{"title":"Assessing Adolescent Critical Thinking","authors":"C. Westby","doi":"10.1177/10483950211049638","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Critical thinking skills play an important role in the moral development of adolescents. They must analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information gathered from their interactions with others. They must effectively argue, justify, and reflect on their own personal opinions and motivations as they make decisions, impacting on their sense of decision-making responsibilities. Although there is recognition of the importance of critical thinking skills in moral development and learning (Paul, 1993), investigation into the language skills required to competently express one’s thinking and reasoning has received limited attention. The few studies that have focused on language and critical thinking have reported specifically on syntactic aspects (Nippold et al., 2014, 2015). To address this gap between language, thinking, and knowledge, the authors of this article investigate the language used in critical thinking through adolescents’ responses on a task of moral reasoning. Syntactic development in adolescence is characterized by longer and more grammatically complex sentences with greater use of dependent clauses (Heilmann & Malone, 2014; Nippold, 2016). Through the increased use of subordinate clauses, adolescents are able to express more complex ideas. There is an interplay between cognitive and language processes in the adolescent years that supports growth in critical thinking. Semantically, adolescent language growth involves literate language, including the use and understanding of mental state verbs, abstract nouns, and adverbial conjunctions (Nippold et al., 2017). The increasing command of mental state verbs or metacognitive verbs (such as believe, realize, and remember) allows the adolescent to describe and reflect on another’s thoughts and viewpoint. This category of words represents a salient feature of A newsletter dedicated to speech & language in school-age children","PeriodicalId":39491,"journal":{"name":"Word of Mouth","volume":"33 1","pages":"1 - 5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Word of Mouth","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10483950211049638","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Critical thinking skills play an important role in the moral development of adolescents. They must analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information gathered from their interactions with others. They must effectively argue, justify, and reflect on their own personal opinions and motivations as they make decisions, impacting on their sense of decision-making responsibilities. Although there is recognition of the importance of critical thinking skills in moral development and learning (Paul, 1993), investigation into the language skills required to competently express one’s thinking and reasoning has received limited attention. The few studies that have focused on language and critical thinking have reported specifically on syntactic aspects (Nippold et al., 2014, 2015). To address this gap between language, thinking, and knowledge, the authors of this article investigate the language used in critical thinking through adolescents’ responses on a task of moral reasoning. Syntactic development in adolescence is characterized by longer and more grammatically complex sentences with greater use of dependent clauses (Heilmann & Malone, 2014; Nippold, 2016). Through the increased use of subordinate clauses, adolescents are able to express more complex ideas. There is an interplay between cognitive and language processes in the adolescent years that supports growth in critical thinking. Semantically, adolescent language growth involves literate language, including the use and understanding of mental state verbs, abstract nouns, and adverbial conjunctions (Nippold et al., 2017). The increasing command of mental state verbs or metacognitive verbs (such as believe, realize, and remember) allows the adolescent to describe and reflect on another’s thoughts and viewpoint. This category of words represents a salient feature of A newsletter dedicated to speech & language in school-age children
批判性思维技能在青少年道德发展中发挥着重要作用。他们必须分析、评估和综合从与他人的互动中收集的信息。他们在做出决策时必须有效地争论、证明和反思自己的个人观点和动机,影响他们的决策责任感。尽管人们认识到批判性思维技能在道德发展和学习中的重要性(Paul,1993),但对恰当表达思维和推理所需的语言技能的研究却受到了有限的关注。少数关注语言和批判性思维的研究专门报道了句法方面(Nippold et al.,20142015)。为了解决语言、思维和知识之间的差距,本文作者通过青少年对道德推理任务的反应,调查了批判性思维中使用的语言。青春期句法发展的特点是句子更长、语法更复杂,依赖从句的使用更多(Heilmann&Malone,2014;Nippold,2016)。通过增加从句的使用,青少年能够表达更复杂的想法。青少年时期的认知和语言过程之间存在着相互作用,这有助于批判性思维的发展。从语义上讲,青少年语言的发展涉及识字语言,包括对精神状态动词、抽象名词和状语连词的使用和理解(Nippold et al.,2017)。心理状态动词或元认知动词(如相信、意识和记忆)的掌握越来越多,这使青少年能够描述和反思他人的想法和观点。这类词代表了《学龄儿童言语通讯》的一个显著特点
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...helps frontline clinicians keep up with the latest trends in working with school-age children. Each 16-page issue of bare-bones, down-to-earth information includes reviews, resources, idea swap, and short bits.