A Comparison of the ‘Prompting Effect’ of Out‐of‐School with that of In‐School Contexts on Certain Aspects of Critical Thinking

Abstract

Summaries EnglishThe teaching of science closely linked to everyday situations has been strongly recommended in order to achieve stronger motivation, and, in particular for the less intellectually gifted, easier cognitive development. The development of criticalthinking habits has long been regarded as a task for which science education is particularly suited. Such habits have been said to possess inherent non-specific transfer value. This opinion rests on the assumption that the logical structures of contextually different situations are perceived as equivalent by pupils. This contention was queried in this study by means of two tests, which permitted: (1) the diagnosis of pupils' recognition of logical fallacies in everyday, as compared with that in logically equivalent biological situations; and (2) a comparison of pupils' 'disposals of unsound proposals' who had first encountered such proposals in everyday situations, with pupils' having encountered them in biological situations. The effect exerted by these previously encountered situations was termed 'prompting effect'.It was found that pupils did not recognize the logical fallacies any better when they were presented in everyday situations, and that pupils from non-selective schools actually performed significantly worse. The 'prompting effect' of everyday situations turned out to be significantly weaker than that of logically equivalent situations.The authors conclude that everyday contextual factors exert a kind of 'deflecting effect' (away from the logical task) causing pupils to pay more attention to the topical content of the offered conclusions rather than to the logical structure of the situation.These findings throw some doubt on the validity of recommending that teachers rely on the non-specific transfer value of intellectual skills (from one contextual area to another). DeutschDass der naturwissenschaftliche Unterricht in engstem Zusammenhang mit tagtäg-lichen Situationen vor sich gehen sollte, um stärkere Motivation zu erzielen, und, insbesondere bei weniger intellektuellen Schülern, die kognitive Entwicklung zu erleichtern, wurde seit je wärmstens empfohlen. Die Entwicklung analytischer Denkgewohnheiten wird als eine Aufgabe angesehen, für die der naturwissenschaftliche Unterricht besonders geeignet ist Dergleiche Gewohnheiten sollen inhärenten nicht-spezifischen Übertragungswert besitzen. Diese Miffassung stützt sich auf die Annahme, dass Schüler äquivalente logische Strukturen, vom 0140-5284/80/0203 0301 $02·00 Zusammenhang ganz abgesehen, erkennen können. Diese Behauptung wurde in dieser Arbeit zur Frage gestellt. Zwei Tests wurden verfasst um: (1) die Erkenntnis der Schüler von logischen Irrtümern in tagtäglichen, mit jenen in biologischen Situationen zu vergleichen; und (2) zu untersuchen, ob Schüler, nachdem sie solche in tagtäglichen Situationen angetroffen hatten, eher 'unbegründete Behauptungen beseitigen' würden, als Schüler, die dergleiche Behauptungen zuerst in biologischen Zusammenhängen kennengelernt hatten. Der Effekt solcher vore...

Avoidance of Logical Fallacies: a neglected aspect of science‐education and science‐teacher education

“…(II) BlO-items versus LIFE-items (Table V) In a previous study (Dreyfus & Jungwirth, 1980a) it was found that the 'prompting effect' of LIFE-items on respondents' achievements on BlO-items (the logically parallel BlO-items following the relevant LIFE-items at a distance of 2-4 items) was no better than that of BlO-items in which nonsense words had been substituted for all BIO key-terms. The 'prompting effect' of LIFE-items in the present study was even less instrumental.…”

“…As mentioned above, the test had been used before (as Test A) by Dreyfus & Jungwirth (1980a) in connection with a different problem. It was termed TAMItest in this study (an acronym from the Hebrew original) so that respondents were not made aware of the test's content and/or purpose.…”

The Use of Newspaper Articles as a Tool to Develop Critical Thinking in Science Classes

“…On the other hand, teachers who believe that discussing and thinking about problems promotes students' intellectual development and a greater understanding of scientific ideas, will encourage discussion between peers and between the students and the teacher, thereby establishing meaning making Based on this perspective, we believe it is very important to work on critical thinking in science classes but as Dreyfus & Jungwirth (1980) noted, students find it difficult to transfer it to real contexts. Therefore, we see the need to apply critical thinking to real issues.…”

The effects of concept requirements and task contexts on pupils’ performance in control of variables

“…Over the last two decades many research studies have explored the effects of context and emphasized its importance in psychological and educational research (for instance, Johnson-Laird et al 1972, Donaldson 1978, Dreyfus and Jungwirth 1980, Linn 1983, White 1985, Clough and Driver 1986, Davies and Thomson 1988, Ceci and Nightingale 1990. In the particular area of the control of variables, there have been several findings on context effects -sometimes called content effects (e.g.…”