Explicitly Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a History Course

McLaughlin, Anne Collins; McGill, Alicia Ebbitt

doi:10.1007/s11191-017-9878-2

Cited by 37 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…With respect to history courses, students in classes with higher critical thinking (e.g., honors classes) showed more reduction in unfounded beliefs compared to students in normal history classes (McLaughlin and McGill 2017). However, McLaughlin and McGill (2017) also found that the effectiveness of a course involving critical thinking was highly dependent on a student's background. Students in the honors class had higher scientific knowledge indicating that students who place into honors courses were more likely to seek out evidence-based subjects and would therefore be less likely to believe in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects in the first place.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Critical thinking will help students understand the science in their daily life as well as reduce the potential for believing in unfounded subjects like the paranormal and pseudoscience. Courses specifically designed to increase critical thinking and to confront unfounded claims have shown promise in reducing beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects (Kane et al 2010;Franz and Green 2013;McLaughlin and McGill 2017). With respect to history courses, students in classes with higher critical thinking (e.g., honors classes) showed more reduction in unfounded beliefs compared to students in normal history classes (McLaughlin and McGill 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Courses specifically designed to increase critical thinking and to confront unfounded claims have shown promise in reducing beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects (Kane et al 2010;Franz and Green 2013;McLaughlin and McGill 2017). With respect to history courses, students in classes with higher critical thinking (e.g., honors classes) showed more reduction in unfounded beliefs compared to students in normal history classes (McLaughlin and McGill 2017). However, McLaughlin and McGill (2017) also found that the effectiveness of a course involving critical thinking was highly dependent on a student's background.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

Wilson

2018

Sci & Educ

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This study measured the relationship between student's religion, gender, and propensity for fantasy thinking with the change in belief for paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects following a science and critical thinking course that directly confronted these subjects. Student pre-course endorsement of religious, paranormal, and pseudoscientific beliefs ranged from 21 to 53%, with religion having the highest endorsement rate. Pre-course belief in paranormal and pseudoscientific subjects was correlated with high scores in some fantasy thinking scales and showed a gender and a religion effect with females having an 11.1% higher belief across all paranormal and pseudoscience subcategories. Students' religion, and frequency of religious service attendance, was also important with agnostic or atheist students having lower beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscience subjects compared to religious students. Students with either low religious service attendance or very high attendance had lower paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs. Following the critical thinking course, overall beliefs in paranormal and pseudoscientific subcategories lowered 6.8-28.9%, except for superstition, which did not significantly change. Change in belief had both a gender and religion effect with greater reductions among religious students and females.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Reducing Pseudoscientific and Paranormal Beliefs in University Students Through a Course in Science and Critical Thinking

Wilson

2018

Sci & Educ

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“…The study resulted in six dimensions of honors learning, essential for students to be successful in their careers and as global citizens. The dimensions of honors learning are critical thinking [15], interdisciplinary learning, information fluency, creative productivity, leadership development, intercultural competence. Students participate in the honors program by completing honors learning experiences.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The basic trends of honors education in universities worldwide

Tarasova¹

2019

P Sci Edu

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The basic trends of honors education in universities worldwide Russian universities start to follow the tradition of creating special educating areas for talented students with high academic achievements, i.e. honors students. However few studies in Russia have examined the phenomenon of honors colleges, as well as the principles of honors education's theory and the turning points of its history. The aims of the study are to analyze the reasons institutions of higher education worldwide invest significant financial and human resources into the talent development in various honors programs and to assess the perspectives of applying international standards to the development of the elite undergraduate education in Russian universities. The current study uses the methods of qualitative research including phenomenological method to examine the honors college phenomenon, the content analysis of fundamental texts produced in the context of honors education theory and the case study method to describe several outstanding honors programs in American, European and Russian universities. The author focuses her attention on cases of the honors programs in

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“…A study was done to see if explicitly teaching critical thinking in a tertiary level history course would reduce belief in pseudoscience. The students already had a pretty low belief rate in pseudoscience before taking the course, but it dropped further for students after the course; the honours students with some background in science experienced a greater drop (McLaughlin & McGill, 2017). Which just goes to show that when you take a multidisciplinary approach to teaching critical thinking you'll get the best effect.…”

Section: Dealing With the Outbreak Of Pseudosciencementioning

confidence: 99%