First-year chemistry was identified by the North West University Potchefstroom Campus as one of the modules with a low pass rate. It is clear that students often memorise definitions and formulae, without understanding the underlying concepts which are necessary for problem solving. It is important that these and other related problems are addressed, before any significant change in the through-put rate for first-year students is reached. Conventional forms of lectures as teaching approach had little impact on the performance of students’ exam results. Much research has already been done on students’ misconceptions of stoichiometry, as well as problem solving strategies regarding stoichiometric problems. In addition, several alternative approaches concerning the teaching of chemistry have already been developed. Students still see this subject as very difficult and challenging. This study handles the systematic integration of visualization during lectures and the development of critical thinking and metacognition in assignments in stoichiometry teaching of first-year students at a South African University with the purpose of improving conceptual understanding. A quantitative research approach was followed. A one-group pre-test-post-test design was initiated to determine if there were practical significant differences in the conceptualisation of students at the beginning and at the end of the study. The intervention consisted of the implementation of specific teaching techniques, which included visualization and the development of critical thinking. Slideshows, a document camera, assessment tasks, a mini-project as well as thinking skills tasks were used. The study indicated that visualization, metacognition and critical thinking had a positive influence on the learning and conceptualisation of stoichiometry in students. The promotion of the learning of by the implementation of visualization, metacognition and critical thinking techniques, was successfully applied to help first-year students of this university realise stoichiometric-conceptualisation. / MSc (Natural Science Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

First-year chemistry was identified by the North West University Potchefstroom Campus as one of the modules with a low pass rate. It is clear that students often memorise definitions and formulae, without understanding the underlying concepts which are necessary for problem solving. It is important that these and other related problems are addressed, before any significant change in the through-put rate for first-year students is reached. Conventional forms of lectures as teaching approach had little impact on the performance of students’ exam results. Much research has already been done on students’ misconceptions of stoichiometry, as well as problem solving strategies regarding stoichiometric problems. In addition, several alternative approaches concerning the teaching of chemistry have already been developed. Students still see this subject as very difficult and challenging. This study handles the systematic integration of visualization during lectures and the development of critical thinking and metacognition in assignments in stoichiometry teaching of first-year students at a South African University with the purpose of improving conceptual understanding. A quantitative research approach was followed. A one-group pre-test-post-test design was initiated to determine if there were practical significant differences in the conceptualisation of students at the beginning and at the end of the study. The intervention consisted of the implementation of specific teaching techniques, which included visualization and the development of critical thinking. Slideshows, a document camera, assessment tasks, a mini-project as well as thinking skills tasks were used. The study indicated that visualization, metacognition and critical thinking had a positive influence on the learning and conceptualisation of stoichiometry in students. The promotion of the learning of by the implementation of visualization, metacognition and critical thinking techniques, was successfully applied to help first-year students of this university realise stoichiometric-conceptualisation. / MSc (Natural Science Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Thesis (MCurr)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The increasingly complex role of the critical care nurse in an intensive care environment demands a much higher level of critical thinking and clinical judgment skill than ever before. Critical thinking in nursing practice may be defined as the cognitive ability to analyse, predict and transform knowledge, ensuring quality nursing care. To reason from a nurse’s perspective requires that we learn the content of nursing; this includes the concepts, ideas and theories of nursing. The aim and objectives of the study were to explore critical care nurses’ perspectives and experiences with regards to the concept of critical thinking, facets influencing the application of critical thinking skills in clinical practice and how these impact on the delivery of quality nursing care. A qualitative approach, using a case study design was utilised. A sample of six participants, who met the study inclusion criteria and consented to participate, were interviewed individually. Subsequently, five of these six participants took part in a focus group discussion to capture additional data to clarify and enrich the individual interview data. A field worker was present during the interviewing processes to note non-verbal data and later verify transcribed data. Feasibility of the proposed study was established by conducting a pretest which elicited relevant information. Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Health Research Ethics Committee at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University. Permission and consent was obtained from the relevant hospital group to interview nurses working in the intensive care units. Qualitative content analysis, which focuses on the content or contextual meaning, was used to analyse interview data. Coding of the data through emergent themes and sub-themes was done by the researcher and supported through independent coding to verify and strengthen the analysis and interpretation of the researcher. . The results depicted how the participants personally understood the concept of critical thinking and the components influencing the application of critical thinking skill in clinical practice. The study of the participants’ perspective of the concept of critical thinking and portrayed how they experience analytical and independent thinking, competence and confidence, as well as knowledge, skill and expertise, to influence the quality of patient care. The data revealed several themes that facilitated critical thinking in critical care nurses. These themes were ‘team support’, ‘experience and exposure’ and ‘empowering the mind’. Emergent themes elaborating the limitations of critical thinking included ‘being stressed’, ‘professional boundaries’ and ‘being busy’. Several recommendations and suggestions for future research were offered. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die toenemende komplekse rol van die kritieke-sorgverpleegster in ’n intensiewe-sorg omgewing verg ’n veel hoër vlak van kritiese denke en ’n kliniese oordeelvaardigheid as ooit tevore. Kritiese denke in ’n verplegingspraktyk kan gedefinieer word as die kognitiewe vermoë om te kan analiseer, om vooruit situasies te kan bepaal en die vermoë om kennis te omskep sodat kwaliteit verpleegsorg verseker kan word. Om soos ’n verpleegster te kan dink, stipuleer dat die inhoud van verpleging geleer moet word wat konsepte, idees en teorieë daarvan insluit. Die doel en oogmerke van die studie is om die ervarings en perspektiewe van kritieke-sorgverpleegsters te ondersoek, met betrekking tot die konsep van kritiese denke, fasette wat die toepassing van kritiese denkvaardighede in ’n kliniese praktyk beïnvloed en die impak daarvan op die lewering van kwaliteit verpleegsorg. Die metodologie wat toegepas is, is ’n kwalitatiewe benadering deur middel van ’n gevalle-studie ontwerp. ’n Steekproefgrootte van ses deelnemers wat aan die inklusiewe kriteria voldoen het, is mee onderhoude individueel gevoer en daarna is met vyf van hierdie ses deelnemers in ’n fokusgroep onderhoude gevoer ten einde data op te neem wat andersins verlore kon geraak het. ’n Veldwerker was teenwoordig gedurende die proses van onderhoudvoering om die opgeneemde en getranskribeerde data te verifieer. Die data-insamelingsinstrument is in die vorm van ’n onderhoudsgids ontwikkel om die navorser gedurende die onderhoudvoering te help. ’n Loodsondersoek is uitgevoer om die haalbaarheid van die voorgestelde studie te ondersoek en is sodoende geskep om relevante inligting te onthul. Etiese goedkeuring vir die studie is verkry van die Gesondheidsnavorsing Etiese Komitee aan die Fakulteit van Geneeskunde en Gesondheidswetenskappe, Universiteit Stellenbosch. Goedkeuring en toestemming is van die hospitaalgroep aan wie die hospitaal behoort verkry, waar die studie onderneem is om sodoende onderhoude te kan voer met verpleegsters wat in die intensiewe-sorgeenhede werk. ’n Primêre, kwalitatiewe inhouds analise is gebruik om omderhoud data te analiseer wat fokus op die inhoud of kontekstuele betekenis daarvan. Kodering van die data deur die toepassing van die temas en sub-temas wat voorgekom het, is deur die navorser gedoen. Die data is onafhanklik gekodeer om die analise en interpretasie van die navorser te verifieer en te bekragtig ten einde die akkuraatheid en getrouheid in die formulering van die betekenis en interpretasie van gebeure met juiste weergawe daarvan, te verseker. Die resultate wat as hooftemas vanuit die individuele onderhoude voortgespruit het, asook die van die fokusgroep het die deelnemers se eie begrip van die konsep van kritiese denke en komponente wat die toepassing van kritiese denkvaardigheid in ’n kliniese praktyk beïnvloed, getoon. Die konsep van kritiese denke het die wyse waarop analitiese en onafhankilke denke, bevoegdheid en selfvertroue, asook kennis, vaardigheid en kundigheid die kwaliteit van pasiëntsorg beïnvloed, uitgebeeld. Die voortkomende data het daartoe aanleiding gegee dat die faktore wat die fasilitering en beperking van kritiese denke beïnvloed, bespreek kon word. Data rakende fasilitering het getoon hoedat die ondersteuning van die span, ervaring, blootstelling en die verruiming van die gees, kritieke-sorgverpleegsters positief kan beïnvloed om kritiese denke in hulle daaglikse verplegingsaktiwiteite effektief te kan toepas. Data wat verband hou met beperkings het getoon hoedat stres, professionele kwessies en besigwees kritieke-sorgverpleegsters negatief kan beïnvloed in die toepassing van kritiese denke gedurende daaglikse verplegingsaktiwiteite. Verskeie aanbevelings vir toekomstige navorsing is voorgestel.

American educators in large numbers now believe that school curricula must include direct instruction in thinking skills. At issue for many, however, is the question of what effect that instruction has on young people. This study was developed to provide an answer to that question within a particular high school setting and to suggest a model for assessing the effect of thinking skill programs in other settings. The inquiry was naturalistic in design, responding to current criticisms of traditional quantitative methods being applied to the complex processes of acquiring thinking strategies. Stimulating recall by means of videotape, this research used interviews of students and teachers from eight different classes to investigate perceptions and cognitive processes resulting from lessons in thinking skills. Results of the study indicate that most students were aware of teachers' purposes in the lessons. Further, they were able to articulate their perceptions, which frequently coincided with teacher intentions, as well as their thought processes while instruction was in progress. Some older high school students were also able to describe ways they have applied or might apply the thinking skills outside of the classroom setting. Data collected in this project were sufficiently detailed and convincing so that they were taken by the teacher participants as valid assessments of the teaching/learning situation they had created. They can use the information to adjust instructional strategies. Additionally, the fact that this research was successful in revealing in-depth information about the effects of instruction in thinking skills argues for the inclusion of such an assessment model within any program being developed to include those skills in a curriculum.

This dissertation explores why, how, and to whom rhetorical criticism was taught in the four most noteworthy locations of a systematic rhetorical criticism instruction up to the end of the twentieth century: the schools of Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle in ancient Greece and the twentieth-century speech communication discipline in the United States. The study shows that Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle had clearly recognized the analysis of public speeches (and by extension the analysis of other symbolically mediated influence) as constituting a symbolic capital of the highest order and the core of their intellectual and pedagogical interest in the art of the word or rhetoric. It was precisely their recognition of rhetorical criticism's intellectual worth that prompted the three master teachers to reserve a systematic instruction in rhetorical criticism for Athens' future leaders. By contrast, the twentieth-century speech communication discipline found itself caught between a goal to teach production-oriented public speaking courses and a goal to function as a modern research discipline. Neither twentieth-century objective valued and supported rhetorical criticism as speech communication's intellectual foundation and as an advanced form of listening, reading, seeing, and thinking in which all members of the modern mass education system are entitled to receive an easily accessible, systematic, and explicit training. Both in ancient Greece and in the twentieth-century United States a systematic instruction in the analysis of symbolically mediated influence was made available to some but not others.

This article describes a library workshop for freshman hospitality management students enrolled at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, which features a focus on critical thinking. An active learning experience uses an element of surprise. Students evaluate the website of a bankrupt company where information about the company’s situation is hidden or not present. When the instructor guides the class to find unbiased information from newspapers, many students begin to think critically about sources.

Problema: Meno formų, vizualinių ženklų gausa šiandien liete užliejusi mūsų kultūrinę ir socialinę erdvę. Ji tampa natūralia, įprasta erdve šiuolaikiniams jaunuoliams, kurie jos dėka formuojasi estetines, menines nuostatas bei požiūrį į dailę apskritai. Šiame vizualine raiška gausiai pritvindytame pasaulyje vienodu pajėgumu su išties vertingais, reikšmingais meniniais atradimais drauge sugyvena kičas, pseudomenas, komercinius tikslus turintys kūriniai. Todėl gebėjimas atskirti vertingus objektus nuo vienadienių, beverčių, gebėjimas orientuotis daugiasluoksnėje ir daugiaprasmėje dailės reiškinių terpėje šiuolaikiniam jaunuoliui tampa labai svarbus. Kad mokinio interesas kultūrai, dailei nesudužtų į erzacinių meno pakaitalų sienas ir jis būtų pajėgus pats spręsti jam kylančias kultūrines, vertybines dilemas ir taptų aktyviu kultūros puoselėjimo, kūrimo dalyviu, reikia formuoti mokinių kritinį mąstymą. Darbo naujumą sudaro tai, kad įvertintas dailės kūrinių interpretavimo poveikis mokinių kritiniam mąstymui. Sukurtas dailės kūrinių interpretavimo modelis gali būti naudingas kuriant programas ir dailės istorijos mokyme. Tyrimo tikslas - atskleisti interpretacijos metodo įtaką dailės srovių pažinime, ugdant kritinį mąstymą. Tyrimo hipotezė: XI – XII klasių kritinis mąstymas bus ugdomas bei formuojamas efektyviau, jei į dailės istorijos mokymo procesą bus įtrauktas kūrinių interpretavimas. Tyrimo objektas - interpretacijos įtaka XI – XII klasių moksleivių kritinio mąstymo sklaidai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Problem: The abundance of art forms and visual symbols has flooded today’s cultural and social space. It is becoming a natural and familiar space for modern youth to form their aesthetic, artistic, and overall attitude of arts. In this world amply filled with visual expression, such art forms as kitsch, pseudo-art, and commercial production live side by side with the truly valuable and significant art discoveries. For this reason, the youngster’s ability to distinguish valuable objects from the temporary irrelevant ones, his orientation in multilayered and polysemantic medium of artistic phenomena becomes utterly important. In order to prevent the students’ interest in culture and arts from collapsing into walls of cheap art surrogates, to support their endeavors in solving cultural and moral issues, in order for them to actively create and nourish the culture, their critical thinking has to be formed. The novelty of this work lies in evaluation of the effect of interpretation of works of art on critical thinking of the students. This art interpretation model might be useful in designing art history study programs. The aim of the research is to disclose the effect of art interpretation on cognition of art movements by improving critical thinking abilities. The hypothesis of the research: the critical thinking abilities of 11th and 12th grade students will be formed and improved more efficiently if interpretation of works of art is implemented into art history study process... [to full text]

This thesis reports on a qualitative case study that explores the perceptions of seven elementary school teachers on the concept of media educational practices in the classroom. This study explores the opinions of selected elementary school teachers concerning media educational practices in the elementary classrooms. These perspectives may assist learners to explore their self-identities, develop critical thinking, express and practice creativity, represent their social position, and foster critical consciousness. The study participants included seven elementary school teachers who have adopted various modes of media educational practices in their teaching praxis utilizing technology and their conceptualizations of media education. One primary research question was addressed: What are elementary school teachers’ understandings of critical media education in the classroom? Three sub-questions have been used to inform the primary research question in three categories of contexts, processes, and outcomes. Through data collected by a semi-structured interviewing method, this study describes and analyzes personal teaching experiences of elementary teachers to provide a deeper understanding of the context of media education, the instructional process for developing critical thinking and creative expression, and the criteria for measuring competencies in media education outcomes. This research highlights teachers’ perspectives on the successes and challenges associated with their efforts to implement media literacy into school curricula; and on the importance of cross-curricular integration of media educational practices in elementary classrooms. The findings of this study provide insights into the importance of cross-curricular integration of media educational practices associated with critical thinking and creative expressions in elementary classrooms. These practices play a significant role for both students and teachers in becoming change agents in a dynamic teaching and learning environment that promotes critical thinking, creativity, and positive transformation for self and community.

Interest in developing critical thinking skills in nursing students has grown in proportion to the demand for thoughtful, capable nursing professionals in healthcare. The National League for Nursing has required schools of nursing to combine teaching styles and course content to develop critical thinking, decision making, and independent judgement. Limited research has been done regarding the relationship of critical thinking ability to clinical decision-making. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between these two variables, using a sample of senior baccalaureate students in four schools of nursing.Two research questions were addressed: What is the relationship between critical thinking and clinical decision-making of senior baccalaureate nursing students? and, what is the relationship between selected demographic variables and critical thinking and clinical decision-making in senior baccalaureate nursing students?McPeck's (1981, 1990) critical thinking theory, which guided the study, emphasizes consideration of multiple factors in reaching a decision, toleration of differing conclusions, and the importance of teaching and evaluating critical thinking within the context of a discipline. Critical thinking was measured by the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST, Facione, 1993), a standardized, 34-item, multiple choice test which targets critical thinking skills. Test items are designed to be discipline-neutral and jargon-free, and have a Kuder-Richardson internal reliability coefficient of .70. Judgement in making clinical decisions was measured by the Nursing Performance Simulation Instrument (NPSI, Gover, 1970), which is composed of four simulations that depict typical nursing situations and test problem-solving proficiency. Six-month test-retest reliability of the NPSI was found to be r=.63. Demographic information on age, gender, GPA, number of completed college credit hours, healthcare work experience, healthcare licensure was collected from subjects.The sample included senior baccalaureate nursing students from four universities (N=88). Nursing faculty at each site was contacted before testing for approval to administer the exam to students. Informed consent was obtained from each subject, and students were able to withdraw from the study at any time. Verbal instructions were given to subjects, and confidentiality was insured by the use of a number identifier on each test. The instruments were administered by, and remained in, the possession of the researcher. Results obtained were reported to test sites as group data only. No risks or benefits were identified in participation in the study.Data analysis was done by a combination of methods, using Pearson product-moment analysis, t-test procedures, and canonical correlation. Results indicated that no relationship existed between critical thinking and clinical decision-making, as measured by the CCTST and the NPSI. The only statistically significant relationship was a weak positive correlation between age and performance on the NPSI. Canonical correlation analysis indicated the older subjects, with a lower GPA and, to a lesser extent, fewer credit hours tended to score higher on the NPSI and lower on the CCTST.The study was significant, in that the results will broaden the knowledge of the relationship between critical thinking and clinical decision-making in nursing. / School of Nursing

This investigation identifies end-user cognitive heuristics that facilitate judgment and evaluation during information retrieval (IR) system interactions. The study extends previous research surrounding relevance as a key construct for representing the value end-users ascribe to items retrieved from IR systems and the perceived effectiveness of such systems. The Lens Model of user cognition serves as the foundation for design and interpretation of the study; earlier research in problem solving, decision making, and attitude formation also contribute to the model and analysis. A self reporting instrument collected evaluative responses from 32 end-users related to 1432 retrieved items in relation to five characteristics of each item: topical, pertinence, utility, systematic, and motivational levels of relevance. The nominal nature of the data collected led to non-parametric statistical analyses that indicated that end-user evaluation of retrieved items to resolve an information problem at hand is most likely a multi-stage process. That process appears to be a cognitive progression from topic to meaning (pertinence) to functionality (use). Each step in end-user evaluative processing engages a cognitive hierarchy of heuristics that includes consideration (of appropriate cues), differentiation (the positive or negative aspects of those cues considered), and aggregation (the combination of differentiated cue aspects needed to render an evaluative label of the item in relation to the information problem at hand). While individuals may differ in their judgments and evaluations of retrieved items, they appear to make those decisions by using consistent heuristic approaches.