1 / 16

Towards a cognitive model of critical thinking

Towards a cognitive model of critical thinking. Ian Wells, Andy Burton and Esme Burton University of East London, School of Psychology. OR. Some critical thinking about critical thinking. The Starting Point.

tejano
Download Presentation

Towards a cognitive model of critical thinking

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Towards a cognitive model of critical thinking • Ian Wells, Andy Burton and Esme Burton • University of East London, School of Psychology

  2. OR..... Some critical thinking about critical thinking

  3. The Starting Point ‘In addition to subject skills and knowledge, graduates also develop skills in communication, numeracy, teamwork, critical thinking, computing, independent learning and many others, all of which are highly valued by employers.’ QAA Psychology benchmark (2002)

  4. ‘Graduateness’ • 'to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant . . . to fill any post with credit and to master any subject with facility.' • John Henry Newman (1852)

  5. The problem with critical thinking..... • We’re not clear what it is • We’re not sure how to measure it • We have lots of ideas about how to improve it • We lack a theory of how it works

  6. Constructing a theory Seeking parallels between the critical thinking literature and psychology’s own literature

  7. Thought & Knowledge : An introduction to Critical Thinking Diane F. Halpern

  8. System ‘2’ System ‘1’ response System ‘2’ response Dual-process models Problem System ‘1’ TIME

  9. Characteristics of the systems

  10. The homonculus problem System ‘2’ Critical Thinking

  11. Working Memory Capacity and Cognition Latency and frequency of generating exemplars from a category Rosen & Engle (1997) Speed and probability of successfully retrieving goal-relevant Daily, Lovett, & Reder (2001) “Fan” interference Conway & Engle (1994) Negative priming Conway, Tuholski, Shisler, & Engle (1999) Proactive interference Kane & Engle (2000); Rosen & Engle (1998) Retroactive interference Tuholski, Engle, & Baylis (2001) Suppression effects Rosen & Engle (1997) Suppressing repetitive exemplars in category fluency task Conway, Cowan, & Bunting (2001) Resisting the lure of a powerful orienting cue Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle (2001) Resisting peripheral visual cue (e.g., antisaccade task) Brewin & Beaton (2002) Inhibiting habitual responses (e.g., Stroop task) Goldinger, Kleider, Azuma, & Beike (2003) Age-related declines in ability to suppress Rosen & Engle (1997) Suppression of counterfactual thoughts MacDonald, Just, & Carpenter (1992) Age-related declines in ability to inhibit stereotype use Whitney, Ritchie, & Clark (1991) Reading comprehension Kyllonen & Christal (1990) Language comprehension Schunn & Reder (2001) Adapting strategies to changing success rates Ormrod & Cochran (1998) Vocabulary leaming Kyllonen & Stephens (1990) Ability solve problems and adapt to situations Conway etal (2002)

  12. The role of disposition ? Processing Efficiency Theory Eysenck & Calvo, 1992

  13. Practical examples ... Maths Anxiety Miller & Bichsel, 2003 Stereotype Threat Schmader & Johns, 2003

  14. Assessing disposition... Need for Cognition Cacioppo & Petty, 1982 “The tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity” “I feel relief rather than satisfaction after completing a task that required a lot of mental effort” “Thinking is not my idea of fun”

  15. Total working memory capacity Maintain goal Suppressing System ‘1’ Anxiety available for processing A possible model

  16. Implications for education • Encourage metacognition • Teach cognitive biases • Assess for ‘thinking’ from level 1

More Related