Psychological knowledge for teaching critical thinking: the agency of epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and (student-centred) learning

Effie Maclellan, Rebecca Soden

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

    4 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This study considers the case of a tutor whose students repeatedly evidenced significantly superior critical thinking in summative assessment. For the purpose of surfacing appropriate pedagogical action to promote critical thinking (Bassey, 1999), the singularity of one tutor's reported pedagogical practice was explored through focus-group discussion. Qualitative analysis of the data, theoretically informed by phenomenography, suggested that the tutor's reported practice, when compared with that of two peers, revealed clear pedagogical intentions to be necessary for teaching critical thinking; and that these intentions can be explained through the literatures on epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and student-centred learning. It is argued that a synthesised understanding of the literature that explores the nature and purpose of critical thinking - as outlined in the first part of this paper - is a prerequisite for constructing domain-specific pedagogical intentions for developing learners' critical thinking, and that it is this extensive psychologically informed knowledge base which attenuates the risk of educationally important aspects of learning being overlooked. (De Corte, 2000)
    LanguageEnglish
    Pages445-460
    Number of pages16
    JournalInstructional Science
    Volume40
    Issue number3
    Early online date25 Jul 2011
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - May 2012

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    Teaching
    Learning
    Students
    Psychology
    tutor
    learning
    student
    Knowledge Bases
    Focus Groups
    group discussion
    Thinking
    literature

    Keywords

    • variation theory
    • metacognition
    • critical thinking
    • higher education pedagogy
    • student-centred learning

    Cite this

    Maclellan, Effie ; Soden, Rebecca. / Psychological knowledge for teaching critical thinking : the agency of epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and (student-centred) learning. In: Instructional Science. 2012 ; Vol. 40, No. 3. pp. 445-460.
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    abstract = "This study considers the case of a tutor whose students repeatedly evidenced significantly superior critical thinking in summative assessment. For the purpose of surfacing appropriate pedagogical action to promote critical thinking (Bassey, 1999), the singularity of one tutor's reported pedagogical practice was explored through focus-group discussion. Qualitative analysis of the data, theoretically informed by phenomenography, suggested that the tutor's reported practice, when compared with that of two peers, revealed clear pedagogical intentions to be necessary for teaching critical thinking; and that these intentions can be explained through the literatures on epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and student-centred learning. It is argued that a synthesised understanding of the literature that explores the nature and purpose of critical thinking - as outlined in the first part of this paper - is a prerequisite for constructing domain-specific pedagogical intentions for developing learners' critical thinking, and that it is this extensive psychologically informed knowledge base which attenuates the risk of educationally important aspects of learning being overlooked. (De Corte, 2000)",
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    author = "Effie Maclellan and Rebecca Soden",
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    language = "English",
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    Maclellan, E & Soden, R 2012, 'Psychological knowledge for teaching critical thinking: the agency of epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and (student-centred) learning' Instructional Science, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 445-460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-011-9183-4

    Psychological knowledge for teaching critical thinking : the agency of epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and (student-centred) learning. / Maclellan, Effie; Soden, Rebecca.

    In: Instructional Science, Vol. 40, No. 3, 05.2012, p. 445-460.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

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    T1 - Psychological knowledge for teaching critical thinking

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    AB - This study considers the case of a tutor whose students repeatedly evidenced significantly superior critical thinking in summative assessment. For the purpose of surfacing appropriate pedagogical action to promote critical thinking (Bassey, 1999), the singularity of one tutor's reported pedagogical practice was explored through focus-group discussion. Qualitative analysis of the data, theoretically informed by phenomenography, suggested that the tutor's reported practice, when compared with that of two peers, revealed clear pedagogical intentions to be necessary for teaching critical thinking; and that these intentions can be explained through the literatures on epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and student-centred learning. It is argued that a synthesised understanding of the literature that explores the nature and purpose of critical thinking - as outlined in the first part of this paper - is a prerequisite for constructing domain-specific pedagogical intentions for developing learners' critical thinking, and that it is this extensive psychologically informed knowledge base which attenuates the risk of educationally important aspects of learning being overlooked. (De Corte, 2000)

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    Maclellan E, Soden R. Psychological knowledge for teaching critical thinking: the agency of epistemic activity, metacognitive regulative behaviour and (student-centred) learning. Instructional Science. 2012 May;40(3):445-460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-011-9183-4

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