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Evaluation of Halpern's “Structural Component” for Improving Critical Thinking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Ana Mª Nieto  and
Carlos Saiz
Ana Mª Nieto*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Salamanca
Carlos Saiz
Affiliation:
Universidad de Salamanca
*
Correspondence should be addressed to Ana Mª Nieto, Departamento de Psicología Básica, Psicobiología y Metodología de las Ciencias del Comportamiento, Universidad de Salamanca, 37071 Salamanca, (Spain). Phone: 923- 294610- ext 3278. E-mail: acarracedo@usal.es
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Abstract

Halpern (1998) proposed a four-component model for promoting the transfer of critical thinking. One of them, the “structural component,” focuses on how to organize teaching so that critical thinking skills can be generalized. Here, we assess the efficiency of that type of organization. Thus, one group of university students received instruction following the suggestions specified in that component and their performance was compared with that of other university students who received instruction in the same skills but using a different procedure, and with that of a control group. In comparison with the control group, the performance of both instructed groups was better after training. However, no significant differences were observed between either instruction group; both forms of instruction afforded very similar results.

Halpern (1998) propuso un modelo de cuatro componentes para promocionar la transferencia del pensamiento crítico. Uno de ellos, el “componente estructural”, se centra en cómo organizar la enseñanza para que las habilidades del pensamiento crítico puedan generalizarse. En este trabajo, evaluamos la eficiencia de este tipo de organización. Así, un grupo de estudiantes universitarios recibieron instrucción siguiendo las sugerencias especificadas en ese componente y su ejecución se comparó con la de otro grupo de estudiantes universitarios que recibieron instrucción en las mismas habilidades pero usando un procedimiento diferente, y con la de un grupo control. En comparación con el grupo control, la ejecución de ambos grupos instruidos fue mejor después del entrenamiento. Sin embargo, no se observaron diferencias significativas entre los dos grupos de instrucción; ambas formas de instrucción produjeron resultados muy similares.

Keywords

critical thinkinginstructionreasoningdecision-makingpensamiento críticoinstrucciónrazonamientotoma de decisiones
Type
Articles
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , May 2008 , pp. 266 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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