Browse > Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines
Volume 20, Issue 4, Summer 2001
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1. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Steve Mashalidis Critical Thinking in Values Education
This paper underlines the need for teaching morals and values through critical reflection and active genuine dialogue. It promotes the pedagogy of dialogue within educational institutions, the creation of multi-dimensional learning environments for the cultivation and dissemination of intersubjective understandings of diverse moral worldviews, the use of critical thinking skills and intellectual traits of mind forethical decision-making, and the communication of values and morals through dialogue. An argument is advanced to show how reflective dialogue lays the groundwork for the creation of initial objective relations in the classroom and forms the basis for the pragmatic implementation of an interpersonal connection characterized by feelings of tolerance, empathy, and respect for the dignity of human beings and their way of life.
Daniel E. Flage Critical Thinking: A Verbal Dispute?
Don Fawkes, Tom Adajian, Steven Hoeltzel Examining the Exam: A Critical Look at the Watson-Glaser Critcal Thinking Appraisal Exam
This paper examines the content of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal exam (1980). Our report is not a statistical review. We find the content of this exam defective in a number of areas. The exam consists of five "tests" of 16 questions for a total of 80 questions. Of these, we cannot recommend test 1, test 2, test 4, and test 5; and, we cannot recommend questions 4, 5, 14, 16, 37, 45, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, and 67. As shown in this report, the exam creates confusion and makes basic errors in critical thinking in a number of areas, and therefore, lacks content quality in these areas. Hence, no statistical results pertaining to the administration of these areas to students can be informative. We find the remaining areas acceptable as to content. But until the problems are corrected, we can only recommend that those who may use the exam remove the defective parts from test administration or from data collection and reporting. We recommend the former, because of the wasted time involved in the latter. This would amount to administering only 14 questions, i.e. test 3 with questions 37 and 45 eliminated.We also find the scope of the exam to be quite limited, but allow that this may be unavoidable for any instrument designed to be completed in about an hour. We further recommend the use of several tests, rather than one; and, that any such results be understood only as a measure of minimal competency (below which remediation likely is needed) for the skills tested, but not as an adequate measure of critical thinking.
Leah Segal, Ruth Richter Criticism and Democracy
This paper describes a holistic approach and an interdisciplinary curriculum in enhancing critical thinking and education for democracy at the junior-high schools and highschools levels. The curriculum includes academic subjects such as the humanities, sciences, social sciences and art. The aim of this curriculum is not to teach an additional lesson in history, political sciences, art, etc., but to fostercritical thinking and democratic behavior. The theoretical framework has two bases. The first derives from eighteenth century rationalism and scientific thinking, while the second is from the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. Both produced social economies and a political structure of mass democracy. The focal point here is that critical thinking is a prerequisite for the existence of democratic values and principles in a post-modern society. The program integrates McPeck's strategies on the conception of critical thinking and the dialectic technique of Richard Paul. The curriculum is designed forone or two semesters (14 to 28 meetings). It is built in a modular fashion, in which each subject stands on its own and is presented by various lecturers from different domains. The curriculum was implemented in junior high and high schools in Haifa and vicinity."It is this consensus around liberal democracy as the final form of government that I have called "the end of history."(Fukuyama, F (1990) in Fortune, January 15, 1990, p. 75).
Jay VerLinden Transforming Critical Thinking: Thinking Constructively