To Clarity and Beyond: Situating Higher-Order, Critical, and Critical Analytic Thinking in the Literature on Learning From Multiple Texts

• In Event: Navigating the Murky Waters of Higher-Order, Critical, and Critical-Analytic Thinking

Abstract

This presentation will use the literature on learning from multiple texts as a context within which to explore the constructs of higher order (HOT), critical (CT), and critical analytic (CAT) thinking. Learning from multiple texts and HOT, CT, and CAT have all been identified as essential competencies, necessary for students to effectively take advantage of the volume and variety of information inherent in learning online. Yet the instantiations and boundaries among these constructs have still to be clearly defined.

We conducted a systematic review of the literature on learning from multiple texts to identify the scope of mental activities underlying students’ processing of and performance outcomes when learning from multiple texts. We did this to specify the particular cognitive demands associated with such learning. We then drew on the literatures on HOT, CT, and CAT to determine the extent to which the mental activities identified through our review are reflective of each of these constructs. Although this initial mapping is helpful in disambiguating the constructs of HOT, CT, and CAT, our juxtaposition failed to fully capture the demands of learning from multiple texts. Thus, we next used Bloom’s Taxonomy as a further framework for aligning the mental activities involved in learning from multiple texts and HOT, CT, and CAT.

This secondary alignment generated a number of insights into the literatures on learning from multiple texts and HOT, CT, and CAT. These insights include the dominance of evaluation, correspondent to definitions of CT, in the processing and outcomes of learning from multiple texts and the focus on creating as an outcome of multiple text learning – with this latter capability not explicitly reflected in definitions of HOT, CT, and CAT, suggesting the need to further expand how these valued forms of thinking are defined.

While finding better alignment between Bloom’s taxonomy and the mental activities
underlying students’ multiple text processing and performance, some aspects of multiple text learning are still not captured. These include the role of affective processes and outcomes during multiple text learning, the importance of self-regulation and metacognition in such learning, and students’ engagement in what we term devising. Devising, proposed as an additional cognitive outcome particular to students’ learning from multiple texts, refers to students’ synthetic and systematic application of knowledge and strategies gained within one multiple text learning context to another novel and complex context, resulting in the generation of a novel product or solution. We identify devising as a key, applied learning outcome, commonly emerging in studies of learning from multiple texts, and demanding of HOT, CT, and CAT, as well as other forms of valued thinking.

Through this presentation, we will provide explicit definitions and empirical examples of multiple text learning processes and outcomes, HOT, CT, and CAT, and Bloom’s cognitive objectives. We do this with the aim of not only advancing theory, but elucidating the manifestation of these thinking processes in students’ learning.

Authors

• Alexandra List, Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Yuting Sun, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author