Enhancing Critical Thinking Through Teaching Science in Greece

1. Ninth International History, Philosophy & Science Teaching Conference,June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Assessing the Development of Critical Thinking in Greece through an Approach of Teaching Science to Primary School Students which Incorporates Aspects of History of Science Katerina Malamitsa, Ph.D. Panagiotis Kokkotas, Professor Michael Kasoutas, Ph.D. student Efthymios Stamoulis, Ph.D. student Faculty of Primary EducationNational and Kapodistrian University of AthensGreece

2. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Critical Thinking Conceptualization • as logical fallacies (Dreyfus & Jungwirth, 1980; Jungwirth & Dreyfus, 1990; Jungwirth, 1987) • as formal reasoning processes or skills (Blair & Johnson, 1980; Lawson, 1982, 1985; Obed, 1997) • as scientific reasoning in general (Friedler, Nachmias & Linn, 1990)

3. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Critical Thinking Conceptualization An historical benchmark in conceptualizing critical thinking is the consensus of a panel of 46 leading theoreticians, teachers and critical thinking assessment specialists from several disciplines as it is described in the conference proceedings of the American Philosophical Association (APA) widely known as the “Delphi Report” (Facione, 1990a)

4. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Critical Thinking &History Of Science • Issues of History of Science (HOS) can be incorporated to Science courses to promote students’ Critical Thinking • HOS can provide content material which could be used in Science Teaching • Aspects of Nature of Science (NOS) can engage students in Critical Thinking although, • History & Philosophy of Science isn’t a unified field • The agenda between Critical Thinking and Science Education is conflicting (Zemplèn, 2007; Matthews, 1994; 1998a; 1998b; Stinneret al, 2003; Stinner & Williams, 1998; Mc Commas et al., 1998; Lederman, 1992)

5. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Science Education& Critical Thinking Science Education promotes Critical Thinking skills by: • Stimulating critical reflection on the knowledge and the experience gained inside and outside the classroom • Promoting the awareness of subjective and ideological biases • Developing the ability to analyze evidence expressed in rational argumentation

6. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Purpose of our Research • Examine whether the exploitation of issues of HOS in science teaching contributes towards the development of students’ Critical Thinking Skills • A project was developed on electromagnetism concepts which incorporated some historical aspects (i.e. Galvani-Volta controversy, Oerstead experiments) • A between groups experimental design was applied in order to explore whether HOS incorporation significantly affected students’ Critical Thinking Skills

7. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Rationale of the Project: • incorporate selected material from HOS (i.e. Volta’s electrical pile, Oerstead experiments) • address directly both student’s alternative frameworks and the historical and sociocultural context of the scientist to whom the discovery is attributed • engage of students in the reflective examination and comparison between their own frameworks and the scientific models • aspects of NOS were also incorporated • pronouncedly non-authoritarian and student-centred

8. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada About the Project: • 30h duration (26h teaching, 4h evaluation) • 12 worksheets • ‘hands on and minds on activities’ / experiments / practical work • focused on Critical Thinking Skills • e.g. Categorization, Examining Ideas, Identifying and Analyzing Arguments, Assessing Claim, Drawing Conclusions, Justifying Procedures • students were engaged to discussion • with questions e.g. ‘How..?’, ‘Why…?’, ‘What If…?’ • students developed argumentation • videotaped

9. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada A Worksheet of the Project

10. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Project Video 1

11. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Project Video 2

12. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Research Design Critical Thinking Skills were evaluated: • with ‘Test of Everyday Reasoning (TER)’ for both groups • with assessment sheets for the experimental group

13. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada “Test of Everyday Reasoning” (TER) • based on the APA Delphi Report • it is a 35-item multiple choice test • assesses an individual's or group's reasoning and critical thinking skills • gathers program evaluation on reasoning and critical thinking skills research data • assesses educational learning outcomes • we translated the TER (into Greek) and standardized it

14. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada “Test of Everyday Reasoning” (TER) • TER provides six scores from an individual’s completed test: • an Overall Score which ranges from 0 to 35 • three Sub-scales: • “Analysis”, ranging from 0 to 9, • “Evaluation” , ranging from 0 to 11 • “Inference”,rangingfrom 0 to 15 • two more Sub-scales : • “Deductive Reasoning”, ranging from 0 to 19 • “Inductive Reasoning”,ranging from 0 to 16 • each of the items of TER is assigned to only one of the three sub-scales: “Analysis”, “Evaluation” or “Inference” • the same items are reclassified to only one of the two other Sub-scales: “Deductive Reasoning” or “Inductive Reasoning” (Facione, 2001: 11-12, 25)

15. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Assessment Sheet • for the evaluation of the project’s teaching objectives • included multiple choice questions, open ended questions (sentence completion and completely unstructured), concept map construction • was completed individually by students of the experimental group

16. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Research Design • a within-groups design was employed (experimental & control group) • each group had 22 students • each group had the same initial level of Critical Thinking Skills • investigated with an independent samples t-test for TER Overall Score • no significant differences were found [t(21) = 0,859;p = 0,4 (> 0,05)]

17. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Experimental Hypothesis students after the project would have significantly better results in TER scores than before the project in Overall Score and Sub-scale scores signifying the improvement in their critical thinking skills.

18. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Research Results Boxplot of TER Overall Score and Sub-scale Scores, before and after the project for the experimental group

19. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Paired Samples t-tests (Pre – Post) For the Experimental Group: • were found statistically significant for the Overall Score and all sub-scale scores • the effect sizes were: • much larger than typical(d >1) • or larger than typical (0,80 < d < 1) For the Control Group: • were found statistically non significant for the sub-scale scores of “Analysis” “Evaluation” & “Inference”, • were found statistically significant for the Overall Score and the sub-scale scores of “Deductive Reasoning” & “Inductive Reasoning” but: • the effect sizes were: • much smaller than typical(d < 0,20) (Cohen, 1988)

20. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Assessment Sheet Results Histogram of Assessment Sheet Overall Scorewith normal curve

21. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Discussion • there is a need to create opportunities for students which: • develop their understanding on how scientific ideas are accepted and/or rejected on the basis of empirical evidence • develop their understanding on how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting such evidence • students generally respond positively to the integration of History of Science

22. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Discussion • The incorporation of aspects of HOS: • supports the development of instructional tools • supports learning by engaging students to discuss, argue and build consensus as members of a community • contributes towards students’ Critical Thinking Skills development

23. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Discussion • we reject the null hypothesis • thus, the project implementation led to statistically significant results concerning the critical thinking skills development

24. 9th IHPST Conference, June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada THANK YOU

25. Ninth International History, Philosophy & Science Teaching Conference,June 24th - 28th 2007, Calgary, Canada Assessing the Development of Critical Thinking in Greece through an Approach of Teaching Science to Primary School Students which Incorporates Aspects of History of Science Presenter: Katerina Malamitsa Faculty of Primary EducationNational and Kapodistrian University of AthensGreece