N. S.
Stephenson
* and
N. P.
Sadler-McKnight
University of the West Indies, Department of Chemistry, Mona, Jamaica. E-mail: norda.stephenson02@uwimona.edu.jm
First published on 1st October 2015
The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) laboratory approach is a teaching and learning tool which combines writing, inquiry, collaboration and reflection, and provides scaffolding for the development of critical thinking skills. In this study, the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) was used to measure the critical thinking skills of first year general chemistry students who were instructed using the SWH approach and first year general chemistry students who received traditional (TRAD) laboratory instruction A quasi experimental pretest–posttest design involving the use of matched groups was used to assess differences in critical thinking between the two groups. Students in the SWH group had significantly higher total critical thinking scores over their traditional counterparts. The results indicate that the SWH approach shows efficacy in improving students' critical thinking skills over the traditional approach.
Transferable skills are often also referred to as core skills, soft skills, employability skills, key skills, generic skills and 21st century skills. These skills are crucial to job mastery, regardless of job sector or skill level, (UK Department of Education and Employment, 1997), and include written and oral communication, teamwork, problem-solving, time management, and critical thinking skills, among others. Unlike job-specific skills which are no longer relevant if the individual moves to a completely different job position, transferable skills remain relevant regardless of the field or career. Focusing on transferable skills has important economic consequences, as they affect productivity and employment creation.
Critical thinking is considered among the transferable skills most necessary for successful navigation of our increasingly dynamic and complex world (Halpern, 1998). As societies become more technologically complex and information rich (Halpern, 1998), there is an increasing need for members of the workforce who can analyse information critically and use it creatively and effectively to provide solutions to real world problems, more so than persons able to carry out robotic, mechanical manipulations requiring recall and regurgitation.
Many universities and colleges, including The University of the West Indies (UWI), identify critical thinking as a necessary skill for their graduates (Diamond, cited in Paul et al., 1997; Overton, 2001; Bok, 2006; Sternberg et al., 2007; UWI, 2012); and most higher education faculty cite its development as one of the primary learning objectives of their instruction (AACU, 2005). Employers also identify critical thinking skills as a set of skills that graduates need to be effective in the workplace, but it has been found that a significant percentage of graduates are unprepared for the workforce because they lack these skills (Hirose, 1992; Levine, 2005; Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007; Vance, 2007; AACU, 2013).
Critical thinking comprises both cognitive skills and dispositions. Facione (1990) highlights analysis, inference, evaluation, interpretation, explanation and self-regulation as core cognitive skills. Critical thinking dispositions include truth-seeking, openmindedness, being analytical, orderly, systematic and inquisitive; having good interpersonal skills, and the ability to judge soundness of information. Research has shown that while cognitive skills can be developed in the short and medium terms, changes in dispositions require more long term efforts (Giancarlo and Facione, 2001; Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007; Quitadamo et al., 2009).
Researchers agree that formal instruction in critical thinking is necessary for appreciable development of the skills (van Gelder, 2005; Snyder and Snyder, 2008). There are, however, a range of views about which instructional approaches and strategies should be used. Norris and Ennis (1989) put forward four instructional approaches that could be taken to the teaching of critical thinking, namely, the general instruction approach, the infusion approach, the immersion approach and the mixed approach. In the general instructional approach, critical thinking is taught explicitly as a separate course, outside of any particular discipline, while in the infusion approach in-depth instruction within the subject matter is combined with explicit teaching of general critical thinking principles. The immersion approach mirrors the infusion approach except that in the immersion approach the general critical thinking principles are not explicitly taught. The mixed approach involves explicit instruction in critical thinking combined with application of the skills in a specific subject matter. This approach has been found to be effective in helping students develop and hone their critical thinking skills (Abrami et al., 2008). Research also indicates that critical thinking ability is enhanced when instructional strategies, such as problem-based activities, collaborative and cooperative learning, modeling, and constructivist techniques, which support and foster other higher order thinking skills, are used (Zoller, 1993; Halpern, 1999; Duplass and Ziedler, 2002; Hollingworth and McLoughlin, 2003; Gurses et al., 2007; Wong, 2007; Lai, 2011). The laboratory space is considered conducive to the use of many of these strategies, and provides fertile ground for critical thinking development (Zoller and Pushkin, 2007; Campbell and Bohn, 2008; Daempfle, 2013).
The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) is an inquiry-based, writing-to-learn approach which was developed for use in the laboratory by Hand and Keys (1999). It provides students with an alternative format for carrying out their laboratory activities and for thinking about and writing up their laboratory report. This alternative laboratory report format replaces the five traditional sections of purpose, method, observations, results, and conclusion with prompts eliciting questioning, knowledge claims, evidence, methods, description of data, and reflection on changes to students' thinking (see Table 1). The SWH can also be used as a teaching technique to help the instructor in formatting the flow of activities associated with the experiment. As a teaching technique, it places strong emphasis on guided inquiry, collaborative work, reflection and writing.
Traditional (TRAD) report format | SWH student template |
---|---|
(1) Aim | Beginning questions – What are my beginning questions? |
(2) Outline of procedure | Tests and safety – What will I do? How will I stay safe? |
(3) Observations | Observations |
(4) Data, balanced equations, calculations | Data (including class data) – What trends do I observe? |
(5) No equivalent | Claims – What can I claim? |
(6) No equivalent | Evidence – How do I know? Why am I making these claims? |
(7) Discussion and conclusion | Analysis – What does it mean? |
(8) No equivalent | Reflection – How do my ideas compare with other ideas? How have my ideas changed? |
With its emphasis on inquiry, the SWH prompts students to develop their own questions based on a given scenario, devise means of collecting data to answer those questions, interpret the data, make claims, and provide evidence in support of those claims (Rudd et al., 2007). As students develop their questions and claims, they examine underlying assumptions in their ideas, make judgments of the quality of those ideas, and articulate reasons for their judgments, thereby drawing on analysis, evaluation and explanation skills. During the designing of experiments, students use induction, analysis, evaluation and explanation skills in construction, as they draw on their own experiences, the experiences of other, the literature and other sources. In making decisions about what data to collect, students make judgments based on the meaning or significance that they attach to the data, making use of evaluation and analysis skills. Carrying out these activities in a collaborative environment forces students to confront and reflect on their own thinking, and experience cognitive dissonance in a supportive setting. Reflection increases opportunities to form associations among concepts, and to integrate information (Sobral, cited in Mann et al., 2009). As a writing-to-learn approach, the SWH emphasizes the importance of students articulating their understandings in a variety of ways, leading to the construction of richer conceptual understandings, rather than writing to emphasize memory or mastery (Keys, 1999). During writing, students must grapple with concepts and ideas in order to construct a coherent whole, leading to the production of higher quality arguments. During SWH laboratory sessions, students are engaged in dialogic interactions with their peers, as well as with experts (demonstrators and supervisors). These negotiations help to develop and strengthen critical thinking skills as they require higher order mental processing. The generation of beginning questions, which takes place in small groups of students, involves exchange of information and interrogation of ideas to arrive at consensus. Analysis, interpretation, evaluation and explanation skills are needed at this stage. The further narrowing down of the questions to arrive at questions to be addressed by the whole class, under the prompting and guidance of the experts, also require further use of the aforementioned skills. Having generated the data, students seek to identify trends and anomalies, a process requiring strong analysis and interpretation skills. The generation of claims calls upon inferential, analytic and interpretive skills. As students describe the evidence that supports their claims, they must examine their assumptions and reasons, and present a logical explanation of their reasoning. At this juncture, analysis and interpretation, evaluation, and explanation skills are honed. As students write their reflections, they must articulate understandings, draw conclusions, make predictions and suggestions, in a logical and well-reasoned fashion. They therefore draw on inference, explanation, evaluation, deductive and analysis and interpretation skills.
Published research using standardized tests to measure the impact of the SWH on critical thinking in chemistry is sparse. In addition, research suggests that students who enter university with poor critical thinking skills may be particularly at risk of not achieving success in their studies (Chaplin, 2007) and may therefore be in need of immediate intervention. It was therefore against this background that this research was undertaken.
This study attempts to reduce the dearth in the literature for empirical research into critical thinking by measuring the impact of the SWH on the critical thinking skills of first year chemistry laboratory students. Specifically, the critical thinking skills of SWH students were compared with those of their counterparts in traditional laboratory sections.
Each stream accommodated a maximum of 54 students, supervised by faculty or a senior research student, who was assisted by 3 demonstrators (teaching assistants). Each supervisor/demonstrators team remained with the same laboratory stream for the entire semester. Demonstrators were responsible for assisting students during the course of the laboratory session, as well as for the marking and grading of laboratory reports. Supervisors and demonstrators who worked in SWH streams also worked in the TRAD streams. The authors were also laboratory supervisors.
Informed consent was obtained from all students who participated in the research.
In the weekly sessions, there was a pre-lab period during which students worked together in small groups of between 4 to 6 to generate their beginning questions based on the scenario provided for each experiment in their laboratory manual. During this stage, demonstrators and supervisors moved among groups, ensuring that activities were proceeding satisfactorily, and asked probing questions where necessary. As a class, students, with guidance from their supervisor, discussed the questions and arrived at consensus on which should be retained, removed, or modified, narrowing down the number of questions to two or three. Students then worked collaboratively in small groups of no more than 6 persons to conduct the experiment and collect the relevant data. Students remained in the same laboratory groups for the duration of the semester; and the experiments were designed so that different groups worked on different aspects of the experiment, and so the data collected differed from group to group. The procedure was provided for most experiments; however students were sometimes required to generate procedures, or to modify procedures provided. On completion of the bench work, students gathered in their groups to work on getting the ‘data” to be contributed by their group. This usually involved carrying out some calculations and negotiating meaning. The data from all groups were displayed in a single spreadsheet for students to individually identify trends and anomalies, make claims, provide evidence in support of these claims, and write individual reports using the SWH student template. Significant emphasis was placed on student-directed, inquiry-based activities, collaborative work, writing and reflection.
Each session began with a pre-lab quiz and a laboratory talk given by the supervisor. The lab talk addressed the theory, procedure, and safety issues related to the experiment. After the lab talk, students carried out the outlined procedure at their workstations, individually or sometimes in pairs. As all students carried out the experiment in the same way, the data gathered was expected to be the same for all students. The demonstrators assisted students with setting up their apparatus, and attending primarily to procedural matters. On completion of bench work and data collection, students are usually free to exit the laboratory. If the time allotted for the session had not elapsed when bench work and data collection were complete, students were encouraged to remain at their workstations and complete their individual “fill-in-the-blanks” type worksheet reports which guided them through the data and calculations. Correspondence with peers during this period was usually discouraged. In the TRAD groups little emphasis was placed on student-led, inquiry-based, collaborative activities.
The test consists of 34 non-discipline-specific multiple choice items and provides scores on five subscales, namely analysis and interpretation, evaluation and explanation, inference, deduction, and induction. A total critical thinking skills score is also reported. According to Facione et al. (2013), the total critical thinking score describes overall strength in using reasoning to form reflective judgments about what to believe or what to do. To score well overall, the test taker must excel in the core reasoning skills including analysis, interpretation, inference, evaluation, explanation, induction and deduction. The total critical thinking score predicts the capacity for success in educational or workplace settings.
Validity and reliability testing has returned alpha values ranging from 0.70 to 0.84 (Facione et al., 2002), which indicates very good reliability (Miller and Salkind, 2002). The test has been used extensively across various disciplines including nursing, engineering and science.
Recommended cut scores and percentile rankings were also used in the analysis to more clearly illustrate changes in students' overall critical thinking. Both the recommended cut scores and the percentile rankings were determined based on the CCTST norming sample for 4 year colleges and universities in the United States. Although our university is a 3 year institution outside of the United States, this was the closest data available for comparison, and it is our view that the performance of our students was sufficiently similar to the norming sample to make this comparison valid.
Students in the TRAD group had lower mean total critical thinking posttest scores (M = 13.60, SD = 3.81) than those in the SWH group (M = 15.90, SD = 3.93). The results of the paired samples t-test revealed that the difference was significant (t = 2.982, p = 0.005). The Cohen's d value (d = 0.59) signaled that the SWH had a strong effect on students' overall critical thinking.
CCTST pretest mean | Standard deviation | CCTST posttest mean | Standard deviation | Mean gain | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
SWH | 12.61 | 3.15 | 15.90 | 3.93 | 3.29 |
TRAD | 12.61 | 3.15 | 13.60 | 3.81 | 0.99 |
The gains for the groups correspond to a 20 percentile move for the SWH group (from the 22nd to the 42nd), and a 7 percentile move for the TRAD group, from the 22nd to 29th (Fig. 1).
Not manifested | Weak | Moderate | Strong | Superior | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
34-point Form 2000 version | 0–7 | 8–12 | 13–18 | 19–23 | >24 |
Mean pretest and standard deviation scores for students in the SWH and TRAD groups locate their critical thinking abilities between weak and moderate. The posttest mean score and standard deviation, treated similarly, locate SWH students almost “dead centre” of the moderate scale with a range between the higher bound of weak and the lower bound of strong. The posttest results for the TRAD group indicates that the critical thinking ability of the group remains within the moderate category, with a range from the higher bound of weak to the higher bound of moderate.
The results also indicated small increases in critical thinking for TRAD students as well. This finding is consistent with results obtained by Gupta (2012) and Solon (2007), who both reported modest gains in critical thinking for students in traditional classes, and suggest that gains in critical thinking can occur even in the absence of deliberate interventions. One possible explanation for the observed increase in critical thinking scores for students not involved in deliberate interventions could lie in the fact that while critical thinking and academic achievement are not synonymous, the two constructs are closely related and develop synchronously (King et al., 1990). Extending this thinking, it is expected that over two semesters students would have made some gain in academics, and so some corresponding development in their critical thinking would also be expected. While pursuing their academics, students would have engaged in some activities such as writing, collaboration, inquiry and reflection, which have been shown to be positively related to critical thinking (Gaddis and Schoffstall, 2007; Quitadamo and Kurtz, 2007; Grimberg, 2008; Kieft et al., 2008; Osborne et al., 2009; Long, 2010). Students in the TRAD group engaged, to some extent, in writing and collaboration, but deliberate opportunities to reflect and engage in inquiry were, to the best of our knowledge, limited. During their chemistry laboratory sessions TRAD students did not have as many opportunities to grapple with chemical concepts and ideas, construct coherent arguments, and articulate their understandings, as SWH students did. In TRAD streams, students worked in groups primarily to relieve resource constraints, but this was not a consistent feature of the lab. Therefore, although students “worked together”, they did not often work as a team, and so true collaboration which might have promoted argumentation and cognitive dissonance, thereby facilitating an environment for critical thinking development, was limited. These factors could explain the smaller gain in critical thinking obtained by TRAD students compared to their SWH counterparts, who were engaged in deliberate writing, collaboration, inquiry and reflection, as these are core elements of the SWH.
The generally weak pretest scores suggest that some students may be entering university without the requisite level of critical thinking skills that their learning programmes assume. Instructors need to strike a balance between challenging students to think critically with the provision of appropriate scaffolding to help them to do so. Greater focus on critical thinking development during the pre-university years is also needed. This position is consistent with Wagner's (2008) view that schools need to teach critical thinking in order to help students ensure success in college and the workplace.
The results of this study support the position that deliberate efforts aimed at the development of critical thinking, especially efforts incorporating writing, collaboration, inquiry and reflection, are needed, and the skills need to be explicitly taught. Poor decision-making and problem-solving, misuse of resources, and an absence of a sustainable policy direction, are consequences of poor critical thinking too expensive to entertain. If universities are going to produce graduates for the workforce who are critical thinkers, then initiatives that support the development of critical thinking skills at all levels of higher education are necessary now. The SWH is one such initiative.
The results also strongly suggest that carefully designed interventions, such as the SWH, can make the laboratory fertile ground for critical thinking development.
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