Teacher Training on Critical Thinking: Effects on Rational Reasoning and Teaching Attitudes

• In Event: Teaching Critical Thinking: Assessing and Improving Students’ and Teachers’ Reasoning Skills

Abstract

Although every review on how to improve students’ Critical Thinking (CT) highlights the crucial role of the teacher in this process (e.g., Abrami et al., 2015; Ritchhart & Perkins, 2004), research on teachers’ CT-skills is scarce and mostly focused on pre-service teachers. A prerequisite for being able to provide instruction and guidance to students on a subject is that teachers themselves possess the required skill but also that they perceive it as a highly relevant to teach it and that they identify themselves as self-competent in teaching it (Posnanski, 2002; Van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma Van der Molen, 2015). Therefore, the present experiment investigated the effects of a teacher training in CT, focusing on biases in reasoning, on higher education teachers’ performance on a rational reasoning test and their attitudes towards teaching CT (distinguishing between perceived relevance of and perceived competence in teaching CT).
Participants were 56 in-service teachers from a Dutch University of Applied Sciences: 34 teachers participated in a CT-course of three sessions spread over six weeks and 22 did not receive any training (i.e., control condition). The first course session took about 120 minutes and consisted of a general introduction of CT and explicit instruction on cognitive biases in logical and probabilistic reasoning. The remaining two sessions took approximately 180 minutes and 120 minutes, respectively, and focused on the teaching of CT (e.g., designing a domain-specific CT-task and discussion about what type of questions evoke students’ CT). All teachers completed pre-test measures via an online questionnaire two weeks before the start of the first training session. Teachers in the training conditions completed post-test measures on two occasions: immediately after the first session and after the third session. Teachers in the control condition received the two post-test measures via an online questionnaire during the same weeks as the teachers in the training condition. All tests included a rational reasoning test with learning and transfer tasks; an assignment to detect cognitive biases in a student product (essay); and a questionnaire that addressed teachers’ attitudes towards teaching CT (perceived relevance and perceived competence).
Results showed that the CT-training positively affected teachers’ rational reasoning skills on trained tasks, F(2,96)=5.84, p=.004, =0.108. Transfer to other (non-trained) logical and probabilistic reasoning tasks was not achieved, F(2,96)=0.32, p=.724, =0.007. Data on whether the training affected teachers’ ability to recognize biases in student products are currently being analyzed. Regarding attitudes, the training did not affect teachers’ relevance perception of teaching CT, F(2,94)=2.36, p=.100, =0.048, presumably because of a ceiling effect as all teachers consistently perceived teaching CT highly as relevant. Teachers’ competence perceptions temporarily dropped after the first training session, t(33)=5.11, p<.001, possibly because this first session increased their awareness of how challenging CT actually is, which may have led to uncertainty about their ability to teach it.
Our findings underline that we cannot assume that teachers are equipped for and feel competent in teaching CT. Future research should therefore continue to focus on how to optimally prepare and support teachers in teaching CT-skills to students.

Authors

• Eva Janssen, Utrecht University

• Tim Mainhard, Utrecht University - Dept of Education

• Anita Heijltjes, Avans University of Applied Sciences

• Peter Verkoeijen, Erasmus University

• Lara van Peppen, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Tamara van Gog, Utrecht University