Examining the effects of context-free and context-situated instructional strategies on learners' critical thinking. (contextualized instruction)

Abstract

An experimental study was carried out to (1) examine the effects of three instructional strategies on critical thinking, and (2) to determine whether there was a relationship between critical thinking and general cognitive skills, dispositions, and epistemic beliefs. First, a 2 x 4 analysis of variance was carried out to examine the effects of three teaching strategies and the effects of general cognitive skills on learners, critical thinking. The three instructional strategies are PreTeach, Infusion, and Immersion. PreTeach is a context-free strategy whereas Infusion and Immersion are both context-situated. A group of participants served as the control group and received no treatment. Second, an analysis of covariance was carried-out to statistically control for the effects of dispositions and epistemic beliefs on critical thinking. Third, a multiple regression analysis followed to explore possible cause and effect relationships between critical thinking, post-treatment epistemic beliefs, educational level, and problem importance. Fourth, a repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to detect possible interaction effects between treatment and epistemic beliefs. Lastly, a chi-square analysis was performed to determine whether treatment differentially affected participants' understandings about the concept of critical thinking. Results showed that Infusion and Immersion outperformed the Control group when participants worked in groups as well as when they worked alone. Moreover, Immersion outperformed PreTeach only when students worked individually. In addition, general cognitive skills were found to be statistically significant only when participants worked in groups. The analysis of covariance procedure showed that no treatment effects could be attributed to dispositions or epistemic beliefs. However, the multiple regression analysis found post-treatment epistemic beliefs to be a significant factor in predicting critical thinking scores. In addition, the repeated measures analysis of variance procedure discovered an interaction effect between treatment and epistemic beliefs. Lastly, the chi-square analysis showed that treatment differentially affected participants, understandings about critical thinking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)