Understanding how students reason with logical implication is essential for supporting students' construction of increasingly powerful ways of reasoning in proofs-based mathematics courses. We report on the results of an NSF-funded case study with a mathematics major enrolled in an introductory proofs course. We investigate the epistemological…

This full paper considers how collaborative discourse can reveal ways upper-class engineering students mechanically reason about engineering concepts. Argumentation and negotiation during collaborative, multimodal discourse using speech and gestures helps establish common ground between learners and fosters reflection on their conceptual…

STEM integration holds significant promise for supporting students in making connections among ideas and ways of thinking that might otherwise remain "siloed." Nevertheless, activities that integrate disciplines can present challenges to learners. In particular, they can require students to shift epistemological framing, demands that can…

In this exploratory study we considered how one teacher's understanding of proportional reasoning related to his teaching. We used Epistemic Network Analysis to consider the teachers' knowledge organization and connections between knowledge resources as a way to make sense of his understanding. Then, we examined how his understanding was reflected…

This conceptual study will question the ways different epistemological conceptions of citizenship and education influence the characteristics of civic education. While offering a new theoretical framework, the different undercurrent conceptions that lay at the base of the civic education process shall be brought forth. With the use of the method…

The levels of critical thinking proposed by R. Paul are described and his theory is compared with that of the procedural knowing approach of M. F. Belenky, B. M. Clinchy, N. R. Goldberger, and J. M. Tarule (1986). The distinction between strong sense and weak sense critical thinking is unique to Paul and central to his theory. Critical thinking in…

Integrating critical thinking and reasoning skills with content in the humanities and the social science curricula at the postsecondary level invites students to become co-participants in discovering and constructing knowledge as members of a learning "community." Readers of the research literature on critical thinking confront many…

This paper presents two general approaches to the assessment of knowledge structures, the first of which entails the building of empirical evidence to support cognitive theory. This type of assessment is concerned with attempting to prove the existence of various knowledge structures; that is, evidence that leads to the construct validity of these…

The Minnesota Test of Critical Thinking-II (MTCT) has been designed to measure both critical thinking (CT) skills and the willingness to evaluate critically arguments that are congruent with one's own goals and beliefs. The MTCT uses a taxonomy of CT skills derived from the American Philosophical Association's definition of critical thinking.…

It is important to incorporate visual thinking into science instruction. Imagination and perception play vital roles in scientific inquiry. Metaphors, like perceptions, are drawn from common experiences and are a means to anchor scientists' thought processes in generating a pattern that bridges the gap between the seen and the unseen. Metaphors…

This paper examines the problem that the beliefs with which preservice teachers leave colleges of education are virtually the same as when they entered. This issue is addressed by establishing that preservice teachers' belief formation regarding teaching, learning, students, and content should be a rational rather than nonrational or irrational…

At least some of the reasoning processes involved in argumentation rely on inferences which do not fit within the traditional categories of inductive or deductive reasoning. The reasoning processes involved in plausibility judgments have neither the formal certainty of deduction nor the imputed statistical probability of induction. When utilizing…

This paper presents a model of adult reasoning that is consistent with a set of related psychological theories of learning known collectively as constructivism. Three general factors comprise the model: (1) personal epistemology (defined as beliefs about learning, dispositions toward thinking, and assumptions about knowledge itself); (2) sustained…

This study investigated the relationship in conceptual change scores between members of dyads paired for a photosynthesis simulation exercise. The relationship between an individual's epistemological sophistication and understanding of photosynthesis was also examined. The sample consisted of 255 biological sciences majors enrolled in a biology…

Seldom are college students introduced to theories that describe how they and other students change intellectually during their college years. Two epistemological perspectives on cognitive development in college students and how they can be presented to students are examined in this paper. The first perspective is William Perry's forms of…