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A Descriptive Analysis of the Critical Thinking Model in Texas Elementary Education

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A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CRITICAL THINKING MODEL IN TEXAS ELEMENTARY EDUCATION Oswaldo Jorge Quijano Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS December 2013 APPROVED: Frances Van Tassell, Major Professor Darell Hull, Minor Professor Mary Harris, Committee Member Kelley King, Committee Member Nancy Nelson, Chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Administration Jerry R. Thomas, Dean of the College of Education Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Quijano, Oswaldo Jorge. A Descriptive Analysis of the Critical Thinking Model in Texas Elementary Education. Doctor of Philosophy (Curriculum and Instruction), December 2013, 202 pp., 17 tables, 1 figure, references, 180 titles. Contributions from elementary education to the practice and reality of critical thinking are rare, largely because attempts in basic education to elucidate a concept of critical thinking have a hard time breaking through the elusiveness and indeterminacy that characterize the history and reality of the concept. This situation is due to, and a consequence of, the difficulty of delimiting critical thinking from related fields, such as metacognition, higher-order-thinking, problem solving, informal logic, reasoning skills, and decision making, to name a few. Texas school authorities designed and put into practice a battery of tools to evaluate critical thinking through the assessment programs TAKS and STAAR, without taking a position regarding the indeterminacy problems of the content of critical thinking. The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the pieces of the critical thinking model imparted to Texas elementary school children since 1999 and continues today. The findings indicate that the critical thinking model implemented in Texas elementary schools is a particular version of a skills-only approach of critical thinking that follows the classical logical paradigm, consisting of two sets of complementary skills. This model acquaints students with the components and structure of five types of arguments while it fails to substantiate the logic of argument support that demonstrates how reasons support claims and the strength of support. The application of an adequacy conditions rubric showed the strengths of the model at the argumentation analysis level, yet it showed clear signs of incompleteness and inconsistencies at the argument structure level that distort its purpose and function. Copyright by Oswaldo Jorge Quijano ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.............................................................................................. vi CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND ...................................................................................................... 1 Overview ............................................................................................................................. 1 The Evolution of Critical Thinking as an Educational Ideal .............................................. 2 Critical Thinking and the Thinking Skills Movement ............................................ 3 Critical Thinking and the Educational Standards Movement ................................. 6 The Content of Critical Thinking ............................................................................ 7 Problem of the Study ........................................................................................................ 10 Structure of the Problem ................................................................................................... 13 Significance of the Study .................................................................................................. 15 Purpose of the Study ......................................................................................................... 17 Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 17 Summary ........................................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2 SYNTHESIS OF RELATED LITERATURE ........................................................ 19 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 19 The Problem of Defining Critical Thinking...................................................................... 20 The Nature of Critical Thinking in the Classical Logic Paradigm ................................... 25 Aristotle’s Definition of Critical Thinking ........................................................... 29 Aristotle’s Theory of Critical Thinking ................................................................ 30 Key Concepts in the Logical Paradigm of Critical Thinking ............................... 32 Consequences of the Logical Conception of Critical Thinking ............................ 35 The Problem with the Modern Logical Critical Thinking Paradigm ................................ 42 Critical Thinking Definitions in Contemporary Approaches ............................................ 47 Ennis’ Definition of Critical Thinking .................................................................. 47 Siegel’s Critical Thinking Program ...................................................................... 57 Paul’s Concept of Critical Thinking ..................................................................... 63 Critical Thinking in the Delphi Report ................................................................. 68 McPeck’s Theory of Critical Thinking ................................................................. 78 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 83 iii CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ........................................................................... 86 Limitations and Benefits ................................................................................................... 87 Limitations ............................................................................................................ 88 Benefits ................................................................................................................. 89 Delimitations ..................................................................................................................... 90 Procedures for Data Collection ......................................................................................... 91 Study Instruments ............................................................................................................. 92 Study Population ............................................................................................................... 94 Sampling Method .............................................................................................................. 95 Procedures for Data Analysis............................................................................................ 98 Reporting the Data .......................................................................................................... 101 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH ........................................................................ 102 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 102 Research Question 1 ....................................................................................................... 103 TEKS and the Texas Curriculum ........................................................................ 103 TAKS Objectives and the Texas Curriculum ..................................................... 105 TAKS Objective 4 and the Critical Thinking Curriculum .................................. 108 Research Question 2 ....................................................................................................... 115 Literary Response Arguments............................................................................. 124 Author’s Organization of Information ................................................................ 126 Reading Comprehension - Arguments from Implication or Entailment ............. 128 Reading Comprehension - Arguments from Probability .................................... 131 Reading Comprehension - Arguments from Analogy ........................................ 139 Literary Response - Support Arguments............................................................. 140 Literary Response – Connect and Compare/Contrast Arguments ...................... 142 Text Structure – Literary Concepts ..................................................................... 143 Research Question 3 ....................................................................................................... 144 Research Question 4 ....................................................................................................... 148 CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION ....................................................................... 150 Discussion of Research Question 1................................................................................. 150 Discussion of Research Question 2................................................................................. 153 Discussion of Research Question 3................................................................................. 161 iv Discussion of Research Question 4................................................................................
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