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).”

“The idea that teaching general heuristics is an effective method to train transferable abilities is not new in educational research (Feuerstein, 1980; Feuerstein, Feuerstein, Falik, & Rand, 2006; Halpern, 1998; Perkins & Grotzer, 1997; Shayer, 1999).”

“Fostering students’ learning behaviors such as usage of elaboration and critical thinking are considered key competencies and transferable skills for STEM undergraduate students at R1 institutions linking course materials to real-world practice (Chiaburu & Marinova, 2005; Fries et al., 2020; Halpern, 1998).”

“Halpern (1998) believes that critical thinking is “purposeful,”

“For the result of explicit instruction, Halpern (1998) has offered us good evidence from two teaching programs with an aim to strengthen students’ critical thinking skills and ability.”

“In accordance with this observation, the definition of Halpern (1998) will be used: The term critical thinking refers to the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome.”

“Finally, it should be mentioned that scholars also highlight the importance of transferring learning across domains for promoting CT (e.g., Halpern 1998).”

“…the three cognitive styles is guided by rationality and goals for reliable information processing, decision making, and problem solving, and they all rely on thinking dispositions, metacognitive strategies, and advanced cognitive skills (Halpern, 1998; Dunbar and Fugelsang, 2005; Ku and Ho, 2010).”

“Ennis (1987) and Halpern (1998) defined the term critical thinking as represents a set of cognitive skills and dispositions which are conducive to decision making and problem solving in different situations.”

“Domain-General Views of Metacognition Some studies support domain generality of metacognition, treating it as a skill that can be applied across different content areas (e.g., Schraw, 1996; Halpern, 1998; Veenman and Verheij, 2001).”

“Furthermore, most concepts recognize that CrT embeds in abilities or skills supported by a set of sub-skills, as well as in attitudes or dispositions [13 – 15].”

“There is a long history of emphasizing critical thinking and judgment in education (Ennis, 1989; Halpern, 1993, 1998; Kuhn, 2005), but to properly inform these efforts, developmental models and empirical studies are needed to better understand the emergence of these competencies.”

“Some researchers (Halpern, 1998; Willingham, 2008), have a tendency to agree that transferability is unlikely to happen unless students are instructed to explicitly transfer these skills. therefore need to be offered opportunities to employ critical thinking skills and abilities in a variety of…”

“For critical thinking, we created six new items based on Terenzini et al. (1995) and Halpern (1998).”

“Increasingly, business managers and executives will need to employ critical thinking skills to be able to analyze and evaluate copious amounts of data to make successful decisions (Behar-Horenstein & Niu, 2011; Halpern, 1998).”

“The source of the claims included a parent, a scientist, an advertisement, and a teacher, in an effort to encourage students to transfer critical thinking skills outside of the classroom to everyday occurrences (Halpern, 1998).”

“…to “recognize assumptions; separate facts from opinions and make evaluations; ask questions and question the validity of evidence; verify information and listen to observe; seek to understand several perspectives, and seek the truth before reporting it” (Shaheen & Nisbah, 2012; Halpern, 1998).”

“Althoughseveralauthorshavediscussedrelated issues such aspersonalbiasesandpreconceptionsaboutscientificpsychology (Halonen, 1995; Halpern, 1998; Keeley, Ali, & Gebing, 1998;Sheldon,1999;R.A.Smith,1995)anda fewothershave focused on a narrow set of theoretical assumptions (Bensley, 1998; Tavris,…”

“Moreover, “examples of good practice” were discussed in order to promote transfer of the skills dealt with in the training (Halpern, 1998).”

“We choose analytical writing because this task requires high cognitive effort to develop critical thinking [27, 28], a fundamental higher-order thinking skill crucial for problem-solving and decision-making [29, 30].”

“Several researchers have outlined skills that underlie critical thinking (e.g., Ennis, 1987; Halpern, 1998).”

“For example, it takes a lot of time and energy to cultivate higher-order thinking ability in the meta-cognitive domain [38].”

“In this sense, the word critical is not meant to imply “criticism” or “fault-finding” but careful evaluation or judgment that aims at improving the thinking process (Halpern, 1998).”

““CT is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome” (Halpern, 1998, p. 450).”

“For example, Halpern (1998) stated that CT is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed.”

“This teacher-directed and student-practiced metacognitive activity incorporated self-evaluations of acquisition, comprehension, and reasoning on, for instance, concepts in science (Bensley and Spero 2014; Halpern 1998; Tarricone 2011).”

“2 presents an example of such graphs) are elaborated on, constitutes a form of higher skills experience, amechanism to support far transfer [66,67].”

“During the process of learning, metacognition directs the students’ learning strategies (Medina, Castleberry & Persky, 2017) where strategies of metacognition represent an important variable (Halpern, 1998).”

“Unfortunately, students and sometimes even trained scientists make errors when reasoning about evidence (Halpern, 1998).”

“…thinking is a process that guides students to engage in purposeful thinking and reasoning to identify a problem, explore the situation by formulating inferences, make decisions to arrive at new understandings of the situation, and identify solutions (Facione, 1990; Halpern, 1998; Kur fi ss, 1988).”

“Memory, attention, problem solving, critical thinking, language processing, perceptual abilities, and executive processes are among the cognitive tasks covered by these mental abilities (Diamond 2013; Halpern 1998; Treisman and Gelade 1980).”

“Those definitions were as follows: 1) a mental ability or a system of aspirations (Halonen, 1995; Halpern, 1998; Verburgh et al, 2013; Saleh, 2019); 2) an approach to solving the problem (Saleh, 2019; Heard et al, 2020); a skill (Saleh, 2019).”

“Similarly, Halpern (1998) proposed a model for the trans-contextual learning of critical thinking skills, which scaffolds the learner’s ability to apply skills in real-world contexts.”

“They also use established methods when fostering the disposition and cognitive skills that characterize critical thinkers (e.g., Halpern, 1998; King, 1995; Wade, 1995; Yanchar & Slife, 2004).”

“Halpern (1998) describes a skills-based approach to teaching critical thinking in students and emphasizes the importance of using real-world contexts 1 Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN, USA Corresponding Author: Emily Stark, Department of Psychology, Minnesota State University, 23 Armstrong…”

“Our own conceptualization of CAT is that it is both a disposition and a cognitive process (Facione 2000; Halpern 1998), each of which may be influenced by interactions with other individuals and specific content material (Halpern 2001; Knapp, M. and Associates 1995; Murphy et al. 2009; Wentzel…”

“For example, Jasmine was asked to give several reasons why she thought she could not work with the client and several reasons that she could work with this client (see Halpern, 1998).”

“For example, the National Science Foundation, Intel, Microsoft, and Google all engage in competitive funding awards specifically identifying creativity as a goal.”

“Critique and evaluation are essential components of be-comingasavvyconsumerofresearch(Halpern,1998;Lawson, 1999; Sternberg, 1999).”

“Among modern conceptions, it has been considered as a ‘purposeful act’ (Halpern, 1998) of ‘reasonable and reflective thinking’ (Ennis, 1993) in the form of a series of actions that a critical thinker undertakes. Facione (1990) outlines one such approach in his seminal publication The Delphi Report.”

“According to Ennis (1996); Halpem (1998), Educational researchers and theorists place that any conceptualization of critical thinking must include both skills and dispositions.”

“The public education system has a critical role in supporting students’ acquisition of HOTS because these skills can be enhanced through student-centered instruction and are transferrable after they exit PreK–12 education systems (Guskey, 2007; Halpern, 1998; Hmelo & Ferrari, 1997).”

“Similarly, for a metacognitive self-regulation of critical thinking, students can benefit from knowledge about the human mind and common biases and pitfalls that may hinder their ability for critical thinking, as well as strategies for noticing, monitoring, and evaluating their thinking [12,73].”

“Critical thinking facilitates the detection of flaws in a reasoning process, and the assessment of the quality of a decision or a solution to a problem (Halpern 1998).”

“…to students, fosters transfer because it increases students ’ active involvement and participation in learning activities; this makes them aware of the relevance of value-loaded critical thinking in everyday life (Engle, 2006; Halpern, 1998; Peters et al., 2015; Wiig, Silseth & Erstad, 2018).”

“…hopes for critical thinking in their courses, some researchers have suggested that increased critical analysis in classrooms rarely occurs without instructional assistance (Abrami et al., 2008; Case, 2005; Facione, 1990; Halpern, 1998; Hew & Cheung, 2003; Landsman & Gorski, 2007; Paul, 1992).”

“Despite the virtues of the recent technological innovations for accessing information (Halpern, 1998), supporting creativity (Jafarigohar et al., 2016 ), increasing motivation (Chen & Wu, 2021), and facilitating peer interaction (Guiller et al., 2008), they are, by no means, without unintended and…”