The Georgia Social Studies Journal Winter 2013, Volume 3, Number 3, pp. 125-137 Georgia Council for the Social Studies

Does critical thinking pass the test? The influence of critical thinking lessons on achievement in middle school social studies. Terry Harlin Georgia State University For over a decade, seeking higher test scores has pushed critical thinking in social studies to the background. This quasi-experimental quantitative study demonstrates that critical thinking lessons do not negatively impact test scores for eighth grade social studies students. For ten weeks, 116 students in a multiethnic, suburban school were divided into two groups – one taught using mainly critical thinking lessons. Using t-tests to determine the groups and to evaluate the data, the results showed insignificant differences in scores between groups who received content mostly through critical thinking lessons as compared to those who did not, suggesting that teachers do have time to teach critical thinking without sacrificing test scores. Furthermore, the students who received more critical thinking instruction displayed greater facility in using higher order thinking skills after three months than other students.

Since Socrates first challenged the notion that those in power possess divine wisdom

commensurate with their authority, individuals in Western societies have valued decision-making based on reason rather than authoritative whim. In an age of information overload, the need to challenge seemingly authoritative data by competently distinguishing fact from fiction is greater than ever (Gough, 2008). The skills to do so amount to what Glaser (1941) defined as “critical thinking.” Unfortunately, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) prompted many schools to fundamentally change their instructional focus away from critical thinking toward teaching easily measurable low level skills (Toch, 2006). As a result, many students have become excellent standardized test takers without developing higher order critical thinking skills (Bruning, 2006). Implementation of the Common Core creates a set of new standardized tests in math and reading to test basic and higher order skills through computer-based tests requiring a certain amount of free responses and short answers (Tamayo, 2010). Although these tests are leading to a rethinking of state curriculums and testing, the specific changes to standardized social studies tests have yet to be determined (Anderson, Harrison, & Lewis, 2012). Clearly, a greater emphasis is placed on developing literacy through middle grades and high school social studies curriculums. But a recent elementary school trend to incorporate social studies themes into reading programs instead of teaching social studies outright does not bode well for the subject (Mcguire, 2007). One might argue that learning few social studies concepts is better than learning none, but not if social studies ends up relegated to rote memorization taught in absence of big picture ideas. Until further notice, this literacy trend appears to prolong the narrowed focus on specific curriculum (Guisbond, Neill & Schaeffer, 2012). Whereas science and technology are experiencing greater emphasis, social studies content remains conspicuously lacking in this new focus (Anderson et al., 2012). Can students learn higher order thinking skills while adequately learning the standards in a reality that devalues social studies and continues to test it through mostly low-level, multiple-choice questions? Most teachers say that they cannot go into depth in any area and still cover the broad curriculum needed for their students to achieve high test scores (Warren, Memory, & Bolinger, 2004). My main purpose in the research was to challenge these teachers’ claims by investigating the influence of critical thinking activities on academic achievement in social studies

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as measured by test scores, including standardized tests. The secondary purpose of the research was to investigate if critical thinking skills can be adequately taught in a short period of time using state prescribed social studies content.

The Meaning of Critical Thinking

According to the American Philosophical Association’s famous Delphi Report (American Philosophical Association, 1990), critical thinking is “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment” requiring “interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference” and the ability to defend that judgment with reason and valid evidence. Although one of many definitions, it arguably remains the most influential in education and academia, accepted and cited by those at the forefront of critical thinking studies and development (Facione & Gittens, 2012). Among those influenced by it are the developers of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) and the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTSI) (Laird, 2005). A previous definition from an international conference in 1987 (Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2010) similarly emphasized arriving at a decision to do or believe something by utilizing reason and evidence when incorporating higher order thinking skills from Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Another addition to the modern concept is that critical thinking is not simply an intellectual exercise but a moral one as well (Paul, 1998). Expanding on the Delphi Report’s call for “self-regulatory judgment (American Philosophical Association, 1990),” Paul calls the thinker to be “self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective” but not self-absorbed (Paul & Elder, 2006, p. 41). Critical thinking should include what Paul calls “fairmindness,” a concern for being fair to all sides, and intellectual empathy, as opposed to a selfish or socio-centric directive. Critical thinking also involves a constant reevaluation of what one holds to be true. Regardless of varying concepts surrounding its nature, critical thinking is widely recognized as a tool used to challenge the validity of given knowledge in order for the thinker to then decide to believe or act (Moore & Parker, 2011). Several processes and steps can be used to arrive at a judgment. The following list of the traits of a critical thinker highlights some of these processes and steps. The critical thinker:

uses evidence skillfully and impartially; organizes thoughts and articulates them concisely and coherently; distinguishes between logically valid and invalid inferences; suspends judgment in the absence of sufficient evidence to support a decision; understands the difference between reasoning and rationalizing; attempts to anticipate the probable consequences of alternative actions; understands the idea of degrees of belief; sees similarities and analogies that are not superficially apparent; can learn independently and has an abiding interest in doing so; applies problem-solving techniques in domains other than those in which learned; can structure informally represented problems in such a way that formal techniques, such

as mathematics, can be used to solve them; can strip a verbal argument of irrelevancies and phrase it in its essential terms; is sensitive to the difference between the validity of a belief and the intensity with which it

is held; is aware of the fact that one's understanding is always limited, often much more so than

would be apparent to one lacking an inquisitive attitude; and recognizes the fallibility of one's own opinions, the probability of bias in those opinions, and

the danger of weighting evidence according to personal preferences.

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Students benefit enormously from these traits and from the vast array of critical thinking skills. For example, those who learn to think systemically, a way of thinking critically, can more easily understand new places without having to cover every detail (Gibb et al., 2002). Critical thinkers can better distinguish fact from fiction when gathering information from internet and other media sources (Warren, et al., 2004). Their ability to sort through the biases of their current and future teachers (Romanowski, 1998) is enhanced so they can create reasonable and informed judgments for themselves (Warren, et al., 2004). Evidence also suggests positive correlations between critical thinking skills and student engagement in subject matter in college classes (Carini, Kuh, & Klien, 2006). Correlations existing between engagement and achievement would then suggest a link between critical thinking and achievement. Most important to those in the NCLB mindset is a direct link between critical thinking and achievement (Stuart, 2010). Social Studies and Critical Thinking Fretting about low level teaching is nothing new. The lack of critical thinking skills has been lamented in the social studies classroom for over a century (DiCamillo, 2010). Despite the alleged dearth of critical thinking, the National Council of the Social Studies (NCSS) finds its inclusion in the curriculum so vital that critical thinking is implied in one the council’s stated "purpose[s] of the social studies,” which “is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (NCSS, 2002, p. 3).

As children tend to experience social studies extensively for the first time in middle grades, the NCSS encourages middle grades teachers to present critical thinking for numerous reasons. Traditional methods of teaching history often bore students (Fertig, 2005), leading to dislike of the subject (Waring & Robinson, 2010). To engage and gain historical understanding, students need to think historically and thus critically. Learning to do so further prepares them for the rigors of high school and for filtering information from lectures, textbooks, and other educational presentations. Students become adept at examining teacher biases while still learning content (Romanowski, 1998). Furthermore, with the overwhelming amount of unfiltered information students run across, students must learn to assess the validity of sources (Shively & VanFossen, 1999; Warren et al., 2004). When addressing social problems, critical thinking in social studies differs from that of other subjects because merely logical solutions can prove controversial, with potentially negative consequences for some groups (Saye & Brush, 2002). In thinking critically about social issues, Paul (1998) urges students to employ intellectual empathy in order to see how policy choices impact others. To create a solution that is most beneficial to all involved using intellectual empathy, the student abandons the socio-centric view, the view of the social group (community, society, etc.) to which one most relates, and (intellectually) attempts to walk in others’ shoes (or lack thereof). Critical Thinking and Achievement Links between critical thinking and achievement have been found at the college level. A study of 428 students taking psychology courses demonstrated that those who scored better on the Psychological Critical Thinking test and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) Form S also scored better than their peers on multiple choice course tests that required critical thinking (Williams, 2003). Another study demonstrated that scores on subsections of the WGCTA were a significant predictor of grade point average (GPA) for Education majors at a southwestern state university (Gadzella, Baloglu, & Stephens, 2002). At the University of Buffalo, Ahuna, Tinnesz and Vanzile-Tamsen (2011) found that students who took a single critical thinking course called

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“Methods of Inquiry” were twice as likely as those who did not take the course to pass the year or graduate. Some mixed results have been seen as well. Romeo (2010) demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between scores for the licensing exam for registered nurses (NCLEX-RN) and the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST). Interestingly enough, students in the program did not show change in their CCTST scores from freshman to senior years. CCTST scores have been shown to correlate with SAT scores for students at a business school and for student Business Core GPA, but not with performance in a business capstone course that was thought to develop and measure critical thinking (Bycio & Allen, 2009). These results show a link between critical thinking abilities and achievement on tests but call into question whether the aforementioned nursing and business classes adequately taught critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, very few studies examine the relationship between achievement and critical thinking in the middle or high school years. One study demonstrated a significant correlation between the use of historical analysis, a critical thinking skill, to teach eighth grade U.S. History in California and greater achievement in both reading comprehension and language arts as measured by the state required standardized tests (Stuart, 2010).

Surprisingly, I found no published studies to demonstrate the effects of critical thinking on social studies achievement in middle school. An in-depth search of JSTOR and ERIC databases since 1993 yielded almost 3000 results with search terms “critical thinking” and “middle school,” none of which dealt with K-12 achievement in social studies. Although research may exist on specified lessons or critical thinking activities and their effects on learning specific skills or highly limited social studies content, the search results indicate a dearth of knowledge and need for studies such as this one. Despite a pervasive belief in academic journals and many national curricula that students should develop critical thinking (Malamitsa, Kokkotas, & Kasoutas, 2008), disagreement exists regarding a precise definition of critical thinking and its effects on certain types of academic achievement. Part of the latter disagreement may result from such surprisingly little literature written on the effects of critical thinking on achievement scores. The little research published relates mostly to post-secondary programs. Disparate studies measure the effects of critical thinking to be anywhere from negligible to significantly positive. Yet most of these studies measure the effects of teaching critical thinking on student scores for tests that require critical thinking and not necessarily low-level thinking standardized tests. Much more research is needed to address whether critical thinking indeed has an impact on academic achievement, particularly in middle grades, in certain content areas, and on standardized multiple choice tests.

Methodology

This investigation employed a quasi-experimental action research design involving

quantitative analysis. The researcher investigated if eighth graders having been taught through critical thinking activities in a social studies class retain content as well as or better than students who have been taught the content through other methods. The point of the investigation was not to see if the same amount of information could be taught to the control or treatment groups, but instead to discover if the treatment group learned the same amount of information as measured by common assessments and a standardized test at the end of the grading period. In addition to the content information, both groups were assessed on their ability to perform critical thinking tasks to determine if the treatment group performed better after having had more practice with similar activities.

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Research Questions

1. Do critical thinking activities influence immediate academic achievement as measured by unit tests and a multiple choice, standardized benchmark exam when conducted in a suburban eighth grade social studies classroom?

2. As compared to the control group, do students who have participated in critical thinking activities exhibit better critical thinking skills as measured by the frequency of certain behaviors when performing a task requiring higher order thinking in a suburban eighth grade social studies classroom?

Hypotheses

1. Social studies students who learn through content lessons designed with a focus on critical thinking skills will perform as well or better on department-wide unit assessments and a district-wide assessment than students who learn the content through lessons that are not focused on critical thinking (the control group).

2. Social studies students who engage in content lessons designed around critical thinking skills will demonstrate a higher frequency of greater critical thinking skills in a group lesson requiring higher order thinking than the control group.

3. Null hypothesis: No significant difference exists in the frequency in which students demonstrate critical thinking skills between the students who engage in content lessons designed around critical thinking skills and those who do not.

Research Design

In this action research, the sample size (over 100) appeared to justify a quantitative approach as did the short time frame of 10 weeks, little time to gather adequate qualitative data regarding the use of critical thinking lessons in eighth grade social studies classrooms. I provided 15 critical thinking lessons to two classes comprised of half the participants (the treatment group), to see if they learned and retained as much content as the two classes that received only six of the lessons (the control group), as measured by the immediate unit tests and the cumulative benchmark exam. Through a critical thinking activity I developed, I also sought to discover if the students in the treatment group showed more ability to think critically after 15 lessons than the control group that had six. Besides not wanting to deny them this higher order thinking experience, the control group experienced a few critical thinking lessons introducing them to the skills I would later assess. The participants comprised a sample of convenience, consisting of the 116 students in my four regular education, social studies classes, including 17 gifted students not enrolled in one of the six gifted social studies classes. Two classes each of participants served as the control group and treatment groups. Both groups were 47% female and roughly reflected the ethnic mix of the school, with 6% fewer whites and 6% more blacks. The treatment group consisted of 22% Asians, 28% blacks, 12% Hispanics, 33% whites, and 5% mixed race, whereas the control group were 17% Asians, 29% blacks, 10% Hispanics, 39% whites, and 5% mixed race. The school’s administration provided consent for students to participate.

As the researcher, I was an eighth grade social studies teacher in my fourth year at Arckmount Middle School (pseudonym), a large Southeastern, suburban middle school with little teacher turnover. At 41, I was younger than my fellow five social studies, eighth grade teachers and had the least seniority by three years.

Located in one of the nation’s 20 largest school districts, 41% of Arckmount’s more than 1900 students received free or reduced lunches during the 2012-2013 school year. The school

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consistently ranks third to fifth on state testing among the district’s more than two dozen middle schools, and the school’s academic teams and individual competitors won state and national contests and scholarships during the current and previous years. Procedures

Participation took place over 14 weeks. No critical thinking activities occurred in weeks 12 and 13 in order to test the level of critical thinking among the participants after two weeks without it. Before the culminating critical thinking activity for both groups in week 14 used to measure their level of critical thinking, both control and treatment groups participated in the same five critical thinking activities. The treatment group participated in additional 13 critical thinking activities. The 19 total critical thinking activities involved individual, paired and group tasks, as well as class discussions. The critical thinking skills taught included evaluating positions, discerning evidence, establishing cause and effect, creating criteria, analyzing and evaluating options, decision making, inductive reasoning, building positions, defending arguments and justifying decisions, challenging and assessing the validity of arguments, synthesizing data, formulating questions to obtain specific information, evaluating one’s own responses, evaluating sources and peer input, determining relative importance, and discerning fact from contradictory sources. The activities listed (see Appendix) are the critical thinking activities and summative (course and district standardized) assessments. Instruments Two different types of instruments were used to conduct the research. One type was for data collection for all students and the other for instructional use in critical thinking. Data collection instruments included the pre-test, three unit tests, one assessment survey on critical thinking, and one benchmark exam (district-wide post-test given at the end of each grading period). Based on the standards expected to be assessed by the post-test, I co-created a pre-test evaluated by other members of the department for reliability and validity. To test acquisition of state standards, Arckmount’s eighth grade social studies department developed the unit tests, which I administered to all my students on the same days. I constructed the critical thinking assessment to test critical thinking skills. To ensure objectivity in grading, students were asked to identify themselves by only their student identification numbers on the back of their tests (except the pretest and benchmark) with no reference to their class. All tests before the benchmark were graded alike. Of these, all but the pretest were recorded for a grade to increase the likelihood that students would perform to the best of their abilities. Data Analysis/Statistical Analysis Since the sample was one of convenience, I compared the control and treatment groups selected from this sample in an unpaired t-test, utilizing pretest data from both groups in order to determine that no statistical significance existed between the pretest scores of each group. A p-value under .05 was determined to demonstrate statistical significance. The effect size was determined using standard deviations on all 116 participants. Using the same formulas, two t-tests were generated to compare the pretest and posttest scores for both the treatment and control groups to determine what improvement had been made and to compare the gains in improvement between the two groups. Finally, two similar t-tests were generated to compare the posttest scores of the treatment and control groups and the test averages of the two groups. The results were used to determine if greater achievement took place in one group or the other.

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Assumptions

I made several assumptions regarding the results of this study: Students generally performed to the best of their abilities on assessments given and that

ceteris paribus no one group contained students more or less willing to perform than another to create a statistically significant aberration in the resulting data.

Higher aggregate scores by one group over another on the critical thinking survey suggest a greater ability to think critically.

Higher aggregate scores by one group over another on the benchmark exam suggest greater retention of concepts.

Higher aggregate scores by one group over another on unit tests suggest better learning and understanding of the content.

Limitations Accurate results assume the condition of ceteris paribus, that is that the control and treatment groups are different only in the specified, deliberate manipulation of instructional activities provided by the researcher. However, the study’s findings may have been limited by a number of design factors. The study may not have run long enough to post definitive results. Arguably the short exposure of 11 weeks to critical thinking lessons provides insufficient time for students benefit fully from critical thinking lessons and therefore not retains the amount of information they would have over the course of an entire school year. In addition, the lack of readily available critical thinking lessons on the content led me to create lessons, which likely need refining. The study’s findings may also have been limited by factors that occurred during the study. One of the two control group classes experienced circumstances that may have challenged the first assumption previously described. One student scored an abnormally low 9% on a unit test, a score that may have skewed the mean slightly. Two other students missed over 20% of direct instruction and thus their results were not included in the study. In addition, this particular class suffered more unforeseen interruptions than the other three classes, often resulting in less instructional time. The school’s departmental pacing may have affected the validity of the posttest scores. Because the school’s eighth grade social studies teachers lagged two weeks behind prescribed district pacing, much content tested on the benchmark had not been presented to participants. However, reliability should not have been affected given that students in both treatment and control groups were equally behind schedule. During the final critical thinking activity, I gathered information by direct observation, which involved standing by students, watching and listening to interactions, and sometimes asking questions and observing their responses. Unable to observe five to seven tables at once, I could have missed witnessing critical thinking behaviors in a dynamic group while watching a different group. Furthermore, the written responses did not always include explanations of the decision making process as was required in the assignment. Lack of complete responses could be attributed to low higher order thinking skills or instead a lack of desire to complete the written portion.

Findings

The purposes of this quasi-experimental study were to determine if critical thinking

activities in an eighth grade social studies classroom had any impact on achievement scores and to discover if such activities improved critical thinking skills. Half of the researcher’s own 116 students made up the treatment group, who experienced 19 critical thinking lessons. The other half

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comprised the control group, who participated in only six, most of which were discussion. I hypothesized that the students in the treatment group would perform as well on posttests and unit tests as the control group and better on a final critical thinking activity. Having demonstrated the hypotheses to be true and disproving the null hypothesis, the results suggest that critical thinking activities should be used more extensively in social studies classes because they lead to higher thinking skills without compromising achievement test scores.

Table 1 shows a comparison of the pretests and posttests for both groups, providing the standard deviation (SD) for each group’s students with each test and p values, wherein no statistical significance is present within the data if p>.05. Results from the unpaired t-test for the pretests taken by students in the control and treatment groups are shown, as are the data for the posttests. Also shown are data from the paired t-tests for each group, comparing the scores from the pretest and posttests with the provided p value for each group.

Table 1: Assessment analysis, paired and unpaired t-tests, standard deviation, p values and effect sizes

Assessment Control group Treatment group Treatment/Control

n 58 58

Pretest

mean 42.59 40.22

SD 10.06 10.31

p (Treatment and Control) 0.214 (p >.05)

effect size (Treatment and Control) -0.231

Posttest

mean 54.38 53.48

SD 16.49 12.22

p (Treatment and Control) 0.740 (p >.05)

effect size (Treatment and Control) -0.062

p (Pretest and Posttest) 0.00 0.00 (p >.05)

effect size (pretest and posttest) 0.79 1.01

Mean pretest scores for the control and treatment groups were statistically insignificant

(Table 1), indicating that the groups would be comparable to one another. The p value of 0 for the mean pre-test and post-test scores for both groups is statistically significant and the high effect sizes indicate that significant growth in learning took place between the two tests, thus suggesting that a comparison between posttest scores would be meaningful. The high p value shows statistical insignificance and the effect size is small. Therefore, the difference between the mean posttest scores of the control and treatment groups is negligible. Although the treatment group did over two percentage points worse on the pre-test than the control group, the treatment group’s gain was slightly better. None of these differences were statistically significant. Data regarding mean unit test averages for the three unit tests given to both groups is analyzed in Table 2. The mean score is the mean average of three unit tests given to students in both control and treatment groups. Each identical test was given to each group on the same day. The treatment group scored higher on the unit tests than the control group with a moderate effect size of .311. But the p value was .095, rendering the difference statistically insignificant.

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Table 2: Unit Test Averages, unpaired t-test analysis

Unit Test Control group Treatment group

mean 72.79 77.03

SD 14.28 12.78

p value 0.095

effect size 0.311 Table 3 displays the results of an assessment to determine the use of critical thinking skills in an end-of-study critical thinking activity. The researcher tallied the frequency of observed behaviors associated with critical thinking during the class activity as well as in the written responses by each group. Four behaviors were observed.

Table 3: Critical thinking behaviors

Behaviors Control group Treatment group

Establishing criteria 3 6

Making value judgments 27 15

Challenging positions 4 12

Use of logical reasoning 24 32

TOTALS 58 65

The results suggest a difference in the thinking patterns of the treatment and control groups. The control group was almost twice as likely to use value judgments in making decisions as the treatment groups and less likely to use logical reasoning. The treatment group was also three times more likely to challenge each other’s positions with logic on statements and assertions than the control group. The treatment group was also twice as likely to try to establish criteria for their opinions; however the low frequency may mean that the difference is not statistically significant.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The results demonstrate that students in the control group who participated in 19 critical thinking lessons performed just as well on unit tests and the posttest as those students who had only six such lessons, thus confirming the first hypothesis. The treatment group performed slightly better than the control group on unit tests despite less time to cover all material. This finding would suggest that students in the treatment group learned what they learned through the critical thinking lessons well enough (even better than their peers) to compensate for the lack of coverage of other items. An item analysis might substantiate this assumption. Particularly encouraging were the results of the last critical thinking lesson, which confirmed the second hypothesis. Students in the treatment group more frequently demonstrated higher order critical thinking skills such as logical reasoning and challenging the positions of others with logic. Because I did not diagnose critical thinking skills at the beginning of the study, no conclusive evidence exists that the critical thinking lessons definitively led to better critical thinking skills among the treatment group. Nonetheless, comparable pretest scores between the two groups and no self-evident factors that would contribute to higher critical thinking skills for the treatment group point to critical thinking lessons as the greatest contributing factor. Although not measured, engagement appeared greater among more students during the critical thinking lessons than many other activities. The level of focus, the exchange of ideas and the willingness to challenge each other appeared higher, especially after practice with the skills. The

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implication is that students engage more when thinking critically, thus learning more. Although the critical thinking lessons delved deeper into content, unit assessments excluded much of this deeper content. Consequently, no good measure of the total student learning ever took place to allow for an adequate comparison between the two groups.

Because of the limitations of the study, future studies are needed to corroborate the conclusion that taking time to teach critical thinking does not decrease test scores, even on tests that do not primarily test critical thinking. Quantitative studies should use a common critical thinking inventory as a diagnostic and summative assessment to adequately gauge the effectiveness of the lessons in developing desired skills. Potential qualitative investigations could include open-ended assessments as instruments for measuring learning. Such studies might better capture the total learning of both groups not measured by multiple choice unit tests and posttests. Further studies could also measure the potential connection between critical thinking and engagement in K-12. In the meantime, teachers should not be afraid to incorporate critical thinking skill lessons into their classroom teaching as students will learn more in the long run. What Socrates began over 2000 years ago, today’s teachers should not abandon for fear of a standardized test.

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About the Author

Terry Harlin, an eighth grade social studies teacher and doctoral student at Georgia State University. His research interests include the connections among critical thinking, student achievement and standardized testing. He can be reached at terryjharlin@gmail.com.

Appendix

Critical Thinking Lessons and Assessments, by Week

Week Lesson/Activity Critical thinking skill Participating group

1 Pretest Control, treatment Class discussion Discerning; evaluating positions Control, treatment 2 Class discussion Cause and effect Control, treatment Individual and Creating criteria; analyzing and Treatment group writing evaluating options 3 Paired discussion Creating criteria; analyzing and Treatment evaluating options Paired discussion Cause and effect; evaluating Treatment Effects Unit test 1 Control, treatment 4 Group problem Evaluating and selecting; Treatment Solving building a position; defending arguments; creating criteria; challenging other’s positions 5 Group problem Analyzing information; Treatment solving formulating questions to obtain specific information; synthesizing data; evaluating data, sources and peer input 6 Group problem Determining problems; creating Treatment solving criteria; analyzing and evaluating options Individual problem Evaluating solutions; amending Treatment solving (writing) solutions; justifying responses Unit 2 test Control, treatment 7 Individual problem Creating criteria; analyzing and Control, treatment solving (writing) evaluating options; justifying responses 8 Group problem Analyzing information; formulating Treatment solving (written) questions to obtain specific

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information; synthesizing data; evaluating sources and peer input Class discussion Evaluating decisions Treatment 9 Individual critical Formulating assertions; using Control, treatment reading and logic and evidence to justify a

response position Class discussion Evaluate decisions Treatment 10 Group problem Analyzing data; formulating Treatment solving (written) questions to obtain specific information; synthesizing and

evaluating data, sources and peer input; assess validity of arguments in primary and secondary sources; determine fairness

Class discussion Cause and effect Treatment Benchmark Exam Control, treatment (county standardized test)

11 Group and discerning correct data Control, treatment individual

problem solving 14 Group problem Assessing the importance of Control, treatment solving (written) rules; creating criteria; justifying decisions