AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
APPLYING
OF
STRATEGIES
OF
CRITICAL
AND
CREATIVE
THINKING
BY
TEACHERS
ACCORDING
TO
THE
TEACHING
SUBJECT
AND
DEGREE
OF
EDUCATION
a
JANA
DUCHOVIČOVÁ,
b
LÍVIA
FENYVESIOVÁ
Constantine the Philosopher University, Faculty of Education,
Department of Pedagogy, Dražovská 4,
Post code: 949 74, Nitra, Slovakia
Email:
a
jduchovicova@ukf.sk,
b
lfenyvesiova@ukf.sk
This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the
contract No. APVV-15-0368.
Abstract: The study presents the results of our research dealing with teaching strategies
that develop critical and creative thinking of pupils. The subject of our study is the
correlation level between the application of strategies developing the critical and creative
thinking by teachers and the subjects they teach. The analysis of dependence of particular
strategies pointed out the fact that teachers of natural sciences, social sciences, languages,
as well as educational and artistic subjects use strategies developing critical and creative
thinking with the same frequency, and there does not exist any difference in their
application according to particular groups of teaching subjects. We identified a statistically
significant difference only in two teaching strategies.
Keywords: critical thinking, creative thinking, teaching strategies.
1 Introduction
The ability to think in a critical and creative way represents one of
the key abilities of people for effective and meaningful life in the
21st century. The excessive usage of technologies in our
environment, informative explosion and quickly spread information
require individuals who are able to select information, assess and
solve problems, find and judge possible alternatives, make correct
decisions and offer their own ideas. It is possible to develop these
skills and they represent a challenge for the current school system
and its form of the teaching process. The changes in the contents
and processes of education are indispensable so that teachers can
carry out cognitively oriented teaching and apply such teaching
strategies that develop reflective, critical and creative thinking of
pupils. The work was developed as part of research project solution
VEGA No. 1/0098/17 Individual Conception and Strategy of
Education within the Context of Teacher´s Proffesional
Development.
2 Theoretical and Empirical Starting Points
It is indispensable to look at the concept of critical thinking in a
complex way within the context of development of critical thinking
by means of education. Until now there does not exist any overtly
accepted definition that would define critical and creative thinking
to the full extent. For the needs of assessing learning results of
pupils there was approved a definition that was published in the so
called Delphi Report (Facione, 1990) Critical thinking is:
intentional, regulated thinking based on the consistent
consideration of evidence, concepts, methods, criteria and
correlations, focused on the interpretation, analysis, assessment and
drawing of conclusions.
Critical thinking is perceived as a more dimensional concept. The
core of critical thinking consists of two dimensions (Ennis, 1985;
Facione, 1990; Paul,1992; Halpern, 2014, Bailin at al,1999):
1.
specific categories of cognitive competences: interpretation,
analysis, assessment, assuming, explaining, and self-
regulation;
2.
dimension of personal predispositions
.
The cognitive dimension of critical thinking is formed by mental
processes like analysis, synthesis, and assessment which are denoted
as higher cognitive processes. Halpern (1997) understands critical
thinking as “the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that
increase the probability of a desirable outcome“. Critical thinking
is a mental process and on its basis individuals are able to judge
arguments and new information, to draw conclusions and create
their own opinions. Thinking at the highest level, the critical and
creative thinking, allows us to gain individual freedom (Limbach,
Waugh, 2010). Erwin (2002) made a list of cognitive competences
of critical thinking, including there:
the competence to identify key ideas and assumptions in the
argument,
the competence to recognize important correlations,
the competence to interpret data correctly,
the competence to draw logical conclusions from accessible
information,
the competence to differentiate between facts and
assumptions,
the competence to assess the reliability of evidence mentioned
to support the statements and credibility of authority,
the competence to re-evaluate our own convictions,
effective decision making and problem solving. (In Pascarella,
Terenzini, 2005).
The affective level of critical thinking is created by personal
predispositions, attitudes of individuals to information, their interest
and motivation to solve tasks and problems. A very important part is
represented by the so called “intellectual curiosity” and openness to
new horizons (Paul, 1992). Also Watson and Glaser (2012) mention
the close relationships between the cognitive and affective level of
critical thinking. According to them, critical thinking contains
attitudes to information, knowledge, as well as valid assumptions,
abstractions, generalizations and abilities that could be used at
work. In addition to the cognitive and affective levels of critical
thinking, Kosturková (2016, p. 15) describes also the performing
dimension whose essence is created by the abilities of individuals to
use different methods for better orientation in manifold types of
information, such as creating of conceptual maps, Venn Diagram,
recurrent graphical organization, etc.
As aforementioned, in the educational -formational process it is
possible to have a direct impact on the ability to think critically
(Paul, 1992; Nelson, 1994; Halpern, 2014; Bailin et al., 1999).
However, the development of critical and creative thinking in the
conditions of Slovak school system seems to be an unexplored area.
There exist only few research works that document the state of
critical thinking of pupils and their teachers. There are hardly any
research works and data about the preparation of teachers in the
course of their pre-graduate formation from the point of view of
applying strategies for development of critical thinking. Current
measurements and analyses, dealing with the state of critical and
creative thinking of pupils of the secondary education, emphasize
the unsatisfactory results. According to the results of PISA 2012,
2015, the level of their literacy in reading, mathematics and natural
sciences has been below the average of other countries of OECD for
long time. Kosturková (2016) was interested in finding out the state
of critical thinking of students at Slovak secondary grammar
schools. The research sample was formed by 365 students of
secondary schools and her diagnostic tool was the W-GCTA test of
critical thinking. The general achieved mean level of gross score
was 40,41 points out of the total number of 80 points, and pupils
achieved the lowest mean score in the subtest for judging and the
highest score in the subtest for recognizing assumptions. To a
certain degree, these results reflect the insufficient attention paid to
the development of critical thinking of pupils. At the same time,
these results emphasize the need for the development of critical and
creative thinking of teachers and also the subsequent need for
creative application of adaptive teaching strategies by teachers of
primary schools, secondary schools and universities. International
measurements Tallis (2008) pointed out the fact that the structured
approach to teaching is dominant in Slovakia when compared to the
approach focused on pupils and extensive teaching. The frequency
of applying this extensive teaching type with dominant individual
and creative activities of pupils (debate, argumentation, project
work, production of products for others, essay writing) was
identified as the lowest one out of all three evaluated types of
teaching. Many other research works confirm that teachers develop
higher cognitive abilities of pupils to a very limited extent (Zelina
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