the faceof the overwhelming strength of industry?"

Which one of the following answers might SamuelGompers (1850-1924), a famous labor leader, havegiven?

a. "Workers must be willing and eager to use vio-lence to get what they want."

b. "Workers must trust in the goodness and fairnessof management to grant them as many of their de-mands as they deserve."

c. "Workers should pressure management to agree tocollective bargaining, a method whereby laborunions represent workers and try to get contractsfrom management to meet the worker's needs."

d. "Only threats and harassment will influence man-agement when it comes to securing good workingconditions and decent pay for employees."

G. Determine which information is relevantThe ability to make distinctions between verifiableand unverifiable, relevant and nonrelevant, and es-sential and incidental information.

SAMPLE ITEM:

What wotqd help you the most in making a deci-sion abo/it a candidate for governor of the State ofCalifornia?

a. his or her record in other political officeb. what the newspaper editorials say about the

candidatec. his or her statements about himself or herselfd. what telev'sion commercials say about the

candidate

H. Recognize the adequacy of dataThe ability to decide whether the information pro-vided is sufficient in terms of quality and quantity tojustify a conclusion, decision, generalization, orplausible hypothesis.

SAMPLE r.EM:The following figures from the U.S. Bureau of theCensus show the percent of eligible voters who castballots in national elections.

I.

1968 1972 1976 198060.9% 55.2% 53.5% 52.6%

Based upon these figures, you can conclude that

a. political candidates are less qualified than theyused to be.

b. a majority of Americans don't vote.c. voter turnout has been steadily declining for more

than a decade.d. voter participation has reached an all-time high.

Check consistencyThe ability to determine whether given standards orsymbols are consistmt. Fe -example, the ability to de-termine whether the different points or issues in apolitical argument have logical connections or agreewith the central issue.

SAMPLE ITEM:

Bill Jones, a candidate for Congress, says that his isin FAVOR of the following ideas:

1. lowering taxes2. reducing government spending

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3. increasing expense accounts for legislators4. eliminating waste in government

Which idea is INCONSISTENT with his other threeideas?

J. Formulate appropriate questionsThe ability to formulate appropriate and thought-pro-voking questions that will lead to a deeper and clearerunderstanding of the issues at hand.

SAMPLE ITEM:

Which of the following questions would be theMOST important to ask in determining whethersomeone had a fair trial?

a. What was the ethnic background of the judge?b. Was the accused guilty?c. Was the judge a man or a woman?d. Did the accused receive all of his or her Constitu-

tional rights?

K. Predicting probable consequencesThe ability to predict probable consequences of anevent or series of events.

SAMPLE ITEM:

Suppose that United States farmers experienced sev-eral years of drought. Many cattle died because oflack of water and inadequate food.

What do you think would happen to beef prices?

a. People would import less beef.b. The price of beef would rise.c. The price of beef would drop.d. Beef would completely disappear from grocery

stores.

L. Identify unstated assumptionsThe ability to identify what is taken for granted,though not explicitly stated, in an argument.

SAMPLE ITEM:

In 1948, Mr. Smith told his neighbor that JohnDewey would be our next President because the pub-lic opinion polls said he would win. What assumptionwas Mr. Smith making?

a. Public opinion polls are always accurateb. John Dewey's opponent was lacking in experiencec. Voter turnout would be lowd. Opinion polls are usually wrong.

These preliminary efforts at revising existing assess-ment procedures, though covering only the most elemen-tal forms of critical thought, illustrate the possibilities ofbroadening the measurement of learning. The examplescited have been designed to fit the multiple-choice formatof a state-wide assessment instrument. Cartoons, maps,pictures and items other than narrative are used. The limi-tation of the multiple-choice type of instrument is that itcannot really measure extended use of critical thinkingskills, but rather the discrete use of such skills.

Connecticut is beginning its critical thinking testing atthe fourth grade. Since there is yet to be developed a de-

40 finitive body of research on the thinking capabilities of

r.,.

young children, test developers relied on the insights ofexperienced teachers, fourth grade students, and expertjudgement. Despite the preference for an essay test as abetter measure of what students actually are thinking, amultiple choice format was adopted because of the econ-omy of administration. Eleven abilities were selected.They are the ability to:

1. identify central issues, and problems2. identify conclusions3. identify reasons4. identify appropriate questions to ask, given the

situation5. identify assumptions6. determine credibility of sources of information7. determine relevance8. recognize inconsistency9. infer and judge deductive validity

10. deduce and judge deductive validity11. predict possible consequences

The items were embedded into two separate storythemes: putting on a play and cleaning up a parlr. Thestories were used not only to maintain interest but to pro-vide content for each item.

The first test tryout occurred in the fall of 1984. The de-velopers, thinking that reading ability might skew the re-sults, split the tryout group into two sections. One grouphad to read the test themselves and the other group had theitems read to them while they looked at the items. (Thisdifference in procedure did not affect internal consistency,but the group read to had a higher mean percentage of cor-rect answers.)

It was found that "identifying conclusions" and "iden-tifying assumptions" were problem areas for the students.Part of the problem may be that students do not reallyknow or understand the meaning of the words "assump-tion" or "conclusion." As with the findings of the majorreading assessment of 100,000 U.S. school children, thisis probably due to the fact that these were unfamiliar tasksbeing asked of them, not due to any cognitive inability tothink analytically. Robert Ennis observes''-tat fourth gradeteachers whom he has consulted on the matter universallyagree that average fourth graders can learn these skills,and he says, "I am inclined to believe them, because theyshould know." The research to docurnelit these assump-tions and others about the teaching and testing of criticalthinking has yet to be done.

B. Nationally Available CriticalThinking Tests

Most critical thinking tests currently available are mul-tiple choice tests. Robert Ennis, Professor and Director ofthe Illinois Thinking Project at the University of Illinois,Urbana-Champaign, has developed a list of such tests.Ennis' list includes the following:

Basic Skills for Critical Thinking (1979), (5 forms) byGary E. McCuen. Greenhaven Press, Inc., 577Shoreview Park Rd., St. Paul, MN 55112. (This testis aimed at high school students and includes sec-

47

tions on source of information, primary and secon-dary sources, fact and opinion, prejudice and reason,stereotypes, ethnocentrism, library card catalogue,and Reader's Guide Periodical Literature.)

Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level X (1985) byRobert H. Ennis and Jason Millman. Illinois Think-ing Project, Ed. Bldg., Univ. of Illinois, Cham-paign, IL 61820. Soon to be available from MidwestPublications, P.O.. Box 448, Pacific Grove, CA93950. (The Cornell test is aimed at grades 4-14 andincludes sections on induction, credibility, observa-tion, deduction, and assumption identification.)

Cornell Critical Thinking 'lest, Level Z (1982) byRobert H. Ennis and Jason Millman. Illinois Think-ing Project, Ed. Bldg., Univ. of Illinois, Cham-paign, IL 61820. Soon to be available from MidwestPublications, P.O. Box 448, Pacific Grove, CA93950. (This test is aimed at advance or gifted highschool students and college t..udents. It includessections on induction, credibility, pi diction and ex-perimental planning, fallacies (especially equivoca-tion), deduction, definition, assumption identifica-tion.;

New Jersey lest of Reasoning Skills (1983) developed byVirginia Shipman. IAPC, Test Division, MontclairState College, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043. (TheNew Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills is aimed atgrades 4 - college. The syllogism is heavily rep-resented and there are several items apiece on as-sumption identification, induction, good reasons,kind and degree.)

Ross lest of Higher Cognitive Processes (1976) by JohnD. Ross and Catherine M. Ross. Academic TherapyPublications, 20 Commercial Blvd., Novato, CA94947. (This critical thinking instrument is aimed atgrades 4 - college. It includes sections on verbalanalogies, deduction, assumption identification,word relationships, sentence sequencing, interpret-ing answers to questions, information sufficiencyand relevance in mathematics problems, analysis ofattributes of complex stick figures.)

Watson-Glaser Critical Thin!:ing Appraisal (1980), (2forms) by Goodwin Watson & Watson MaynardGlaser. The Psychological Corporation, a sub-sidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 7500 OldOak Boulevard, Cleveland, OH 44130. (The Wat-son-Glaser is aimed at grade 9 through adulthood,and includes sections on induction, assumptionidentification, deduction, conclusion-logically-following- beyond- a-reasonable -doubt, argumentevaluation.)

The questions on the Watson-Glaser Critical ThinkingAppraisal or any of these instruments provide models forteachers to develop their own lessons, questions and testitems. The section in the Watson-Glaser on inference, forexample, first provides a definition of the term ("a conclu-sion a person can draw from certain observed or supposedfacts.") The directions then ask the test-taker to examineeach inference given and to make a decision as to its de-

*Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

gree of truth or falsity: true, probably true, insufficientdata, probably false or false. This example is given:

EXAMPLE ON INFERENCE

TWo hundred students in their early teens voluntarily at-tended a recent weekend student conference in a Midwest-ern city. At this conference, the topics of race relations andmeans of achieving lasting world peace were discussed,since these were the problems the students selected asbeing the most vital in today's world.

1. As a group, the students who attended this con-ference showed a keener interest in broad socialproblems than do most other students in theirearly teens.

2. The majority of the students had not previouslydiscussed the conference topics in their schools.

3. The students came from all sections of the country.

4. The students discussed mainly labor relationsproblems.

5. Some teenage students felt it worthwhile to dis-cuss problems of race relations and ways ofachieving world peace.

An assumption is defined as "something presupposed ortaken for granted." Students are asked to read a statementand several proposed assumptions and to decide whetherthey are taken for granted or not. The following example isgiven:

EXAMPLE ON ASSUMPTIONS

Statement: "We need to save time in getting there so we'dbetter go by plane."

Proposed Assumptio

I. Going by plah... ..11 take less time than going bysome other means of transportation. (It is assumedin the statement that the greater speed of a planeover the speeds of other means of transportationwill enable the group to reach its destination inless time.)

2. There is plane service available to us for at leastpart of the distance to the destination. (This isnecessarily assumed in the statement since, inorder to save time by plane, it must be possible togo by plane.)

3. Travel by plane is more convenient than travel bytrain. (This assumption is not made in the state-mentthe statement has to do with saving time,and says nothing about convenience or about anyother specific mode of travel.)*

The Test on Appraising Observations by Stephen Norrisand Ruth King of Memorial University of Newfoundlandcan be described as a multiple-choice test who questionsare set in the contexts of stories. It is an as, .-specificcritical thinking test because it focuses on just one aspectof critical thinkingobservational ability. For groups forwhich the test is suitable, it requires approximately fortyfive minutes to complete. It is designed primarily for thesenior high school grades but should be useful both at thejunior high school and college level. The reading level ofthe test is suitable for the average twelve of thirteen yearold.

4841

The test consists of fifty items in two parts, Part A hav-ing 28 items. Part A is the story of a traffic acccident, andPart B involves the exploration of a river. The stories pro-vide enough background knowledge of the situation fordecisions to be made about the appropriateness of usingparticular principles of appraisal in answering items. Inaddition, the stories help to maintain interest in the test byengaging examinees in an evolving episode.

The Test on Appraising Observations is closer to being amultiple-choice test than to being any other traditionalkind of test. However, steps have been taken to avoidsome of the most serious pitfalls which multiple-choicetests face. Each item presents examinees with two state-ments in bold type spoken by characters in the stories.Examinees are to choose which, if either, of the statementsin bold type they have more reason to believe at the time thestatements are made. There are thus three alternatives foreach item: (1) the first statement is mare believable; (2)the second statement is more believable; and (3) neither ismore believable, they are equally believable. In the sensethat there are three choices for each item, the test is multi-ple-choice. However, the choices for all items are thesame, and each has equal plausibility. The three alterna-tives used on the Test on Appraising Observations are thelogically obvious ones, given the problems posed on thetest. This means that examinees are unable to eliminatedistractors because of their obvious implausibility.

Examinees are instructed to choose which, if either, ofthe statements in bold type they have more reason to be-lieve at the time the statements are made. This was a delib-erate attempt to avoid asking for judgments of degrees ofendorsement, as would have been required had the alterna-tives been "strongly believe the first statement, stronglybelieve the second statement, weakly believe the firststatement, weakly believe the second statement," and soon. The problem with using this sort of format is that"people with different levels of sophistication justifiablygive different levels of endorsement to a conclusion"(Ennis, .984). As!;ing only for the direction in which theevidence points, as is dune on the Test onAppraising Obser-vations, is a means of obtaining higher agreement amongthe best critical thinkers.

SAMPLE TEST ITEMS:*

In each question you will be given two statements inbold type. You must choose which statement in bold type,if either, you have more reason to believe at the time thestatements are made.

Remember: Choose between the statements in boldtype only. You may use statements which are not in boldtype to help you choose.

A traffic accident has just occurred at an intersectionwhich has a stop sign in each direction. Several cars wereinvolved.

A policeman and a policewoman will question people.Later several investigators will collect information aboutthe accident. It is your job to judge the evidence ?iven in

42 the statements that follow.

*reproduced with permission

1. A policeman is questioning Pierre and Martine.They were in their car at the intersection but werenot involved in the accident. Martine is thedriver and Pierre, who had been trying to figureout which way to go, is the map reader.

The policeman asks Martine how many carswere at the intersection when the accidentoccurred. She answers, "There were threecars."

Pierre says, "No, there were five cars."

2. A small boy and his father had been standing onthe sidewalk when the accident occurred.

The boy says, "There was a motorcycle at theintersection."

His father says, "No, there was no motorcy-cle at the intersection."

3. A policewoman has been asking Mr. Wang andMs. Vernon questions. She asks Mr. Wang, whowas one of the peopl involved in the accident,whether he had used his signal.

Mr. Wang answers, "Yes, I did use my signal."

Ms. Vernon had been driving a car which was notinvolved in the accident. She tells the officer,"Mr. Wang did not use his signal. But thisdidn't cause the accident."

C. The Essay as a Critical ThinkingEvaluation Tool

Another way to assess critical thinking is the use of theessay test. Its drawback comes from the difficulty in scor-ing large numbers of tests and in the unreliability of thescores. The advantages, of course, do allow for extendedmeasures of thinking, the development of a complete lineof reasoning, in-depth analysis of issues, etc. RobertEnnis and Eric Weir, in their work on testing critical think-ing, have developed the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking EssayTest (1985). This essay test is aimed at grade 7 through col-lege, and Ennis says it is also intended to be used as ateaching tool. It incorporates getting to the point, seeingthe reasons and assumptions, stating one's point, offeringgood reasons, seeing other possibilities (including otherpossible explanations), and responding appropriately toavoiding equivocation, irrelevance, circularity, over-generalization, credibility questions and the use of emo-tive language to persuade. The test is standardized and hashigh inter-rater reliability. The directions and test itselffollow:

DIRECTIONS

Read the letter to the editor of the Moorburg newspaper.Consider it paragraph by paragraph and as a total argu-ment. Then write a letter to the editor in response to thisone. For each paragraph in the letter you are about to read,write a paragraph in reply telling whether you believe thethinking good or bad. Also write a closing paragraphabout the total argument. Defend your judgments withreasons.

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Your answer should have nine numbered paragraphs.Numbers one through eight should vive your reactions toparagraphs one through eight in the letter. Your paragraphnumber nine should give your overall evaluation of the let-ter considered as one total argument. Each paragraph, in-cluding the last, should contain your reason(s).

Spend about 10 minutes reading the letter and thinkingabout it. Then write for not more than 30 minutes (aboutthree minutes for each of your short paragraphs). The

maximum total time for the test in 40 minutes.

Do not forget to give your reasons in each paragraphPlease write clearly.

Sign your name to your letter. You are a local citizen,and this topic concerns you.

Remember, write nine numbered paragraphs and givereasons.

THE MOORBURG LETTER (Reprinted with permission of Midwest Publishing Co.. Belmont. California.)

230 Sycamore StreetMoorburg

April 10

Dear Editor:

Overnight parking on all streets in Moorburg should be eliminated. To achieve this goal, parking should be prohibitedfrom 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. There are a number of reasons why any intelligent citizen should agree.

1. For one thing, to park overnight is to have a garage in the streets. Now it is illegal for anyone to have a garage inthe city streets. Clearly then, it should be against the law to park overnight in the streets.

2. Three important streets, Lincoln Avenue, Marquand Avenue and West Main Street, are very narrow. With carsparked on the streets, there really isn't room for the heavy traffic that passes over them in the afternoon rush hour.When driving home in the afternoon after work it takes me thirty five minutes to 'hake a trip that takes ten minutesduring the uncrowded time. If there were no cars parked on the side of these streets, they could handle consider-ably more traffic.

3. Traffic on some streets is also bad in the morning when factory workers are on their way to the 6 a.m. shift. If therewere no cars parked on tl ,..se streets between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., then there would be more room for this traffic.

4. Furthermore, there can be ho doubt in general, overnight parking on the streets is undesirable. It is definitelybad and should be opposed.

5. If parking is proltibitc4 tam 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., then accidents between parked and moving vehicles w:P he nearlyeliminated cluing thL. period. All intelligent citizens would rearti the near elimintion of accidents in any periodas highly desirable. So, we should be in favor of prohibiting :rig from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.

6. Last month, the chief of Police. Burg. s .i,;nes, ran an experiment . hich pr-)vs that parking should be prohibitedfrom 2 a.m. to 6 a.n, On one (Jour buy si streets, Maiqu?vd Avei,ae, he piaced experimental signs for one day.The signs prohibited parking from 2 a.m. .,, 6 a.m. During the four-:,our period, there was not one accident onMarquand. Everyone knows, of course, that here have been 0.t.r four hundred accidents oh Marquand during thepast year.

7. The opponents of my suggestion have said that conditions are safe cnough now. These people don't know whatsafe really means. Conditions are not safe if tie- even the slightest possible chance for an accident. Thats what"safe" means. So, conditions are not safe the way they are now

8. Finally let me point out that the Director of the NationalTraffic Safety Council, Kenneth 0. Taylor has strongly re-commended that overnight street parking be prevented on busy streets in cities the size of Moorburg. The NationalAssociation of Police Chiefs has made the same recommendation. both suggest that prohibiting parking from 2a.m. to 6 a.m. is the best way to prevent overnight parking.

I invite those who disagree, as well as those who agree with me, to react to my letter through the editor of this paperLet's get this issue out in the open.

Sincerely,

Robert R. Raywift

CRITERIA AND SCORING SHEET FOR THE ENNIS-WEIRThe following criteria are then given for grading the test. (Except for Uteria nine, eacn item is worth 3 points and

criteria should be used "flexibly and with judgment as adequate responses may be expressed in different ways.")

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I Recognition of misuse of analogy, and/or recognition of shift in meaning, and/or claim that incorrectdefinitionhas been stipulated.

2. Recognition of irrelevance.

3. Recognition that Paragraph Three is OK. (Neglecting the busy-streets limitation is not penalized here.)

4. Recognition of circularity, and/or recognition that no reason is offered. (Subtract one point from credit for inter-preting "undesirable" as "not desired.")

5 Recognition that there may be other ways of preventing accidents, and/or recognition that other things might bemore desirable, and/or recognition that there probably isn't much traffic at that time and/or recognition that othertypes of accidents are unaffected, and/or recognition that no evidence has been given that such accidentsoccur.(Other possibilities.)

6. Recognition of lack of controls, and/or inadequate sampling, and/or "onlycm, case," and/or post hoc fallacy."(Other possible explanation)

7 Recognition of winning argument by definition, and/or recognition that a word has been made useless for em-pirical assertion, and/or claim that an incorrect definition has been asserted.

8. Recognition that Paragraph Eight is OK. (Neglecting the busy-streets limitation is not penalized here.)

9. One point for just condemning the overall argument: another point for reviewing or summarizing the re-sponses to the other paragraphs in some reasonable way; two points for recognizing (anywhere) the error ofconcluding about all streets on the basis of reasons that relate only to busy streets; and one point for noting(anywhere) that Raywift has attempted to push people around with his emotive language. Total possible: 5points.

This exercise is a good example not only of criticalthinking assessment techique but of the application of crit-ical thinking skills so vitally necessary for real life (suchas critically reading the newspaper or critically listening topublic figures on social, political or moral issues). Whilestudents spend considerable amounts of tii..e reading andanalyzing this editorial, the average adult may spend onlytwo or three minutes. The ultimate goal of developing andenhancing critical thinking skills is the integration of thesecritically important skills into one's repertoire of reading,thinking, writing, speaking and listening habits. As Adleret. al. note, education only happens with continued learn-ing throughout life.

D. Considerations for Assessment ofCritical Thinking

Tests of verbal and mathematical reasoning abilities areair .g the oldest psychometric devices (used most fre-quently in the military). Data on the use of such tests indi-cate that these reasoning abilities retain their relevanceover time and across activities to a remarkable degree. Ver-bal and mathematical reasoning skills also show a consis-tent positive relationship to successful performance in allacademic fields. In studies of adults, there have beenstrong correlations between these reasoning abilities andoccupational success, competence and productivity(Lerner, 1984). These are the goals that the schools hope toachieve in preparing their students for satisfying lives andfor productive participation in society.

The following issues need to be considered in the de-velopment of reasoning/critical thinking tests:

The purpose of the test:

We don't want to place teachers in a position of hav-ing to teach to the test. Says Ennis, "If a test were per-fect, teaching to the test would be okay. But no test is

perfect, and, especially if it were multiple choice, thetest might not assess all the important skills." The pur-pose of the test and its relationship to the existing cur-riculum must be defined, and the test and the curricu-lum need to be related to the overall goals of education.

What skills are to be measured:

Ennis also says that typical verbal reasoning tests(the ETS analytic reasoning components of the GRE,for example) generally test for verbal analogies andsyllograms (deduction) only. He fears the neglect ofmany other important aspects of verbal reasoning suchas induction, judging and interpreting meaning,assumption finding, reasoning within various points ofview, etc. Test-makers have trouble getting "right" an-swers because people bring different assumptions tothe tests and can justifiably come up with different an-swers. Also a consideration is the fact that a test mightleave out the practical problems of real life, for whichthe development of critical reasoning is also intended.A test that covers the verbal (the humanities), the tech-nical (math and science) and the global (issues thattranscend disciplines or cross categotu.s. i.e. gun con-trol) would be more comprehensive.

Reasoning vs. critical thinking:

A test of critical thinking would be an assessment ofa wider range of skills than a reasoning test. Criticalthinking involves the skills of assuming, conceiving,interpreting in addition to the more narrow concept ofreasoning, which involves inferring from premises toconclusions. A reasoning test usually covers a smallerrange of skills than critical thinking covers. More im-portant than what the test is called, however, is payingattention to what skills get into the test.

0 1

Type of test:

Whether the test will be a multiple choice test oressay test is an important consideration, as essay testsare viewed as much more desirable (though less reli-able) than multiple choice tests. Multiple choice testsdon't and can't test for all the important skills, whileessay tests, though better, are more difficult to adminis-ter and more time consuming. If samples of studentswere tested, however, the essay format might be a realoption.

Inservice teacher education:Teacher education is essential for teachers who will

be held accountable for their students' reasoningabilities and for their students' performance on testsbeing developed to assess these skills. If a "theory ofteaching thinking" is non-existent in most teachertraining programs, teachers cannot be expected toautomatically integrate these skills into the curriculumnor to assess these skills. Far more than the usual inser-vice is necessary for a real integration of the conceptinto teaching practice. Meaningful staff developmenton the types of tests available. and how to integratethese skills into teacher-made tests is essential.

The research on critical thinking testing is still prelimi-nary. (For an overview of considerations and cautions ofthe reliability and validity of critical thinking testing, r:stconstruction and use, see Tomko and Ennis, 1980.)There

is much to be done in this area as well as other aspects ofcritical thinking research (effectiveness of various teach-ing strategies, correlations with student achievement inbasic skills, etc.). Now that critical thinking is becomingan issue, perhaps the support for such research will follow.There will continue to be a need for large-scale research,development and dissemination as well as for educatorstrained in developing and reviewing critical thinking testsand materials. Any efforts to choose critical thinking testsor revise existing tests will require "rational thinking" and"reasoned judgment" to avoid merely adding another di-mension to teacher accountability.

This section provided some arguments for reassessingour current assessment measures. Specific examples fromthe C.A.P. (California Assessment Program) have beengiven to illustrate how critical thinking skills can be mea-sured in a narrative-mutiple choice format. The nationallyavailable tests of critical thinking were discussed as wellas the essay as an effective measure of student thinking.Finally, some considerations to be addressed in selectingor revising assessment procedures were discussed.

To provide some closure on the numerous issues andconcerns in transfoming critical thinking form ideal to re-ality, the next section presents overall recommendationsfor policy and practice. These recommendations illustratejust how fundamental this transformation has to be if any-thing beyond incremental changes in individual class-rooms is going to happen.

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46

CHAPTER 5: CRITICAL THINKING:RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICYAND PRACTICE

A. Directions for ChangeYoung people have not been given many oppor-

tunities to think in our schools . . . We may prefer toencourage docility, meekness and obedience to au-thority over intellectual inquiry and rational thought. . . If rewards go to teachers who keep the childrenquiet and who raise no questions about the cur-riculum or about experimentation, teachers willsoon learn that inquiry, reflection and the considera-tion of alternatives may be frowned upon . . . thenumber of pages covered have the highest impor-tance, then thinking experiences may be sacrificedto subject matter importance. Raths, et. al. (1967)

The "critical spirit" involves certain attitudes, disposi-tions, habits and character traits. It entails a real commit-ment to the objective evaluation of evidence, a willing-ness to conform judgment to mindful principles, and apronounced diposition to seek reasons for what is said ordone. If the schools are to foster the critical spiritprinci-ples of rational thought and reasoned judgmentmajor is-sues need to be addressed and radical changes need to bemade, many of them revolutionary. Changes will be re-quired in our conceptualization of the role of the teacherand in the structure of our educational organizations. TheCarnegie Forum c ills for schools that provide "a deeperunderstanding necessary for a self governing society . . . itmust enable the citizens of this country to make informedjudgments about the complex issue; and events thatcharacterize life in advanced economies at the end of the20th century. The cost of not doint, so may well be thegradual erosion of our democratic birthright . . the locusof schooling must shift from teaching to learning, from thepassive acquisition of facts and routines to the active application of ideas to problems. That transformation makesthe role of the teacher more important, not less."

B. Towards a Vision of Teachersas ProfessionalsWanted

College graduate with academic major (master'sdegree preferred). Excellent com,Aunication andleadership skills required. Challenging opportunityto serve 150 clients daily, developing up to five dif-ferent products each day to meet their needs. This di-versified job also allows employee to exercise tap-ing, clerical, law enforcement, and social workskills between assignments and after hours. Adapta-bility helpful, since suppliers cannot always delivergoods and support services on time. Typical workweek 47 hours. Special nature of work precludesfringe benefits such as lunch and coffee breaks, but

.9

work has many intrinsic rewards. Starting salary$12,769, with a guarantee of $24,000 after only 14years.

So begins the Rand Report study, "Beyond the. Commis-sion Reports: The Coming Crisis in Teaching" by LindaDarling-Hammond (1984), who concludes that today'steachers are increasingly viewed as bureaucraticfunctionaries rather than practicine professionals. Poorworking conditions where teachers are deprived of oppor-tunities for professional growth or stimulation, whereteachers are not valued as professionals (and critical think-ers), where teachers spend less and less of their time on in-struction are having dire consequences for this profession.

In her report, Darling-Hammond demonstrates that"dramatic changes in our nation's teaching force will soonlead to serious shortages of qualified teachers unlesspolicies that restructure the profession are pursued." Shenotes that the existing teaching force is decreasing as olderteachers retire and younger teachers leave for other occu-pations, that evidence shows that new recruits to teachingare less qualified academically than those who are leav-ing, that the most academically able teachers leave theprofession within a very short time, and, finally, that thenumber of new entrants to the profession is insufficient tomeet the coming 'viand. She identifies several factorscontributing to problem: academically talentedwomen and minorities are now choosing careersgreater financial rewards, greater opportunity for advance-ment, and better working conditions.

In addition to poor salaries, Darling-Hammond observesthat teacher dissatisfaction stems from. "lack of input intoprofessional decision making, overly restrictive bureau-cratic controls, and inadequate administrative supportcontributing to dissatisfaction and attrition, particuifirlyamong the most highly qualified." Creating more profes-sional working conditions involves a new career structurein which "improved preparation and professional standardsof practice are combined with increased responsibility anddecision making."

An important concept here is the view of teachers asbureaucratic functionaries rather than practicing profes-sionals. Many teachers would not reenter teaching again,if given the ..hoice, and it is the most qualified who aremost dissatisfied. lithe best teachers are the most dissatis-fied, an examination of the conflict between bureaucraticfunctionary and pruiessional could shed some light onpossible solutions. Teachers have professional expecta-tions to teach, to share their love of their subjects withtheir students, and find themselves instead working as ifon an assembly line production team. But boxed in bybureaucratic mandates to cover ever increasing amountsof content, pressurized by sometimes unrealistic account-

53

ability measures to raise achievement scores, manyteachers who perceive tcaching and learning to be morethan number crunching, despair. Initiative, inquiry, andcreative thinking are not rewarded in most school systems.

Are tcachcrs professionals? And what is a profession?Pierce (1981) notes that a profession may be said to meetthe following criteria: a profession (1) depends on a bodyof knowledge, skills and understandings; (2) provides ser-vices to society which utilize that body of knowledge,skills and understandings; (3) provides practitioners withthe autonomy to make their own decisions regarding appli-cations of that body of knowledge, skills and understand-ings; and (4) is respo..sible for determining and enforcingstandards to be met by those who enter and remain in theprofession. Pierce says that lay control of education atlocal, state and federal levels mitigates against tcachingbecoming a profession and that little or no effort has beenmade to differentiate between policies affecting educationand tcaching which should be made by the public, andthose which should be made by educators. Goodlad(1975) says that state and local authorities oometimes goso far in educational decision-making that few degrees offreedom in decision- making remain for school adminis-trators and teachers. Further, he says that some of the degrccs of freedom remaining frequently are usurped by ad-ministrators, !caving little alternative for tcachcrs otherthan to teach "pre - prepared lessons."

Teachers live in a world where the organization makestheir decisions for them. This lack of authority, statesMeyers (1973), strikes at the heart of professionalization.Corwin (1965) believes the essential conflict is betweentwo entirely different bases of authority where profes-sionalism equals autonomy and control, and bureaucrati-zation equals conformity and dependence.

Ernest Boyer, President of the Carnegie Foundation forthe Advancement of Tcaching, describes this as the "un-healthy condition of the tcaching profession." He notesthat one -third of tcachcrs are dissatisfied with their jobs,and a resounding one -half wouldn't enter teaching agrin ifthey has the chance to do it over again. Teacher dissatis-faction stems not only from poor salaries and low statusbut from the fact that teachers feel stymied because theysee no veal opportunities for growth or reward in theirroles. Darling-Hammond notes that 50 percent of alltcachcrs leave the profession after 5 years and 80 percentleave after 10 years.

The requirements for professionalization do not have tobe irreconcilable with the demands of burt.:aucmcies. Ifthe teaching profession is to survive (and thrive), a newvision of the role of the tcachcr is imperative. A major re-structuring of the profession is necessary to expand andenhance this role. Major efforts to renew the professionhave to be made to incorporate the necessary respect, sup-port, influence and professional autonomy into this "primary task" of education. One recent study of tcachcr per-ceptions of power and powerlessness in their roles (Walsh,1984) concluded that a say in the decision- making proces-ses of a school differentiates the high power tcachcr fromthe low power teacher. Teachers who felt they had profes-sional power reported that their input was sought andutilized by their principals, that they had an influence on

school level policy. These tcachcrs felt that they made adifference, not only in their classrooms, but in theirschools, particularly in areas that directly affected theirtcaching function. If critical thinking is to be an cducational ideal, then we must value tcachcrs as critical think-ers. Teachers cannot afford to have others (gnuernors,legislators, business people) defining their prof ,ion andtheir practice. As the critical thinking movement in educa-tion gears uF 2achers themselves have to be a force in de-fining this issue.

An atmosphere where tcachcrs are valued for their pro-fessional skills, for their judgment and their input on im-portant school matters is one which foster. greater profes-sional power and more efffective tcaching and learning.Lightfoot (1983) found one common ingredient in goodschools was good tcachcrs who were supported by sym-pathetic leadership and a high regard for tcachcrs ant' theirwork. Poor schools, on the other hand, do not treattcachcrs with respectful regard, while in tnc worstschools, tcachcrs are demeaned and infant:" I by ad-ministrators who view them as custodians alms ortechnicians. Lightfoot's recommendation Y., t schoolsmust collect good tcachcrs and treat them like chosenpeople. Treating teachers like :.nosen people starts withtreating them as professionals and valuing their judgment.Part of treating them as professionals invdves things likepeer-deied standards or practice (inducting defining thedirection of the critical thinking movement), autonomousperformance within professionally-dermed standards, in-creasc.1..esponsibility with increased competence, and in-creased tcachcr decision- making.

C. Teacher Education-Preservice andInservice

A reexamination of what we value in education and intcaching is crucial. A major clement of this reexaminationhas to be the preparation of educators and the role of atheory of thinking in teacher education.

Colleges of education have taken a beating in the latesteducation reform movement. These colleges are beingblamed for having few, if any, entry standards, for an over-emphasis on "boring" pedagogy to the detriment of sub-ject matter, for non - existent exit requirements, and for in-adequate preparation for the .cal world of the classroom.Lipman et. al. state that "the improvement of the qualityof tcachcrs will no. take place unless the schools of educa-tion can attract young people with rick: resources thanare currently being attracted into the profession . . . thiswill not take place unless teacher preparation programscan satisfy the intellectual and creative needs of theseyoung people who presently are repelled by the lack of in-tellectual challenge in many tcachcr education programs."

These ideas have tremendous implications for teachereducation. As noted, our institutions of higher educationsimply perpetuate the approaches of elementary and sec-ondary education. memorization and recall. The primarymode of instruction in higher education is didactic (lectur-ing), with little emphasis on such teaching method.. as theSocratic approach for enhancing the meaning of the mater:al and the thinking of the students. The essence of a

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teacher- education program should be twofold: to encour-age and enhance the critical thinking skills of prospectiveteachers and to teach them techniques for successfully en-couraging critical thinking skills in their future "com-munities of inquiry." Lipman et.al. note that encouragingteachers to be versatile in inquiry provides them with thekind of intellectual flexibility and resourcefulness thatthey can apply to any concrete matterthat a prerequisiteof a teacher education program is that it should be reflec-tive and that it establish the classroom as a focus ofinquiry.

Not only is there an urgent need to incorporate the conceptof critical thinking throughout preseivice teacher education(incorporating critical thinking throughout all courseworkshould be mandatory in teacher training programs), there isas great a need for significant inservice education in criticalthinking for adminstrators and teachers. This is where trueo-ganizational commitment to the critical thinking move-ment has to be reinforced by support and resources for thosewho are to pursue this "new" central endeavor of the educa-tional process.

Unfortunately, inservice has a negative connotation tomost teachers. Traditional inservice education of teachershas perpetuated the lecture/lack-of-participation mode.Often teachers are not given the professional credibility toknow what kinds of professional growth opportunitiesthey need, and the selection of focus and content of inser-vice training is usually done by school administrators whoprofess to know better what the teachers need. A recentPhi Delta Kappan article on inservicing of teachers com-pared inservice to the insemination of Flossie the cow.

My last inservicing went pretty much like Flossie's(insemination). The only difference was that no onehad the same clear proof that it took. The teachingstaff was herded into a meeting . . . visiting expertappeared . . . proceeded to insert an hour and a halfof details into us. And in the end, like poor old Flos-sie, we didn't get to join in the act and we didn't havemuch fun. It just happened.(Sharma, 1981).

Sharma points out that too often, those in charge of in-service training make decisions for teachers just like theone's her grandfather made for Flossie. they decide whento bring the teachers together, they assume the injectionwill be useful to all regardless of individual needs, they as-sume that teachers have too narrow a perspective and thatteachers' opinions are not valid.

Most teachers would be able to identify with this anal-ogy. The current environment is not one which fosters in-quiry, creativity, initiative or critical thinking in teaching.What is crucial for the success of inservice training in gen-eral (and insery ice on critical thinking in particular) is a re-versal of the current deficit model of inservice, which seesteachers as needing i, jections of information to improve.What is needed is a developmental model of teacher timer-vice training which values and respects the teachers' judg-ment and sees teachers as capable of identifying profes-sional growth opportunities to expand and enhance their

48 skills.

What is the process for involving teachers? How does aschool system begin to seek relevant input from teachers?It should be approached thoughtfully and carefully, if weare to be successful in avoiding the temptations of pre-packaged, "quick fix" approaches. Long-term planning isnecessary, and could include partnerships with univer-sities and school-based critical thinking committeeswhich provide teachers the time to meet together duringthe course of the school year to develop teaching mater-ials, curriculum, strategies and applications. Falkof andMoss (1984) lescribe a highly effective critical thinkingcommittee through which teachers meet regularly todevelop and enhance their own abilities to foster and en-couirage critical thinking in their classrooms. Teachers areinvested in the district's thinking skills emphasis becausethey are involved in designing the process and learningfrom each other. Via their ongoing thinking skills commit-tee, they are able to capitalize on each other's expertiseand see how the strategies used at one grade level arenecessary in developing more sophisticated thinking skillsat upper grade levels. Single inservice sessions will domore harm than good. Integrating critical thinking into thecurriculum is a complex process, not something that canbe learned overnight. Districts need to send teachers andprincipals to critical thinking conferences so they canshare new information with their coworkers. Teachersneed access to books and instructional materials on criti-cal thinking. They will need time to collaborate, consultand observe each other so that they can develop newstrategies in the context of their own styles and class-rooms. The following standards and recommendationsshould be integrated into our preservice and inservice edu-cation on teaching for thinking:

I. Standards for the Teaching of ThinkingThe teacher who effectively "teaches for thinking"will:

demonstrate an attitude of being disposed to con-sider in a thoughtful, perceptive manner the prob-lems, subjects and issues of her experience; exhibitdispositions of thinking (ir..tellectual curiosity, open-mindedness, flexibility, objectivity, respect for otherviewpoints, persistence, intellectual honesty andskepticism);

demonstrate knowledge of the methods of logicalinquiry;

demonstrate skill in applying these methods in herprofessional role;

- create a classroom environment where thinkingcan flouish;

create a classroom environment which nurtures thedispositions of good thinking;

demonstrate teaching strategies that integrate boththe dispositions and the skills of effective thinkinginto the curriculum (in classroom discussion andquestioning strategies, in instructional strategies, ac-tivities and assignments, and in student assessmentlevaluat:on tools and techniques);

- demonstrate the applicability of effective thinkingskills and dispositions to other disciplines and areasof the students' lives.

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II. Recommendations for PreserviceEducation- thinking skills should be thoroughly integratedinto all aspects of the teacher preparation program;- teacher education faculty should model effectivethinking strategies in their own instruction;- subject matter methods courses should explicitlydetail the integration of thinking skills within andacross disciplines;- teacher education students should observe effec-tive teaching incorporating a thinking skills em-phasis early and often in their educational program;- the modeling of and use of effective thinking skillsstrategies should be a priority skill during studentteaching, induction periods and other classroomapplications;- beginning teacher tests and induction programsshould place a 'tigh value on the applicant's reason-ing and thinking skills and their application to theclassroom.

I,

III. Recommendations for InserviceEducation- any district considering a thinking skill emphasismust make a long-term commitment of time, moneyand resources to schools which foster student think-ing;

- a long-range vision is necessary to incorporate athinking skills approach into the total schoolclimate;- induction programs should exist in which newteachers are assisted by mentor teachers skilled in"teaching for thinking";- inservice training in critical thinking should be de-signed and based on the needs of teachers;/ - teachers should be involved in the developmentand planning of a long-term inservice program;- teachers should be given time to meet with col-leagues to observe, learn and share effectivestrategies with each other;- teachers should have access to thinking skill mater-ials, books, programs, and skill training packages;- a district-level or building-level committee or taskforce should guide the development of this em-phasis in the school.

Developing critical thinking in the "strong" sensethatfundamental characteristic of the lifelong learnerwilltake time. This is an evolving process which builds in thechild as he or she grows, acquires more knowledge, facesmore complex issues and problems. In encouraging anddeveloping this critical spirit, we are not only fostering acharacter inclined to seek reasons and truth, we also fosterwhat Siegal has described as "the power and the ability tocontrol one's life . . . empower(ing) the student to controlhis or her own destiny." Sucn a commitment involves asustained effort to provide teachers with the necessarysupports that nurture the critical spirit of all the school'sinhabitants.

tt I

D. Organizational ConsiderationsThe case for integrating critical thinking skills through-

out the elementary and secondary curriculum is beingmade around the country. In addition to a growing recogni-tion of just how unprepared many of our present studentsare to face the complexities of their world, there is a recog-nition that traditional views of teaching and learning areinadequate in providing the tools necessary for dealingwith the masses of information, propaganda, conflictingideologies and points of view students will have to effec-tively deal with if they are truly to have "power and controlof their owr destinies."

An emphasis on critical thinking requires fundamentalorganizational change not only in a reconceptualized viewof teaching, but in all the fundamental elements of school-ing: in organizational commitment to the concept, in thecurriculum, in texts and instructional materials, in student(and teacher) assessment, and in the resources necessaryto do the job. Perhaps most essential is organizationalcommitment, for the extent of that commitment will deter-mine the success of any system-wide initiative towardscritical thinking as an educational ideal. The level of com-mitment determines the support of the teachers (and stu-dents) in the process, and it determines the allocation of re-sources for the endeavor. Such resources include:

TimeA move toward a learning environment which

nurtures the critical spirit requires a long-termcommitment. Teachers will need time to learnnew techniques to add to their teaching reper-toires. Long-term staff development (developedand designed with teacher involvement) is cru-cial. This involves a commitment of resourcesfor teacher release time, for training, for moreplanning time for teachers to adequately servestudent needs, for teachers to be able to conferregularly with each other. Instant results will notoccur, but gradual, more meaningful change canoccur with sustained effort. While many mightargue that emphasizing critical thinking skillswill take too much time away from content mas-tery, the counter-argument is that using criticalthinking skills with content enables students tounderstand, analyze, synthesize and evaluate thecont tnt in such a way to make it "theirs."This re-duces the amount of time spent on rote memori-zation. Students will also retain the informationlonger if they have a deeper unaerstanding of it incontext rather than memorizing discrete bits ofinformation.

N Funds

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Financial resources will be required for a shifttoward integrating critical thinking instruction.The training of teachers and administrators, if itis to be meaningful, has to be long-term. Moneyfor teacher release time, for staff to attend confer-ences, for instructional materials, for stipendsfor teachers for duties beyond the regular school 49

50

day (critical thinking committees, staff develop-ment activities, curriculum development, help-ing other teachers, etc.) will be needed in addi-tion to any revisions in textbooks, tests or othercurricular considerations. Caution should beexercised in adapting slick pre-packaged pro-grams which claim to be the "one way" to teachcritical thinking. There is no one way, but anumber of extremely effective ways that teacherscan improve their effectiveness in encouragingcritical thinking skills. Teachers need to have abasic and sound understanding of the conceptand the principles of critical thinking and, fromthere, can adapt their current strategies to fostersuch skills. Resourcefulness, autonomy, creativ-ity and discretion are the fundamental ingre-dients for turning even the most rigid curriculuminto an exciting learning adventure.This requiresadequate financial support.

Class Size

In order to most effectively teach criticalthinking, current class sizes must be smaller. Al-ready overwhelmed teachers teaching in over-crowded classrooms cannot be expected to copewith additional demands on their time. Sizerstates that teachers must have time to effectivelyencourage and develop thinking. A teacher has tohave the time to learn how each child thinks. Thiscan only be done in classes of reasonable num-bers of students. The discussing, the coaching,the inquiry each child needs to experience to ef-fectively develop critical habits of thought is pos-sible only with a smaller teacher pupil ratio thanis now the norm.

StandardsAll of the reports calling for education reform

address the central problem of declining stan-dards, but Sizer, Goodlad and Boyer have reallyemphasized the imperative to emphasize criticalthinking. Boyer recently called on the publicschools to double their efforts to "develop withineach student and the ability to communicate ef-fectively, to compute accurately, and to thinkcritically." He notes that because of "in-adequacies in the educational establishment,"corporations are going "beyond basics . . . andteaching analytical skills and critical thinking."Calls for stricter curriculum requirements needto address the issue of critical thinking in the cur-riculum, and the overemphasis of standardizedachievement scores which primarily focus onmemory and rote recall as sole measures of ac-countability.

TestsRecognizing that 95 percent of our standar-

dized test items test for memory and recall, statessuch as Connecticut, Michigan and Californiaare reassessing and revising their assessment in-struments. As mentioned in the section on assess-ment of critical thinking skills, it is possible to re-

design test instruments to incorporate criticalthinking skills even in multiple choice items.While multiple choice tests can be designed totap minimal and discrete critical thinking skills,the essay test is a better indicator of a student'sability to perform extended analysis. Extremecare must be taken not to perpetuate some of thedilemmas in the existing assessme.tt process. AsBerliner (1984) notes, "school districts andstates fail schoolteachers by choosing achieve-ment tests that do not match the curriculateachers are teaching. If a district has been usingthe Addicon-Wesley math textbook, for exam-ple, and the Stanford Achievement Test as ameasure of math achievement, only 47 percentof the test items will be familiar to the students-53 percent of the items will not have been co-vered in the textbook. This kind of situationforces teachers, who are held accountable for thetest scores, to teach to the test for mere survival."

The testing issue for critical thinking assess-ment will be fraught with the same kinds of prob-lems unless there is great care taken to developvalid and reliable measures of students' criticalthinking skills, to assure that the tests correlatewith the instructional materials being used, andto provide adequate preparation and training ofadministrators and teachers. Some states are re-vising student tests in massive efforts to incorpo-rate critical thinking skills without a comprehen-sive program of staff development to trainteachers in developing critical thinking skillsthroughout the curriculum. Sucks approaches aredestined for disaster when teachers are, in effect,set up for failure by being held accountable fordeveloping student skills which they have had lit-tle or no training in developing.

As mentioned, the AFT supports the use ofstandardized tests as a measure of educationalperformance, and the use of fair and objectivetests free of cultural and racial bias. 'These testsshould relate to the curriculum. They should re-late to overall learning goals. Teachers need tobe involved in the development of new tests to in-tegrate critical thinking skills into subject areas,for they bring to the endeavor the strengths ofknowledge of content and knowledge of chil-dren's cognitive abilities. Teachers should be pro-vided with adequate training in developing andassessing critical thinking skills and in develop-ing teacher-made tests to assess these skills.

Texts and Instructional MaterialsStudies show that teachers use textbooks and

commercial instruction materials for a signifi-cant proportion of their instructional time. Thesematerials, consequently, determine the sub-stance of the curriculum. The recent reformmovement has highlighted the decline intextbook quality, the "dumbing down" of Amer-ican textbooks which has occurred at the elemen-

5'1

tary, secondary, and university levels. Simple vo-cabulary, a decline in the quality of writing andpoor instructional design are among the prob-lems cited. These problems have grave implica-tions for education in general, and for criticalthinking in particular, since these skills havenever been comprehensively or systematicallyincorporated into the activities and questions forstudents or teachers. As the critical thinkingmovement gains in momentum, the demand forquality materials to support this movement willincrease, resulting in pressure on textbook com-panies to revise existing materials and developnew ones. Teacher input should be sought forthese reviF'ons.

Committees/Staff Resources

Ongoing critical thinking committees can pro-vide teachers with professional growth oppor-tunities to develop and enhance their own criticalthinking skills and their application to the class-room. Rosenholtz and Smylie (1983) have foundthat a major impediment to improving teachers'effectiveness is their professional isolation fromcolleagues. They say that teachers acquire andperfect their teaching skills more readily in set-tings where there is a mutual sharing of ideas,materials and problems among colleagues andthat teachers are motivated to attempt newstrategies if they believe they will increase theirability to help students learn. Teachers have tobelieve their efforts will have a positive effect onstudent progress and need to have the support ofcolleagues and administrators in their efforts toimprove and enhance their skills

An ongoing supportive committee can sur-mount the obstacles of the single inservice ses-sion by providing a forum for professionaldialogue and for experimenting and risk taking.A group of teachers in a Chicago suburb beganresearch on the issue of criticdl thinking thateventually led to a district-wide thinking skillsprogram. With financial support from their dis-trict, a nucleus of teachers began by investigat-ing two critical thinking skills in summer work-shops: making analogies and making inferences.In the fall, summer workshop participants beganto share some of their strategies with colleagues.Teachers worked together throughout the year,and in the second summer of planning, theyadded new staff and new strategies. That yearthey began a district-wide program using mem-bers of the committee to lead inservice training.Their goal was to "make teachers aware of howthey were already using many effectivetechniques and how these and other strategiescould improve thinking, and how they fit intoparticular curricula." The program was success-ful because the teachers were involved in the pro-cess, and therefore they were invested in the pro-gram. This is an important conclusion. Too often

school administrators are tempted to mandate apotentially good program without meaningfulteacher involvement.

Change in an organizaticn is a challenging, oftenthreatening word. The changes in education called for in areal commitment to critical thinking are enormous. Theywill have profound effects on all aspects of an educationalsystem if they are truly to be meaningful changes. How anorganization goes about approaching change is crucial.The extent of bureaucracy in many large systems miti-gates against changes initiated at the "top" ever being im-plemented at the "bottom ."Without staff involvement, thetop management doesn't get the advantage of the from-the-trenches point o' view, teacher-perceived strengthsand weaknesses, of suggestions for how a plan could beenhanced, modified, or improved to prevent problemsfrom developing. Japanese companies, through the helpof American businessman Deming, have capitalized onthis concept of involving employees in decision makingand getting feedback from them on improving the system.Employees, through a structured participation process,make recommendations to management based on theirown expertise in working within "the system."

Peters and Waterman in In Search of Excellence (1983)describe the secrets of success in America's best-runcompanies. At the top of their list of effective manage-ment practice is that of treating workers with respect andviewing them as the most important asset of the organiza-tion. This involves the encouragement of innovation, au-tonomy and experimentation, and "rich, informal two-way communication." Whatever the vehicle, new ways ofapproaching change in schools are necessary.

In their school effectiveness research, Purkey andSmith (1982) concluded that consensus, collaboration,cooperation and collegiality in school decision-makingdifferentiated the effective school from the ineffective.Such decision-making "from below" is simply much moreeffective than "top down" mandating with professionals.Schools need to to team efforts. Those that achieve thegreatest gains in student learning are collaborative placescharacterized by frequent professional dialogue. This re-quires a change in the school administration from a tradi-tionally autocratic and militaristic approach toward a moredemocratic, participatory management system which in-volves teachers in the decision making process.

Besides committees to develop, expand and enhanceprofessional practice in critical thinking skills, there willbe many decisions in the transition process that teachersneed to have an active role in discussing, defining and de-ciding, from textbook selection and curriculm develop-ment to school testing policies, to training new teachers(who continue to graduate from teacher education pro-grams without any foundation in critical thinking as an es-sential element of professional practice). The bottom lineis that the profession has to be proactive in this movement,not simply reactive.

E. Critical Thinking: Transformingan Ideal into a Reality

The following list summarizes the essentials for an ef-

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fective integration of critical thinking skills into the K-12curriculum. A movement toward critical thinking as aneducational ideal is a comprehensive process involvingnot just small increment:- change, but a concerted effortthroughout the entire educational process, Reform in thisarea calls for bold, decisive ane immediate action in thefollowing areas:

Essentials for Effective Integration of CriticalThinking

I. The role of the teachera vision of teacher as professionalvaluing the teacher as critica' thinkerincreasing professional autonomyincreasing professional involvent and deci-sion-making in policyrevising our conception of accountability

a involvement in development of standards ofpractice in critical thinking

II. The education of the teacher

A. Preserviceinfusion of critical thinking throughout thecurriculum

instructors who model critical thinking prac-tice

intensive field experience involving observa-tion of master teachers and supervised prac-tice

B. Inservicela training designed and based on the needs of

teachers

teachers involved in the development andplanning of inservice

access to coursework in the application of crit-ical thinking in the disciplinesquality long term staff development whichcapitalizes on teacher expertise and extendsexisting skills

regular time to meet with colleagues to ob-serve and learn from each other's successesand faiiures

access to critical thinking materials (booksprograms, skills training packages)

III. The structure of the organization

A. Commitmenta commitment to an environment conduciveto fostering critical thinking

NI a realization of the magnitude of the commit-ment involved

high expectations for improving and enhanc-ing the thinking skills of all studentsa long range vision of moving toward criticalthinking

a valuing of the teachers and students ascritical thinkers

B. Adequate time for critical thinkinginstruction

teacher time for preparation and planningteacher time to consult with colleaguestime to train staffadequate time to evaluate effectiveness

C. Adequate funding of critical thinkinginitiatives

funds to thoroughly train staff (long termwith follow-up)funds for teacher release time

I funds for staff to attend conferencesfunds for instructional materialsfunds for after-school committee work

D. Class size considerationsteacher time to effectively encourage anddevelop thinking demands small class sizestime to learn how each child thinks demandsopportunities for teachers to work with smallgroups and to provide individual assistance(teacher aides could provide this time)

E. Increased and improved standardsconsideration of critical thinking instructionin analysis of existing standards

I an emphasis on critical thinking goals trans-lated into revised standardsan examination of current effectiveness in de-veloping student thinking

F. Test revisionan analysis of critical thinking skills In exist-ing testing programsa revision, where necessary, of test emphasisto incorporate critical thinking

provisions for teachers to use essay tests incritical thinking assessment (time, aides)involvement of teachers in the developmentof assessment measures

G. Texts and instructional materialsa teacher involvement in text evaluation and

selectioneducation of publishers on need to incorpo-rate critical thinking into their materialstexts coordinated and matched with appro-priate tests

selection committees that choose materialson the basis of thinking demanded of students

H. Critical thinking committeesappropriate support and funding for ongoingcommittee workadequate time for teachers to meet and con-sult with each otherconsideration and implementation of com-mittee recommendations

I. Community involvementeducation of relevant groups on the goals and

59

purposes of enhancing student think; ngabilitiesassistance for parents to foster cognitivegrowth and critical thinking in home-schoolpartnershipsliaisons with business and communitygroups to develop opporturCties for real lifeapplication of critical thinking skills

J. Research considerationsthe development of future research programsand activities to support critical thinkinginstructionfunding to further research and research-based trainingpartnerships between schools and univer-sities with teachers involved as actionresearchers

The education reform movement provides a rich oppor-tunity and environment for change. The challenge will bemaking the right changes. The case for fostering thinkingskills in our schools was never stronger. Comprehensiveprinciples of rational thought and reasoned judgment arethe survival skills of the future. An individual with the crit-ical spirit, with a commitment to the objective evaluationof evidence, a willingness to conform judgment to mind-ful principles and a disposition to seek reasons for what issaid and done, has the potential for unlimited contribu-tions to the world in which he or she lives. The magnitudeof the issues and the problems facing us in our world re-quire such reasoned judgment and rational thought. This isthe essence of hope for the future: better answers and so-lutions for some of the profound challenges of the day. Ifthe schools do not rise to meet this need, what social in-stitution will? And if this is not the fundamental task andultimate justificaticn for public education, what is?

60 53

APPENDICES

Appendix ASample Questions in Various Disciplines

The following subject-specific questions have been de-veloped as an example of the kinds of questions that canbe formulated which foster thinking critically aboutcourse content. Bloom's taxonomy has been used as themodel here, but only as an example of a tool useful in pro-viding a frameworkor description ofcognitive pro-cesses from which varying types of questions can bedeveloped. The taxonomy should not be used as a prescrip-tion for teaching and developing lists of questions in eachcategory. As discussed in the text, there are misleading impli-cations in the hierarchy: that there should be an orderlyprogression from one level to the next, and that one cate-gory is superior to the next. Its usefulness is as aframework for enhancing the teacher's questioning reper-toire when the various cognitive processes are consideredin the context of a lesson or discussion.

Planning for Thinking I: Social Studies - H.S.Topic: The U.S. Constitution

knowledge: (eliciting information, testing recall): Whowrote the U.S. Constitution and why?comprehension: (translating, interpreting, extrapolat-ing): Summarize the history of events leading no to thewriting of the Constitution.

application: (applying information to new situations): Ifyou were to write a constitution for the senior class, howwould you go about writing it?analysis: (breaking down into component parts, forms):Contrast the Constitution with the Pledge of Allegiance.How are these two documents the same? Different?synthesis: (combining patterns into a new pattern): Sincethe Constitution was written over two centuries ago, howwould you change or improve it knowing what you knowin the 1980's?

evaluation: (judging according to some set of criteria):Has the Constitution served this country well? Justify withexamples.

Planning for Thinking II:Social Studies - ElementaryTopic: The Pled-- of Allegiance*knowledge: Say the Pledge.comprehension: Tell in your own words what "al-legiance" and "indivisible" mean. Paraphrase the Pledge.application: What does liberty (or justice) on the play-ground mean? To what groups or people do you owe al-legiance? What else is indivisible in the same sense as ournation?analysis: What parts of the Pledge refer to you? to our na-tion9 "ompare the Pledge to another pledgehow are

54 they the same or different?

61

synthesis: Write a pledge to your family that all memberswould be willing :o sign. Write a class pledge.evaluation: Should every nation have a pledge? Supportyour position. Should everyone :13, the Pledge? Supportyour position. How could the Pledge be improved? Why?*(This example is taken from Hunter, Madeline. Increas-ing Your Teaching Effectiveness. Pitman Learning, Inc.,Palo Alto, CA: 1981.)

Planning for Thinking III: Art - High SchoolTopic: Pottery

knowledge: What are the necessary ingredients of potteryclay? How much of each ingredient is needed?comprehension: How does the centrifugal force of thepottery wheel assist the artist? Explain this process.application: What other types of art does gravity have aneffect on? Give examples.

analysis: Describe the types of hand pressure necessary towork with large bulky types of pottery and small finepieces.

synthesis: Take a piece of clay and mold it into a designthat suits your emotions, your mood today.evaluation: Critique your creation according to how wellit meets the criteria of representing your mood today.

Planning for Thinking IV: Art - ElementaryTopic: Drawing Your Body

knowledge: If you wanted to make a life-size picture ofyourself, how would you do it?

comprehension: Is your cutout exactly like you or L it amirror reflection of you? Why?

application: If you wanted to make a life-size picture ofyour dog, how would you go about doing it?analysis: How would you obtain life-size measurementsof your fingers? eyes? hair? Which is easier to measureand draw? Why?

synthesis: Make a life-size picture of a child your age whomight live on the moon. What would he/she wear? Whatkind of moon shoe would you make?evaluation: Critique one of your self-portraits. Doesit look like you? Why or why not? How could it beimproved?

Planning for Thinking V:Mathematics - High SchoolTopic: Distance

knowledge: Where do you look on a map to determine thedistance from point A to point B?

comprehension: What is the purpose of and the idea be-hind the use of a legend on a map? How is the scale ofmiles used?application: What other types of reference materialswould a legend be useful for? Give examples.analysis: Outline the steps you would follow to determinethe distance between New York City and New Orleans.

synthesis: Using the map to determine the distance be-tween New York and New Orleane 'a miles and then deter-'mine how to compute the mileage into metric measure-ment.evaluation: How useful would a scale of miles be to you ifyou were to take a long distance trip. Under what situa-tions would you judge the scale to be most useful?

Planning for Thinking VI:Mathematics - ElementaryTopic: Subtractionknowledge: Recite the subtraction facts, numbers onethrough ten.comprehension: Please describe to the class how to findout how many more boys than girls are in our classroom.application: If you were in a store and the cashier told youthe total was more money than you had with you, whatwould you do?analysis; Explain the difference between subtracting, ad-ding, dividing, and multip?ying and give an example ofwhen you would need to 'use each.synthesis: Using the Candyland game as a base, create anew game using only subtraction skills in it.evaluation: Which is the best way to quickly subtract:memory, fingers, calculator, abacus? And why?

Planning for Thinking VII:Science - High SchoolTopic: The Digestive System

knowledge: Draw a picture of the body's digestive tractand label all parts.comprehension: Describe the process of digesting anapple. What happens from the time you eat the fruit untilthe body completes the process?application: Explain what would happen if a child acci-dentally swallowed a penny. How would the digestive sys-tem respond?analysis: On your diagram labeling the digestive system,explain what are the functions of each of the parts labeled.

synthe.is: Combine the functions of the digestive s) stemand the neurological system and explain how these twosystems work to complement each other.evaluation: If the digestive system were a machine, howwould you rate its efficiency?

Planning for Thinking VIII:Science - ElementaryTopic: Growing Plants

knowledge: Here is a diagram of the potato plant. Identifythe parts of the plant by placing its name next to the part.comprehension: Can you describe the process of yourplant's growth from the potato in the jar of water to theleafy plant you have now.application: You have been nurturing your plant with careand water and sunlight. What kind of nurturing do humansneed?analysis: Describe what happens in the roots of the plant,in the growth of the leaves, in the photosynthesis process:What are the effects of sunlight, water, care on your plant?

synthesis: Develop a step-by-step ran for plant care-taking that a new student might use, based on yourexperience.evaluation: As a result of your experience growing thispotato plant, would you say that tender loving care makesa difference in the plant's growth? Justify your response.

Planning for Thinking IX:Language Arts - High SchoolTopic: The Scarlet Letterknowledge: State the main characters and the location ofthe story.

comprehension: Summarize in three paragraphs theevents in the Scarlet Letter.application: If this situation of Hester Prynne were to hap-pen today, what would happen to her?analysis: How was this scandal viewed by the society ofthe time? by Hester herself? by the father of the child? bythe child?synthesis: If it were necessary to censure someone todayfor inappropriate behavior, describe what kinds of conse-quences would occur.evaluation: In your opinion, was the ostracism of HesterPrynne appropriate and justifiable by the society of thetime period? Why of why not?

Planning for Thinking X:Language Arts - ElementaryTopic: Tom Sawyer

knowledge: List the names of all Tom's friends andrelatives.

comprehension: What happened when Tom ran awayfrom home?application: If you ran away from home, how would yourexperience be similar or different from Tom's.analysis: Compare Tom's view of his run-away to hisaunt's view. Why did each feel this way?synthesis: Write a new ending to this story describingwhat might have happened to Tom if he never came backhome.evaluation: Who is the wisest character of this story. Jus-tify your choice.

Planning for Thinking XI:Music - ElementaryTopic: Folk Songs

knowledge: Give an e,;ample of a contemporary folksong.

comprehension: What does th expression "folk song"mean? Why are some ,:ongs called "folk songs" and someare not?application: If you were going to write a folk song aboutsomething in your life, what would it be?analysis: Here are 20 contemporary songs. List them bycategory (folk, rock, jazz, blue.,, etc.)synthesis: Using the (tune) music from Puff the MagicDragon, write a folk song about something important inyour life.

evaluation: Going by our definition of what a folk song is,assess whether your new song qualifies.

6255

planning for Thinking XII:Music - High SchoolTopic: The School Spring Musicalknowledge: Make a list of main characters of our play andthe type of person (characteristics, personality, etc.) weneed fo.. each part.

comprehension: Summarize the play for the school pro-gram (no more than a one-page summary).

application: What would happen if any of our leadingcharacters were to be sick on opening night. How wouldyou plan for that event?analysis: Develop a list of procedures needed for lighting,for sound, for staging, for costuming.synthesis: Develop a checklist of every possible consider-ation for the play to be used for dress rehearsal.evaluation: Determine whether your play planning hasbeen sufficient on the basis of smoothness at dress rehear-sal. What needs to be added/changed for opening night?

Planning for Thinking XIII:Physical Education - ElementaryTopic: Doing Somersaultsknowledge: What is the best type of clothing for doingsomersaults?

comprehension: Explain the necessary steps for complet-ing a safe somersault.

application: Show us how to do a somersault in the safestmanner possible.

analysis: Teach a younger child how to do a somersault bydemonstrating and verbally describing the steps at thesame time.

synthesis: Develop a routine to music using the somer-sault in combination with any other activity of yourchoice.

evaluation: Watch your team perform individual somer-saults and rate each one on the basis of form and safety, ona scale from one to ten.

Planning for Thinking XIV:Physical Education - High SchoolTopic: Swimming Safety

knowledge: Before entering the water, identify the poolsafety rules to your team.

comprehension: Explain why each of the pool rules arenecessary.

application: What kind of authority does a lifeguardhave? What other types of authority in society do we haveto obey as if our life depended on it?

analysis: Describe the steps you would take if you were tosee a swimmer in trouble.

synthesis: How could you improve on the rules as they arenow written?

evaluation: Do you feel the rules are effective? fair? com-prehensible? Support your position.

Planning for Thinking XV:Vocational Education - ElementaryTopic: Careers - Helping Professionalsknowledge: Give examples of helping professionals in

56 our society.

comprehension: Why do we call professionals such asdoctors and teachers "helping professionals?"application: Here is a list of various jobs in our communi-ty. Decide whether these jobs are helping professions.Why did you choose these?synthesis: Write a job description of an ideal teacher.evaluation: Of the helping professionals you know per-sonally, identify those that you think best fit the qualitiesthat you have identified and explain why.

Planning for Thinking XVI:Vocational Education High SchoolTopic: The Job Interview

knowledge: List the steps necessary in preparing for the jobinterview; list the criteria for an effective job interview.

comprehension: Why is it important to study the com-pany and the nature of the position you are applying for be-fore the job interview?application: If you were the interviewer for this position,what questions would you ask you in the interview?analysis: Describe the considerations you need to takeinto account: (1) before the interview, (2) at the beginningof the interview, (3) at the end of the interview, and (4) fol-lowing up lite interview.

synthesis: Create an interview scenario answer!ng thequestion' you have developed (see "application") as theinterviewer in your ideal of an effective interview.evaluation: Have a classmate role play the job interviewwith you, each taking the role of the interviewer and inter-viewee. Evaluate your performance based on the criteriaof an effective interview.

Appendix B

Analysis

Argument

Assumption

CategorizeCompare

ConceptConceptualizeConclusion

Consistency

ContradictionCriteria

Criticize

Define

Deduction

63

Definitions of CriticalThinking TermsSeparation of a thing into the parts orelements which it is composed

Discourse intended to persuade;reasons offered in proof

Something presupposed or taken forgrantedTo put into a division used to classify

To examine for likenesses anddifferencesA thought, notion or idea

The power to form ideas or concepts

A judgment or decision reached afterdeliberationAgreement or harmony in parts or ofdifferent things

Inconsistency or discrepancyA standard or test of the value ofsomething

To judge or review critically; carefuland exact evaluation and judgmentTo clarify or outline the character ormeaning of somethingThe deriving of a conclusion byreasoning

Egocentric

Evaluate

Evidence

Explain

Fallacious

Generalize

Hypothesize

Implication

Illogical

Inconsistency

Induction

Inference

Thinking or acting with the view thatone's self is the center, object and normof all experienceTo appraise, to judge according to somecriteriaThe data on which judgment orconclusions might be based; proof orprobabilityTo make clear; to give the reason orcause ofReasoning based on a falsehood;deceptive, misleading, unsoundTo reach a general conclusion on thebasis of particular instances; establish-ing connections and relationshipsamong otherwise unrelated pieces ofinformationTo make an assumption, to test its logi-cal or empirical consequences, topredict in order to provide a basis forfuller investigationInvolve or indicate by inference, asso-ciation or necessary consequence ratherthan direct statement; to hint at orexpress indirectlyContradicting or disregarding theprinciples of logic; senselessLack of uniformity, congruence ofreasoning; erratic; illogicalReasoning from a part of a whole orfrom particular instances to a generalconclusionTo derive as a conclusion from facts,observations or premises; derivedfrom reasoning

Interpretation

IrrationalLogical

Observing

Organizing

Prediction

Prejudice

Premise

Rational

Reasoning

Relevant

Synthesize

Theorize

Uncritical

To explain the meaning of; to under-stand according to individual belief,judgment or interestContrary to reason; illogicalAbility to reason clearly, in accordancewith the nature of logic; consistentThe gathering of infommtion by notingthrough careful attention to factsor occurencesTo arrange or form into a complete orfunctioning whole, to set up a structureTo anticipate beforehand; to determinein advance; applying generalizationsfrom one situation to anotherAn adverse judgement or opinionformed before sufficient knowledge orexamination of factsA statement of fact made or impliedas the basis of an argument

Having or exercising the ability toreason; logical

Drawing conclusions or inferencesfrom observations, facts or hypothesesBearing upon the matter at hand; havingreference to the case under consideration

To combine the parts or elements intoa whole

To form a theory (a principle offered toexplain observed facts)

Thoughtless; accepting withoutreservation

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