Teaching critical thinking for transfer across domains: Disposition, skills, structure training, and metacognitive monitoring.

“When people think critically, they are evaluating the outcomes of their thought processes—how good a decision is or how well a problem is solved (Halpern, 1996).”

“Hummel and Holyoak (1997) identified structure sensitivity as a fundamental property that underlies human thought: "First thinking is structure sensitive.”

“Lehman and Nisbett (1990) , for example, examined the spontaneous transfer of selected thinking skills in an out-of-the-classroom, real-world environment.”

“There are numerous other successful reports of the transfer of critical-thinking skills to a variety of settings (Kosonen & Winne, 1995; Nisbett, 1993; Perkins & Grotzer, 1997).”

“The development of expertise in any area requires deliberate, effortful, and intense cognitive work ( Wagner, 1997 ).”

“There are numerous other successful reports of the transfer of critical-thinking skills to a variety of settings ( Kosonen & Winne, 1995; Nisbett, 1993; Perkins & Grotzer, 1997).”

“For example, the repeated use of "authentic" materials, or materials that are similar to real-world situations, is one teaching strategy to enhance transfer ( Derry, Levin, & Schauble, 1995 ).”

“A number of researchers have attempted to teach intelligence and related meta-cognitive skills, including “critical thinking” (e.g., Halpern, 1998; Herrnstein, Nickerson, de Sanchez, & Swets, 1986; Perkins & Grotzer, 1997; Sternberg, 1985; Williams et al., 1996; Winne, 1995).”

“Halpern (1998) and Kuhn (1999) have written extensively about improving critical thinking skills.”

“have without worrying about increasing the basic capacity of working memory, either by training critical thinking skills (Halpern 1998) or by instilling expertise (Ericsson et al.”

“These characteristics, one might note, are also characteristic of the “creative individual” (Facione 1990b; Lai 2011), as is the ability to imagine alternatives, which is often cited as a component of critical thinking ability (Facione 1990b; Halpern 1998).”

“Research has indicated the need for improving critical thinking skills among students since many of them fail to utilise sophisticated reasoning even at the college level (Halpern, 1998; Kuhn, 1999).”

“The widespread focus on critical thinking as an educational goal does not alter the fact that critical thinking is a complex and contested construct, varying from a politically oriented educational aim (e.g. Giroux, 1992; McLaren, 1995) to a higher-order thinking skill (e.g. Halpern, 1998).”

“When we think critically, we are evaluating the outcomes of our thought processes—how good a decision is or how well a problem is solved (Halpern, 1996, 1998).”

“Our instructional program for teaching critical thinking for transfer used the four-part model described by Halpern (1998): (a) a dispositional or attitudinal component that consisted of modeling critical thinking and actively encouraging thoughtful responding; (b) instruction in and practice with…”

“Given the framework of Schoen (1983) and Halpern (1998) with other studies, the present study tested a model where metacognition is used to predict critical thinking.”

“Critical thinking is more important now than ever before because of changes in our lifestyles (Halpern, 1998).”

“…thinking, which some authors (e.g., Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy, & Woolf, 2009) define as thinking intended to overcome cognitive biases, relatively little research demonstrates that critical-thinking skills generalize beyond the tasks on which they are taught (cf., Halpern, 1998; Lehman&Nisbett, 1990).”

“General Versus Domain-Specific Assessment Critical thinking has been defined as a generic skill in many of the existing frameworks and assessments (e.g., BangertDrowns & Bankert, 1990; Ennis, 2003; Facione, 1990b; Halpern, 1998).”

“Key cognitive skills usually include ability to make inference, recognise assumptions, deductions, interpretations, analysis, and evaluation of arguments (e.g., American Philosophical Association [APA], 1990; Halpern, 1998; Watson & Glaser, 1980).”

“Work on training for capability, not just competency, highlights the importance of the extent to which psychologists can adapt to change, generate new knowledge, and continue to improve their performance (Fraser & Greenhalgh, 2001; Halpern, 1998).”

“A suite of instructional strategies, which are suggested as useful to promote students’ CT is available (e.g., Beyer, 2008; Ennis, 1989; Halpern, 1998; Paul, 1993; Tsui, 2002).”

“…while thinking in order to think better’ Paul 2007, n.p.) There is broad acceptance that the development of critical thinking (Brookfield 2012; Halpern 1998, 2013) is a central feature of university education, with critical thinking listed by most universities as being a key graduate…”

“…Manipulation of memory (Flesch, action involving solving problems, judgment, creativity (Jastrow, 1951) formulating inferences, calculating 1931; Halpern, 1998) likelihoods, and making decisions (Jay, 1991) 1 0 S 0 4 a k g u n ( d s ) 7 / 8 / 0 3 8 : 4 1 a m P a g e 8 4 6 A kgün et al. O rg a n…”

“The majority of theoreticians in the field (APA, 1990; Ennis, 1996; Halpern, 1998, 2003; Paul and Elder, 2001; Facione, 2011; Halpern and Dunn, 2021, 2022) consider that, in order to carry out this type of thinking effectively, apart from having this skill set, the intervention of other types of…”

“We have chosen these executive sub-functions as they are needed for both academic tasks and learning how to play music or sing (Detterman, 1993; Halpern, 1998; Barnett and Ceci, 2002; Roden et al., 2013; Swaminathan and Schellenberg, 2016; Dumont et al., 2017; Sala and Gobet, 2017).”

“…Facione, 1990); • inquisitiveness (Bailin et al., 1999; Facione, 1990, 2000); • open-mindedness (Bailin et al., 1999; Ennis, 1985b; Facione, 1990, 2000; Halpern, 1998); fair-mindedness (Bailin et al., 1999; Facione, 1990); • the propensity or willingness to seek or be guided by reason (Bailin et…”

“The ability to generate and critique arguments is a central component of critical thinking ( Halpern, 1998 ).”

“Students should be educated in the foresight, anticipation, and formulation of alternative plans for various problems from a large number of different domains (Halpern, 1998).”

“Researchers seeking information on metacognition as a proclivity (Schraw 2010) or disposition (Halpern 1998; Kuhn and Dean 2004) should consider the grain size of their research purpose when selecting an instrument (Berger and Karabenick 2016; Pintrich 2004; Veenman et al. 2006).”

“Finally, just as it is important to use new knowledge in several different contexts in order for it to deepen and be retained, so it is important to use thinking skills to solve a variety of different problems in order for the thinking skills to continue to develop (Halpern, 1998).”

“Because it is more probable to teach skills rather than the supposedly unchangeable raw mental power, critical thinking has drawn much attention in psychology and education (e.g., Halpern, 1998; Pithers & Soden, 2000; ten Dam & Volman, 2004).”

“Second, there are reasons for believing that when thinking is taught in the disciplines, domain content drives out thinking-skills instruction (Halpern, 1998; Resnick, 1987).”

“…range of behavior because they simultaneously assess both mathematical knowledge and the metacognitive processes involved in effective thinking (Halpern, 1998; Schoenfeld, 1992; Schraw, 1998; but for related theory in decision making see Baron, 1985, 2008; Baron, Badgio, & Gaskins, 1986;…”

“These dispositions include both the ability to distinguish situations that call for critical thinking and the motivation to actually think critically in those situations (e.g. Facione 2000; Giancarlo and Facione 2001; Halpern 1998).”

“A second aspect of PD is the ability to think like a psychologist or, essentially, to approach problem solving from a psychological and scientific perspective (Halonen, 1995; Halpern, 1998).”

“Evidencebased practice students will be exposed to basic literature about creativity (e.g., Sternberg, 2001) and critical thinking (e.g., Halpern, 1998) as well as to articles demonstrating applications of these cognitive constructs to applied clinical work.”

“…may be different from others (Flavell, 1992) • ‘the use of cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desired outcome ’ (Halpern, 1998, p.450) • ’ judging in a reflective way what to do or what to believe (Facione, 2000, p.60) • ’ seeing both sides of an issue, being…”

“That is, even when students possess the skills involved in such thinking (and know when these skills are appropriate to use), they will not apply them unless they are motivated to do so (Facione 2000; Halpern 1998).”

“Although a focus on innate characteristics may be discouraging to instructors seeking to contribute to students’ critical thinking skills, evidence suggests that students can benefit from critical thinking instruction (Angeli & Valanides, 2009; Halpern, 1998).”

“Student beliefs about knowledge and what it means to understand contribute to the individual variability we see in the effects of teaching (Wigfield, Eccles, and Pintrich, 1996; Hofer and Pintrich, 1997; Halpern, 1998).”

“The result was also consistent with the approach stated Halpern (1998) who suggested that practice is important to the development of thinking skills.”

“Skills leading to critical thinking can be taught through determining cause, recognizing and critiquing assumptions, relating means and ends, justifying conclusions, determining likelihood and certainty, and creating analogies (Halpern 1998); all of these can be part of data analysis.”

“…1987) provided a taxonomy of critical-thinking skills, many of which are required for wise thinking, and Adams et al. (1988), Bransford and Stein (1993), Feuerstein (1980), and Halpern (1996, 1998) provided systematic courses that teach skills of critical thinking that are needed for wise thinking.”

“Considered among higher order cognitive skills, critical-thinking skills differ from simpler, lower order thinking skills such as recall, understanding, and direct application of knowledge (Halpern, 1998).”

“In other words, these problems are the kind of ill-defined, messy, complex problems for which reflective thinking is needed anyway (Halpern, 1998; Kennedy, Fisher, & Ennis, 1991).”

“A classical work by Halpern (1998) on transferability of critical thinking argues that thinking skills need to be taught in an explicit and conscious approach with examples linked to a speci fi c context.”

“The low truth-seeking scores observed in this study are consistent with other findings in several published studies of both nursing and nonnursing undergraduate students (Halpern, 1998; Ip et al., 2000; Profetto-McGrath, 1999; Walsh & Hardy, 1999).”

“The extent to which students engage with a course can increase transfer and support higher order learning (Halpern, 1998) and engagement predicts a number of important markers of academic success (Kuh et al.”

“However, in considering the extent to which training and transfer environments are similar, it is useful to distinguish between structural features and surface features of these environments (see Gick & Holyoak, 1987; Halpern, 1998).”

“Far transfer to other types of material and contexts is an important goal of CT skills instruction (Halpern, 1998), but we suspect it occurs rarely (Barnett & Ceci, 2002; Detterman, 1993).”

“The development of critical thinking skills is high on the agenda for HE establishments (Stassen et al., 2011; Roth 2010: Kovalik and Kovalik, 2007; Halpern, 1998), and educators’ teaching methods need to be adapted carefully to build on the students’ current critical thinking skills in order to develop them”

“these case studies would present complicated problems that require CT (Halpern, 1998; Kennedy, Fisher, & Ennis, 1991).”

“One influential definition proposes that CT involves the application of particular cognitive skills including analysis, evaluation, and inference skills, in a purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed manner (Halpern, 1998; Facione, 2013).”

“Materials for the Intervention Program The course materials were developed using a critical thinking teaching package (Halpern 1998) as the basis.”

“The FFM dimension of openness to experience is congruent with qualitative descriptions of critical thinkers using terms such as intellectual curiosity, open-mindedness, and flexibility (Beyer, 1995; Ennis, 1987; Halpern, 1998; Paul, 1992; Zechmeister & Johnson, 1992).”

“Metacognition can be defined as the ability to know, monitor, and regulate what one knows (e.g., Halpern 1998).”

“The honing of one’s CT skills, as well as developing the disposition to use one’s skills, is vital for success in school and throughout a person’s life (Halpern, 1998).”

“The results of these studies support the hypothesis that endorsing misconceptions is associated with poorer CT skills; but they do not address other aspects of CT, such as thinking dispositions and metacognition (Bensley, 2011a; Halpern, 1998).”