Developing Young Thinkers: An intervention aimed to enhance children's thinking skills

Lynsey A. Burke (Lead / Corresponding author), Joanne M. Williams

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    37 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    It is increasingly popular to 'teach' thinking skills in schools. A diverse variety of programmes exist to support practitioners in this task, and some research has been gathered on the effectiveness of individual approaches. However, the difficulties when assessing the development of thinking skills are widely documented. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of teaching thinking skills explicitly to 11/12-year olds by infusing thinking skills into the curriculum (i.e., teaching thinking skills simultaneously with subject content). There were three intervention conditions: collaborative, individual and control. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated with a combination of standardised and study-specific pre- and post-tests. Results demonstrated statistically significant gains for both the individual and collaborative learning conditions in a range of thinking skills. The greatest increase in performance was seen in the collaborative learning condition. Educational implications for policy and practice are discussed.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)104-124
    Number of pages21
    JournalThinking Skills and Creativity
    Volume3
    Issue number2
    Early online date8 Apr 2008
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2008

    Keywords

    • Collaborative learning
    • Education
    • Intervention
    • Pedagogy
    • Thinking skills

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Education

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