Promoting Critical-Analytic Thinking in Children and Adolescents at Home and in School

Situating Higher-Order, Critical, and Critical-Analytic Thinking in Problem- and Project-Based Learning Environments: A Systematic Review

Critical thinking (CT) is widely regarded as an important competence to obtain in education. Students’ exposure to problems and collaboration have been proven helpful in promoting CT processes. These elements are present in student-centered instructional environments such as problem-based and project-based learning (P(j)BL). Next to CT, also higher-order thinking (HOT) and critical-analytic thinking (CAT) contain elements that are present in and fostered by P(j)BL. However, HOT, CT, and CAT definitions are often ill-defined and overlap. The present systematic review, therefore, investigated how HOT, CT, and CAT were conceptualized in P(j)BL environments. Another aim of this study was to review the evidence on the effectiveness of P(j)BL environments in fostering HOT, CT, or CAT. Results demonstrated an absence of CAT in P(j)BL research and a stronger focus on CT processes than CT dispositions (i.e., trait-like tendency or willingness to engage in CT). Further, while we found positive effects of P(j)BL on HOT and CT, there was a lack of clarity and consistency in how researchers conceptualized and measured these forms of thinking. Also, essential components of P(j)BL were often overlooked. Finally, we identified various design issues in effect studies, such as the lack of control groups, that bring the reported outcomes of those investigations into question.

Philosophy for Adolescents: Using Fables to Support Critical Thinking and Advanced Language Skills

PURPOSE

In this clinical focus article, we discuss the nature of critical thinking, its importance for adolescents, and its interaction with later language development. We also introduce a language arts program, Philosophy for Adolescents. The program aims to support critical thinking, narrative and expository discourse, and the use of complex syntax and literate vocabulary.

METHOD

In designing Philosophy for Adolescents, we examined research from education, psychology, philosophy, and speech-language pathology in the areas of critical thinking and narrative discourse. The resulting program encourages students to think independently, listen to others, offer reasons and evidence to support their views, and express themselves with accuracy, clarity, and efficiency. Implementation is illustrated with a case study of a 12-year-old girl.

RESULTS

Although critical thinking improves during adolescence, many students struggle in this area, particularly in the ability to offer reasons and evidence to support their views. This suggests that these adolescents could benefit from instruction in critical thinking. Research also indicates that competence in critical thinking is associated with narrative and expository discourse, and with the use of complex syntax and literate words such as metacognitive verbs. Instruction using Philosophy for Adolescents may be carried out in small groups or individually by a speech-language pathologist working collaboratively with a teacher, teaching assistant, or other professional. Designed for flexible application, the program may be used with adolescents who have language disorders and those who have typical language development.

CONCLUSION

Research is necessary to evaluate the program with students from diverse backgrounds, having differing levels of language competence and academic achievement.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19736059.

How Do Children Socially Learn from Narrative Fiction: Getting the Lesson, Simulating Social Worlds, or Dialogic Inquiry?

Educators read narrative fiction with children not only to promote their literacy skills, but also to support their sociomoral development. However, different approaches strongly diverge in their explanations and recommended instructional activities. Informed by theoretical understandings of reader-text transactions, this integrative review presents three different conceptions about how children learn socially from narrative fiction. The first approach explains sociomoral learning through narrative fiction by children’s extraction and internalization of the text’s moral message. The second approach refers to children’s training of mindreading and empathy as they become immersed in a fictional social world and imaginatively engage with the fictional characters’ perspectives. The third approach focuses on children’s social reasoning development through engagement in argumentative dialogues with peers about the complex sociomoral issues raised in narrative fiction. The article aims to theoretically position a wide range of literary programs to clarify their psychological foundations as well as critically discuss their strengths and limitations.

High School Students’ Epistemic Cognition and Argumentation Practices during Small-Group Quality Talk Discussions in Science

For high school students to develop scientific understanding and reasoning, it is essential that they engage in epistemic cognition and scientific argumentation. In the current study, we used the AIR model (i.e., Aims and values, epistemic Ideals, and Reliable processes) to examine high school students’ epistemic cognition and argumentation as evidenced in collaborative discourse in a science classroom. Specifically, we employed a qualitative case study approach to focus on four small-group discussions about scientific phenomena during the Quality Talk Science intervention (QTS), where students regularly received explicit instruction on asking authentic questions and engaging in argumentation. In total, five categories of epistemic ideals and five categories of reliable processes were identified. Students demonstrated more instances of normative epistemic ideals and argumentative responses in the discussions after they received a revised scientific model for discussion and explicit instruction on argumentation. Concomitantly, there were fewer instances of students making decisions based on process of elimination to determine a correct scientific claim. With respect to the relationship of epistemic cognition to authentic questioning and argumentation, the use of epistemic ideals seemed to be associated with the initiation of authentic questions and students’ argumentation appeared to involve the use of epistemic ideals.

What are the building blocks of parent-infant coordinated attention in free-flowing interaction?

The present article investigated the composition of different joint gaze components used to operationalize various types of coordinated attention between parents and infants and which types of coordinated attention were associated with future vocabulary size. Twenty-five 9-month-old infants and their parents wore head-mounted eye trackers as they played with objects together. With high-density gaze data, a variety of coordinated attention bout types were quantitatively measured by combining different gaze components, such as mutual gaze, joint object looks, face looks, and triadic gaze patterns. The key components of coordinated attention that were associated with vocabulary size at 12 and 15 months included the simultaneous combination of parent triadic gaze and infant object looking. The results from this article are discussed in terms of the importance of parent attentional monitoring and infant sustained attention for language development.

The Development and Measurement of Block Construction in Early Childhood: A Review

Children’s block building has long been a focus of psychological research, in part because block building skills are thought to be useful indicators of other abilities such as representational thinking. Block building skills are assumed to progress through developmental stages and a number of measures have been developed to assess these skills. In this article, we critically review the literature on two topics related to children’s block building. First, we examine the literature on developmental changes in block play with a focus on the approximate age trends for various block construction abilities. Second, we provide an overview of the scales used to assess block construction complexity such as the Block Building Measure, Building Performance Coding, and Block Structure Complexity Scoring Instrument and propose a conceptual model of the skills involved in block building. Based on this review, we recommend ways to refine existing research methods, improve scale validity, and combine different indices to establish a more comprehensive measure of children’s block construction.

Combating Vaccine Hesitancy: Teaching the Next Generation to Navigate Through the Post Truth Era

Despite scientific evidence supporting the fact that vaccines are fundamental tools for preventing infectious diseases, a percentage of the population still refuses some or all of them. Vaccine hesitancy has become a widespread issue, and its complexity lies in the great variety of factors that can influence decisions about immunization, which are not just vaccine-related concerns, but also involve personal and societal levels. Our research group performed an extensive literature review to analyze: (1) different age groups, their relation to the problem and their characteristics; (2) the most important information (key messages) about immunization that could be used to counteract hesitancy; and (3) best approaches to transmit the messages to the target groups. We propose a long-term approach to overcome vaccine hesitancy that involves the education of children and adolescents on the basics about immunization and critical thinking, using different communication channels.

Infant sustained attention but not joint attention to objects at 9 months predicts vocabulary at 12 and 15 months

Vocabulary differences early in development are highly predictive of later language learning as well as achievement in school. Early word learning emerges in the context of tightly coupled social interactions between the early learner and a mature partner. In the present study, we develop and apply a novel paradigm-dual head-mounted eye tracking-to record momentary gaze data from both parents and infants during free-flowing toy-play contexts. With fine-grained sequential patterns extracted from continuous gaze streams, we objectively measure both joint attention and sustained attention as parents and 9-month-old infants played with objects and as parents named objects during play. We show that both joint attention and infant sustained attention predicted vocabulary sizes at 12 and 15 months, but infant sustained attention in the context of joint attention, not joint attention itself, is the stronger unique predictor of later vocabulary size. Joint attention may predict word learning because joint attention supports infant attention to the named object.

School and emotional well-being: a transcultural analysis on youth in Southern Spain

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess and compare school well-being (SW) and emotional well-being (EW) among Romanian, Moroccan and Spanish youth, to determine the degree of relation between EW and scholar well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper employed cross-sectional research with cluster sampling in two primary schools and seven secondary schools. The questionnaire Kidscreen-27 was distributed to a sample of 1,840 Romanian, Moroccan and Spanish students aged between 10 and 19 years old. Data analysis was conducted with the software package SPSS, version 21.

Findings

EW shows significant gender (gender gap) and origin inequalities (lower performance for the Moroccan community). However, well-being in school shows positive results for the Moroccan students and women. Moreover, EW and well-being at school are presented as related and co-linear variables with a predictive power over one another.

Research limitations/implications

Understanding cultural expressions in heterogeneous cultures is a very complex task. Despite the cultural adaptation and validation of instruments, the applied surveys could not consider cultural differences.

Practical implications

The paper underlines that gender and origin remain decisive and determinant for adolescent health. However, the school can have positive effects on the well-being of immigrants. The reasons for well-being need to be explored, and it would be useful to develop educative strategies to implement transcultural EW and SW.

Originality/value

It is the first study about SW and EW of immigrants in Spain that explains a better SW in immigrants groups. It is also relevant for applied school intervention to predict the relationship between EW and SW.

Synthesizing Results From Empirical Research on Computer-Based Scaffolding in STEM Education: A Meta-Analysis

Computer-based scaffolding assists students as they generate solutions to complex problems, goals, or tasks, helping increase and integrate their higher order skills in the process. However, despite decades of research on scaffolding in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, no existing comprehensive meta-analysis has synthesized the results of these studies. This review addresses that need by synthesizing the results of 144 experimental studies (333 outcomes) on the effects of computer-based scaffolding designed to assist the full range of STEM learners (primary through adult education) as they navigated ill-structured, problem-centered curricula. Results of our random effect meta-analysis (a) indicate that computer-based scaffolding showed a consistently positive (ḡ = 0.46) effect on cognitive outcomes across various contexts of use, scaffolding characteristics, and levels of assessment and (b) shed light on many scaffolding debates, including the roles of customization (i.e., fading and adding) and context-specific support. Specifically, scaffolding's influence on cognitive outcomes did not vary on the basis of context-specificity, presence or absence of scaffolding change, and logic by which scaffolding change is implemented. Scaffolding's influence was greatest when measured at the principles level and among adult learners. Still scaffolding's effect was substantial and significantly greater than zero across all age groups and assessment levels. These results suggest that scaffolding is a highly effective intervention across levels of different characteristics and can largely be designed in many different ways while still being highly effective.