Comparison of experienced vs. novice teachers in cognitive reflection and rationality

Abstract

Relatively little is known about actual cognitive skills and thinking dispositions of teachers, despite their possible importance. In the current paper we examined two predictions related to rational performance of teachers. First, we expected that more experienced teachers have more rational thinking dispositions, are more cognitively reflective and discount the future less in comparison to novice teachers. Second, we expected that cognitive reflection is related to options involving more patience. 109 novice teachers (undergraduate students) and 55 experienced teachers participated in the study. Thinking dispositions were measured by RationalExperiential Inventory, cognitive reflection was measured by CRT, to measure future discounting we used intertemporal choice tasks and Consideration for Future Consequences questionnaire. We found that teachers differed significantly from undergraduate students in CRT and all subscales of these measures in the expected direction, with the exception of CFC-Immediate and REI-Experiential Engagement, but we found no significant differences between teachers and students (with one exception) on intertemporal choice tasks. The results also confirmed the expected relationships between CRT, CFC and REI. These results pose some important implications for educating future teachers.

Teachers’ Beliefs about Memory: A Vignette Study of Trainee and In-Service Teachers

“…Subsequent to the design and data gathering used in this study, I became aware of another survey which had also used vignettes about evidence-based learning strategies as well as neuromyths. Findings from around 200 American educators are included in a report from this work published by Boser (2019) on the website of The Learning Agency, and shows a rate of correct response at 31% for retrieval practice, approximately 60% for spacing, and 20% for interleaving. This supports three main conclusions that I have expressed so far: that the teachers' views were not strongly in line with the research evidence, that the teachers nevertheless scored higher on these matters than has been found in surveys of students and in certain previous findings, and that endorsement appears to be lowest in the case of interleaving.…”

Emotional drivers of the vaccination hesitancy and refusal: A dataset from Slovakia

“…To measure whether participants prefer immediate rewards or focus on future and distant outcomes, we used the Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) scale [9] . For the current study, we used a Slovak translation [10] . The scale has 14 items assigned to two factors: CFC-Future (e.g., “Often I engage in a particular behaviour to achieve outcomes that may not result for many years.”) and CFC-Immediate (e.g., “I generally ignore warnings about possible future problems because I think the problems will be resolved before they reach a crisis level.”).…”

Criterion Validity of Cognitive Reflection for Predicting Job Performance and Training Proficiency: A Meta-Analysis

“…Supervisor ratings, work sample test, assessment center ratings, and production records are examples of job performance measures. To our knowledge, few studies have explored the validity of CRT as a predictor of job performance (Morsanyi et al, 2014;Corgnet et al, 2015b;Thoma et al, 2015;Cavojová and Jurkovič, 2017;Otero, 2019;Lado et al, 2021). The study carried out by Corgnet et al (2015b) used a laboratory task as a proxy of job performance.…”

“…They found that CRT significantly predicted job performance. The study of Cavojová and Jurkovič (2017) used two CRTs, Frederick's 3-item CRT and a 7-item version. They showed a significant correlation with teacher proficiency.…”