Direct Teaching of Thinking

Anderson, E. (1985). Project IMPACT--A Summary of Outcomes in Four Schools. A report by The Orange County Board of Education, Costa Mesa, CA.

Project IMPACT program evaluation submitted to The Joint Dissemination Review Panel, National Diffusion Network, US Dept. of Education, Washington, D.C., l983.

Project IMPACT (Improving Minimal Proficiencies by Activating Critical Thinking) was developed in the late l970s and targeted for academically "at risk" students in the junior high grades (7, 8 and 9). These students were being served in remedial programs due to their prior failure to demonstrate competency on the district proficiency tests. Project IMPACT was developed to provide a cognitive process orientation to remedial efforts by infusing the direct teaching of critical thinking skills into the curriculum. During the field test year, students from four different districts participated in the project. The evaluation employed a pre-test-post-test-control group design and proficiency tests in reading and mathematics (grades 7, 8 and 9). Two instruments were utilized: l. District Proficiency Tests in Reading and Math, and 2. The Cornell Critical Thinking Test, Level X. Students in the IMPACT groups significantly outperformed those in the control groups on all tests (DPT Reading and Math; Cornell Test). Significance was at the .0l level. Subsequent review and evaluation of this project by the U.S.O.E.'s Joint Dissemination Review Panel confirmed the effectiveness of Project IMPACT and led to subsequent adoption by the National Diffusion Network.

Beyer, B. (1987). Practical Strategies for the Teaching of Thinking. Allyn and Bacon: Boston, MA.

Beyer presents exceptionally detailed procedures for the direct teaching of thinking. Examples for teaching the skills of classifying and identifying bias are illustrated through deductive, inductive, and developmental lesson models.

Perkins, D. and Salomon, G. (1988). Teaching for transfer. Educational Leadership, Alexandria, VA., 22-32.

Reviews the research on the transfer of "process" skills and discusses implications for instructional practice.

Resnick, L. (1987). Education and Learning To Think. National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 3.

Resnick provides an excellent summary of current research related to the development of thinking abilities.

Rosenshine, B. (1976). "Classroom Instruction" in Gage, N. (Ed.) Psychology of Teaching: The 77th Yearbook of the National Study of Education. Chicago, Illinois.

The author provides a description of a direct instruction model applied to the teaching of "basic" skills. Research supporting the efficacy of direct instruction is provided.

Worsham, A. and Austin, G. (1983). Effects of teaching thinking skills on SAT scores. Educational Leadership, Alexandria, VA., 50-51.

This article reports on the results of a doctoral dissertation by Antoinette Worsham in that she investigated the effects of a Language Arts thinking skills program on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) performance. The study compared the SAT verbal scores of two matched groups of seniors from the same urban high school in Baltimore, Maryland. While both groups took the SAT, only the experimental group participated in the Think program. This participation consisted of direct instruction in thinking skills using the Think program two days per week during the language arts period. Students were involved with the program for three semesters, resulting in a total of approximately one hundred hours of thinking skills instruction.

Group comparability was established through ANOVA and t-test analyses on three pretest measures: the California Achievement Test (CAT) total verbal scores, and CAT reading comprehension and vocabulary subtest scores. Similar analyses were conducted on comparable SAT posttest measures: SAT total verbal scores and subtest scores in reading comprehension and vocabulary.

A mean increase in 42 points in the SAT total verbal scores was realized by the Think group. The difference was highly significant at the .0005 level. Significant differences also were found between the two subtest groups: .0019 for reading comprehension score increases and .0012 for vocabulary score increases.