Developing Young Thinkers: Discovering Baseline Understandings of Effective Thinking among Children and Teachers and Intervening to Enhance Thinking Skills
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Date
2007Author
Burke, Lynsey A
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Abstract
This thesis considers teachers’ and pupils’ conceptions of effective thinking, and
analyses how these are developed through an explicit thinking skills intervention. An
analysis of children’s concepts of intelligence has shown that, with age, children tend
to associate ‘cleverness’ with knowledge acquisition rather than active thinking.
Perhaps as a reflection of this it is increasingly popular to teach thinking skills in
schools, although how best to support practitioners in this task remains contested. This
thesis presents findings from three linked studies conducted to discover pupils’ and
practitioners’ understandings of ‘effective thinking’ (which few research studies have
attempted) before intervening to explicitly enhance children’s thinking skills.
Study 1 was questionnaire-based and investigated teachers’ definitions of effective
thinking, their views of thinking skills taught within the curriculum and whether
thinking skills are fostered developmentally. 127 questionnaires were returned
representing teachers from 36 primary schools in central Scotland. A qualitative
analysis of teachers’ concepts indicated that many did not have a clear understanding
of ‘effective thinking’. Quantitative data indicated that practitioners believe thinking
skills are more frequently integrated into some curricular areas than others and
highlighted the lack of a developmental progression of thinking skills being taught
throughout primary school.
In Study 2, 75 children were interviewed with 25 children from each of the following
ages: 5, 7 and 11 years. This study explored the development of children’s definitions
of intelligence and effective thinking and the characteristics and causes associated with
each. It also produced novel data on how children’s knowledge of thinking skills
changes over time. Content analysis revealed age trends in children’s definitions of
intelligence, as, with age, children were increasingly likely to hold cognitive views and
incorporate knowledge into those definitions. Whilst no age trends were found in
children’s concepts of effective thinking, with all three age groups defining it as a
cognitive ability, clear developmental trends emerged in children’s understandings of
individual thinking skills. The final study (involving 178 primary 7 pupils and their teachers) challenged these
concepts through an intervention designed to evaluate the effects of infusing thinking
skills throughout the curriculum, and investigated the belief that collaborative learning
enhances thinking skills. There were three intervention conditions: collaborative,
individual and control. Six thinking skills were focused on, with training sessions and
curricular lesson plans devised to support practitioners. The intervention lessons were
based on an identified underpinning pedagogy of effective thinking (i.e., making the
thinking skill explicit; fostering appropriate thinking dispositions; developing
metacognition and encouraging transfer). The intervention evaluation utilised
standardised and study-specific pre- and post-tests. Results demonstrated statistically
significant gains for the individual and collaborative learning conditions in a range of
thinking skills. The greatest increase in performance was seen in the collaborative
learning condition.
These three studies highlight the importance of gathering baseline data on
understandings of effective thinking before intervening to successfully develop
awareness of the cognitive processes involved in ‘good thinking’ and enhance
children’s thinking skills. The findings from this thesis have significant implications
for education; practitioners need clearer guidance on how to teach a coherent
developmental progression of thinking skills, and need to be supported when explicitly
infusing thinking skills throughout the curriculum.