How can critical and analytical thinking be improved so that they mimic real-life research and prepare students for university courses? The data sets obtained in students' experiments were used to encourage students to evaluate results, experiments, and published information critically. Examples show that students can learn to compare and defend…

Developing critical literacy skills in students from an early age is vital and should be every teacher's goal. When students are taught how to evaluate a text in critical terms, they are empowered to consider and analyze the influences that are shaping their thoughts and ideas. Strong critical thinking skills enable students to question and…

Because in his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln said, "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain," and "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," it is accurate to report that he spoke the words "perish from the earth" and "died in vain." But if his 1864…

Scientifically literate citizens need to understand how scientists evaluate competing explanations. Likewise, students must learn to critically evaluate the quality of scientific knowledge and weigh alternative explanations. Regrettably, high school graduates often are not critically evaluative about scientific topics. To help remedy that, this…

This study investigates a project-based learning (PBL) approach to teaching evolution to inform efforts in teacher preparation. Data analysis of a secondary biology educator teaching evolution through a PBL approach illuminated: (1) active student voice, which allowed students to reflect on their positioning on evolution and consider multiple…

Showing simply how statistical thinking can help in weighing evidence and reaching decisions can be useful both as an introduction to an extended presentation of statistical theory and as an introduction to a looser discussion of the nature and value of data.

The current dominant approach on the assessment of critical thinking takes as a starting point a conception of criticality that does not commit to any substantive view or context of meaning concerning what issues are relevant to be critical about in society or in life. Nevertheless, as a detailed examination of the identification of assumptions…

In this theoretical essay, the author addresses the existence of divergent evidence, portraying both competence and lack of competence in a fundamental realm of higher order thinking--causal and scientific reasoning--and explores the educational implications. Evidence indicates that these higher order reasoning skills are not ones that can be…

The "paradox of indoctrination" has proven to be a persistent problem in discussions of the cultivation of autonomy through education. In short, if indoctrination means instilling beliefs without reasons, and if children lack the rational capacity to evaluate reasons, how can that capacity be cultivated without indoctrination? Some educational…

In this article, the author examines the misuse of the idea of holistic education. Western culture--and not just science and technology, but finance, politics, arts, crafts, and professions too--is not built on holistic insight or understanding, but on analytic thinking. Therefore, logically, successful teaching in all of the above must be created…

How do we construct abstract ideas like justice, mathematics, or time-travel? In this paper we investigate whether mental representations that result from physical experience underlie people's more abstract mental representations, using the domains of space and time as a testbed. People often talk about time using spatial language (e.g., a "long"…

The purposes of this study were to clarify how social problem-solving processes develop and to identify developmentally-sensitive intervention components for children's aggression. Elementary and junior-high school Japanese students (N = 1100) from urban public schools participated in the present investigation. Their alternative thinking skills,…

Children's evaluations of what people communicate about themselves were examined in three studies with a total of 296 participants (aged four to 12). Participants heard scenarios in which characters' motivations to reveal truthful information were systematically manipulated to examine (1) children's understanding that people do not always reveal…

Examples of nurses in ancient Greek literature--Euryclea in Homer's "Odyssey," Cilissa in Aeschylus'"Oresteia," and the nurse in Euripides'"Medea"--illustrate the personal commitment in judgment and the obligation of nurses to move from doubt and opinion toward knowledge and certitude. (SK)

Children of 4 to 10 years of age were given 2 class inclusion tasks. Younger children's performance was inflated by guessing. Scores were higher in the marked task than in the unmarked task as a result of differing rates of inclusion logic. Children's verbal justifications closely approximated estimates of their true competence. (GLR)